MILITARY TOPOGRAPHY OF OPORTO. 



Don Pedro's position, in a military point of view, is extremely criti- 

 cal ; for if he only executes a day's march, either to the north or the 

 south,, he leaves Oporto uncovered, and abandons his communications 

 with the sea, by which he draws all his supplies. His only resource 

 would be to ascend the river, and attack the royalist positions, but they 

 are uncommonly strong, and it took Loi son's corps of 7000 men near an 

 entire month to master them. 



If Don Pedro is allowed to take up his winter quarters at Oporto, 

 and to organize his resourses for the next campaign, he may yet succeed; 

 though by going to Oporto, instead of making a dash at Lisbon, where 

 his party was in the greatest force, (for without the intimate conviction 

 of the existence of a strong party in his favour, the enterprise was abso- 

 lutely Quixotic,) he threw all his chances into the scale of his adversary. 

 We await the next arrivals with considerable anxiety, for it is the decided 

 policy of Miguel de brusquer I' affaire, and if he only acts with ordinary 

 energy, he has certainly a force, in spite of all that has been said to the 

 contrary, sufficient to annihilate at a blow the army of his brother. 

 When we reflect that the success of the liberal cause depends upon the 

 absence of only a single man of head and execution, we look with fear- 

 ful anxiety to the result. 



THE SPECULATIONS OF A HUNGRY MAN. 



CANADA the Swan River South Africa where shall a single gen- 

 tleman, unembarrassed by an hereditary sixpence, plant himself in these 

 days ? Shall he look for a commission in the new police, or a puisne- 

 judgeship in Greece, or a bishopric in Nova Zembla, or a majority in 

 Don Pedro's service ? What direction shall he give a mind unpreju- 

 diced by education or profession ? 'Tis a hard matter ! 



At the present day, when starvation is the universal horizon of every 

 one's prospects, it is rather amusing to observe what pains some people 

 take to incur a gentlemanly sort of famine, and avoid a poor-house style 

 of life, that they may perish with credit as members of a profession. The 

 very word makes me laugh. I have tried, or at least I have reflected 

 upon them all ; and the result has been a firm conviction, that to under- 

 take any is a sign of an unphilosophic and undisciplined character. 

 Hunger, that now stares me in the face during all but six hours of the 

 twenty-four, would probably extend its impertinent intrusion still fur- 

 ther had I to save a moiety of the sum, which now purchases my single 

 daily meal, in order to supply myself with that profligate object of ex- 

 penditure, a yearly new coat. That which well-dressed men call 

 society would, amongst other unnatural exactions, demand from me 

 more than a weekly charge of linen ; and were I compelled to talk deli- 

 cate English, I should be compelled to make my chin pliable by means 

 of a razor; whereas my present free-and-easy discourse requires no 

 relaxation of beard, no locomotion of muscle. I move as I please, and 

 my toes are not pinched by any unkindness on the part of the side- 

 leather. 



But one cannot baffle long the great foe, the continual spectre, that 

 stands so visibly in one's very front. Starvation is close by, and some- 

 thing must be done. Let it not be in mad England. I am quite per- 



