PROSPECTS OF PORTUGAL.* 



TWELVE months have now elapsed since the ex-Emperor, Don 

 Pedro, landed on the shores of Portugal, at the head of a small and 

 gallant army for the purpose of seating his youthful daughter, Donna 

 Maria da Gloria, upon that throne, unjustly usurped by her perjured 

 uncle, Miguel. It is an afflicting spectacle, it must be confessed, for 

 the morality of kings this struggle between two brothers, while the 

 majority of the Portuguese nation looks on with an apathetic indiffer- 

 ence which can only arise from their intimate conviction, confirmed 

 by the bitter experience of the past, that whatever may be its result 

 their condition will not be materially improved ; but such indeed is 

 the fact, and it is solely by assistance from without that the two com- 

 petitors have been enabled to maintain their ground. It is entirely 

 owing to the generous efforts made by the lovers of freedom in this 

 country and in France, that Don Pedro was enabled to unfurl the 

 constitutional banner on the benighted soil of Portugal. On the other 

 hand, foreign assistance, though more covertly conveyed, was as un- 

 sparingly lavished upon the present ruler of that kingdom. The 

 wily Ferdinand foresaw that the triumph of the constitutional cause 

 in Portugal would inevitably revolutionize Spain, and exerted him- 

 self to meet the coming storm. But the absolutists of the continent, 

 and their allies the ultra tories of England, had far more extensive 

 views ; they had resolved to make Portugal the basis of a system of 

 operations against the liberties of Europe, convinced that no party 

 of any political importance existed, in that country, in favour of the 

 constitution ; and moreover, that Don Pedro only held his ground 

 through the sheer incapacity of the Miguelite chiefs. The genius of 

 one man has, however, by a daring exploit, unsurpassed in the annals 

 of our navy, defeated the Machiavelian combinations of the absolu- 

 tists, and averted the storm about to burst upon liberal Europe. The 

 late splendid victory of Captain Napier, although it may not be im- 

 mediately decisive in its operation on the final solution of the contest, 

 must nevertheless be said to have sealed its fate ; and the ex-Emperor, 

 Don Pedro, reluctantly as it may be wrought from him, must now 

 confess that it is to the skill of the British officers and men, of those 

 men on whom he so unsparingly heaped the terms " cochons" and 

 " canaille," that the queen will owe her crown ; that without them he 

 wouldnow be the laughing-stock and contempt of Europe. Of this we 

 are certain, and we only hope that, with equal certainty, we may be 

 wrong in predicting that Napier and his gallant companions in arms, 

 will, as the only recompence for their splendid services, experience 

 that base ingratitude, that shameful injustice, which was the lot of 

 Lord Cochrane and others for achieving the independence of the 

 Brazilian Empire. 



The volumes before us, interspersed as they are with anecdotes, 



* Narrative of the Expedition to Portugal in 1832. By G. Lloyd Hodges 

 Esq. London : James Fraser, 215, llegent Street. 



