

. CONVERSATIONS WITH A SPANISH LIBERAL. 



culture of youth. It was his own funeral oration which the gallant 

 Pedro pronounced ; and posterity, while it laments his faults, will 

 do ample justice to his numerous virtues." 



" Peace to his ashes !" I here ejaculated. " The death of this 

 prince will, I fear, produce great changes in the affairs of Portugal, 

 and par contre coup, in that of the whole Peninsula ; for in spite of 

 the national antipathies and rivalry of the two people, their destinies 

 are very closely connected. I am far from thinking that all is yet 

 over in Portugal, although some people there are who now look 

 upon that kingdom as a political El Dorado, in which all the miracles 

 of a constitutional monarchy are to be realized. Up to this moment 

 the constitutions given to that kingdom, good or bad, complete or 

 incomplete, have produced nothing beyond a large display of national 

 vanity and inflated and turgid parliamentary eloquence. Hitherto, 

 the Chambers have played no very distinguished part. Again, the 

 system of finance imposed upon the administration of a country so 

 long a. prey to civil war, is one which, in states whose fortunes and 

 credits are well established, would produce serious consequences. 

 The queen's party, too, is torn by faction the Miguelites, active, nu- 

 merous, and burning for revenge. While in the midst of this state of 

 things, the only spirit who could exercise a decided influence in the 

 march of events, and repress the aspirations of rival factions, has 

 been snatched away I say the only, for I do not consider Palmella 

 a la hauteur des circonstances." 



" Nor are you mistaken," replied my Spanish friend. " Palmella 

 is, I admit, one of the most astute diplomatists in Europe, but one 

 more calculated to shine at a congress of sovereigns, to be the orna- 

 ment of an ultra-diplomatic clique, presided over by that Tallyrand in 

 petticoats, Princess Lieven, than to control the fury of contending 

 factions, or to lead a grand political movement. His genius is more 

 familiar with the tortuous wiles, the Machiavelism of diplomacy, 

 than with the bold, liberal, and comprehensive views of an enlight- 

 ened statesman ; for Palmella is a disciple of the -Metternich school, 

 was one of the framers of the Holy Alliance, and long one of 

 the most devoted champions of absolutism, at whose very name free- 

 dom trembled. His total deficiency of what the French call force 

 de caractere, was strikingly evinced by his abject cowardice at 

 Oporto in 1828. His superb No ! to Napoleon at Bayonne, in the 

 year 1808, proved the grave of his energy." 



e: His superb No ! I am ignorant to what you allude." 



" During the conferences in that city, at the period when Napo- 

 leon meditated the conquest of the Peninsula, and uniting it under 

 one crown, he one day asked Palmella if he were one of those Portu- 

 guese prepared to become a Spaniard? ' No !' replied the Count, 

 sternly. Napoleon was not displeased with this blunt firmness, and 

 he said the next day to Cambaceres, ' Certes, the Count de Palmella 

 gave me yesterday a superb No !' " 



u Then," I remarked, " with the Duke de Palmella at the head of 

 affairs, we must expect to see the juste-milieu the order of the day in 

 Portugal, which, after all, considering the defective political education 



