238 Movements in Portugal. i [MARCH, 



thing (practically) to receive assistance from an ally, and another to be 

 cast upon him for entire maintenance and protection. And the internal 

 struggles of the country for so long a time as the English troops remain 

 there probably are over : how long after our retirement they will con- 

 tinue so, becomes another question. 



With reference, therefore, to that question, we take at least one fact to be 

 perfectly clear to wit, that, unless under a government far more vigorous 

 and efficient than any which Portugal has possessed for a very long time 

 indeed, nothing like permanent tranquillity there (at present) is to be hoped 

 for. The real causes of insurrection in the kingdom arc not dead, nor likely 

 to die speedily ; and the state of the country affords facilities for getting it 

 up, of a very peculiar description. The elements, in the first place, of 

 turbulence and tumult it matters very little to what end or for what object, 

 provided the immediate danger of the attempt be not too great must - 

 from the mere schooling which they had to go through in the course of the 

 last war be ripe in the minds of great numbers of the younger people. 

 For seven years the country was a camp ; and every man in it, capable of 

 bearing arms, in some shape or other a follower of the army. Thousands 

 upon thousands of youths, taken or drawn from their homes as they were 

 rising into manhood, received their first impressions of life, from examples 

 only of riot, licentiousness, and contamination. The peasantry, especially, 

 were exposed to this contagious and destructive influence. They were all 

 soldiers : two-thirds of them little other than guerilla, or predatory troops ; 

 acquiring more than the common vices incident to the military character, 

 without any of its habits of discipline or regularity. These persons, after 

 being for years accustomed to a life of leisure and freedom although of 

 occasional peril would not easily at least such would be the case in a 

 great many instances settle again to their ordinary puisuits of rather ill- 

 paid labour. The change from their character of field labourers, to that of 

 irregular soldiers, became, at any time, the work only of a moment: 

 the change back again by simply dropping the pike or musket, and re- 

 turning home, or hiding themselves for a short time among the mountains 

 was almost equally easy and expeditious. As peasants, poverty compels 

 them to feed poorly and abstemiously ; to lie at night in a hut upon a mat ; 

 and to have, for luxuries, at best but a little bad spirits, and worse tobacco. 

 As guerilla soldiers, the climate would allow them to live three-fourths of 

 the year in the open air, without inconvenience; they have no property to 

 lose by leaving home ; and they never propose to fight any farther than 

 they " see reason " abroad. We must not estimate the characters or dis- 

 positions of these people, from any consideration of what would be those of 

 men who have served in tbe armies of our own country : perhaps there are not 

 two human creatures whose conditions are much more widely opposed than 

 a 4< regular" soldier, and an " irregular " one. An English soldier ought 

 in equity to gain something in the way of honour; for excepting danger 

 an d : j hardship he gains very little in the way of any thing else. But it is 

 far otherwise with an avowed predator, whose license as soon as he takes up 

 arms becomes almost unbounded ; and who acquires the same liking for his 

 trade, and the same indisposition to forsake it, as we find in England 

 attaching to a smuggler or a poacher. While the Portuguese government 

 continues in its present state, there will always at least for a considerable 

 time to come be a sufficient number of these unsettled and demoralized 

 people ready to join the stanuard of any popular leader, who can give them 

 present pay, or even free quarter, with the prospect of plunder. If the 

 enterprise fails, the peasantry have merely to disperse ; and the government 



