1832.] Don Pedro and his Adherents. 379 



more than once to the court of Rio de Janeiro, he rose rapidly in the 

 service. On his last trip across the Atlantic, he found his quarters in 

 Brazil so comfortable, that he did not return to join his brothers in 

 arms in the peninsular. In 1816 he was appointed Captain General of 

 Gram Para. This province he governed with all the tyranny of a 

 Roman consul, or the relentless cruelty of a Turkish pacha a professed 

 pro-libertine. It was said of him, as of Caesar of old, that he was the 

 husband of every pretty woman in the province. Woe to the man 

 who possessed a wife or a sister whose personal charms had excited 

 the lusts of the captain general ; some excuse was soon found, either 

 to remove or incarcerate him till the marquis had gratified his criminal 

 desires. It would only shock the delicacy of English ears were we to 

 enumerate in detail the catalogue of his enormities ; we shall there- 

 fore present only one to the reader, which will exhibit his character in 

 odious relievo to the execration of every honourable mind. 



On quitting Para on the expiration of his government, he touched 

 at Maranham on his way to the Rio. While riding out one evening 

 he was struck with the bojiuty of a young lady of respectable family, 

 who was enjoying the cool of the evening in her balcony. This maiden 

 he forcibly extracted from the house of her father, kept her till the eve 

 of his departure, and then returned her, polluted and dishonoured, to 

 her disconsolate family. He was shortly afterwards appointed gover- 

 nor-general of the province of Bahia, where the constitutional party, in 

 consequence, fearing every thing from his well-known tyrannical cha- 

 racter, declared a month sooner than they intended the Spanish consti- 

 tution of 1820. Several of the officers who thus precipitated the revo- 

 lutionary movement, are actually now serving under his command at 

 Tevceira. 



Such are the characters of Don Pedro, his councillor, and his general. 

 The ex-emperor is far from popular in Portugal ; and his returning, as 

 he does, surrounded by such men, does not give to that unhappy 

 country the promise of a bright futurity. Indeed, those who augur 

 that the overthrow of Miguel will be followed by the reign of 

 political tranquillity, know little of the real state of things in Por- 

 tugal. She has yet a fiery ordeal to go through. The political rege- 

 nerator in vain looks for materials for his great work to root up from 

 her soil the rankling weeds of centuries of misrule and corruption to 

 conciliate the fiery wrath of party spirit, and gradually prepare the 

 minds of the people for the blessings of freedom to guide the vessel of 

 state through the innumerable shoals that beset her onward course, will 

 require the arm of a political Hercules. Yet we fervently indulge the 

 hope that such a man will be found ; and that this fine country this an- 

 cierit ally of England to the spirit and enterprise of whose people 

 Europe owes so much, may yet attain a distinguished place in the scale 

 of nations, and bask in the sunshine of political prosperity. 





