182 PROSPECTS OF PORTUGAL. 



following day ; but it was, I regret to say, too evident in the sequel, that this 

 prince was not possessed of that charm of demeanour which attracts at first 

 sight." 



His conduct on this occasion betrayed the grossest ignorance and 

 impolicy. A new element, a new power in the politics of the globe, has 

 suddenly come into play, which can at once bridle the cravings of royal 

 ambition, baffle the astute combinations of the diplomatist, and para- 

 lize the efforts of the soldier a power which though composed but of 

 300 or 400 obscure individuals, many of them so illiterate as not 

 actually to know the geographical position on the map of the coun- 

 tries, the field of their financial operations yet to this power, the 

 Stock Exchange, which by the future historian will be regarded as 

 the greatest phenomenon of our age, Don Pedro is indebted for 

 every thing for his fleets and army, for the services of those 

 foreigners whom it appeared to be on every occasion his study to 

 insult. For instance : 



" On the marines being dismissed from drill, he formed a squad out of his 

 own suite, placing on the right of them his holy adviser, Padre Marcos, and 

 on his left Doctor Tavares, the poet laureate, with Senhor Freire, &c. To 

 this band of neophytes for I suppose I must call them by a finer name than 

 " awkward squad" he distributed muskets, (to each one, and to all fifteen,) 

 and, proceeding himself to act as fugleman, put them through the manual 

 and platoon exercise. At the termination of this display, he appealed to me 

 for my approval. I could not but perceive the intended derision of the 

 parallel thus implied the practical satire on the discipline of the men I had 

 brought out to make soldiers of; but I suffered the ludicrous part of the im- 

 pression to efface the serious. An reste, I had got the best recruits for the 

 service that circumstances had allowed, and that they were not a highly con- 

 ditioned corps was no fault of mine ; neither could' I be charged with any 

 want of anxiety for their future improvement in discipline." 



The fact is, that Don Pedro has a confirmed antipathy to the Eng- 

 lish, which, as on the above instance, he has repeatedly shown at the 

 expense of all gentlemanly feeling. This antipathy was glaringly 

 evinced in his conduct towards our Minister, Mr. Gordon, Sir 

 George Eyre, and Captain Hunn, while on the Brazil station, to say 

 nothing of the indignities he heaped upon the British officers in his 

 service. 



The immediate confidants of the emperor had all along flattered 

 him with the idea that once landed in Portugal, his advance upon 

 the capital would be a mere " hurra." With this conviction on his 

 mind, it is natural to suppose that his first objective point would have 

 been that part of the coast, the most approximate to the quarter 

 where the elements of disaffection were supposed to exist in their 

 greatest mass, and this was decidedly Lisbon. Instead of which, by 

 conduct that cannot be explained on any sound principle either of 

 war or politics, he proceeded to Oporto, which he was quite as unac- 

 countably allowed to enter without opposition by the Miguelite 

 generals. But his entry soon dispelled the illusion under which he 

 had laboured. " Although deserters," says Colonel Hodges, " to the 

 number of two hundred (chiefly militia), came into us from the 

 Miguelite camp, there was not at this time a single officer among 

 them. No favourable inclination towards us was manifested by any 



