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1827.] Movements in Portugal. 239 



is too weak irrall its distant relations long to pursue or molest them. The 

 chiefs, and any small' body of militia, or regular troops, which they may 

 have influenced to follow them, need but cross the Spanish frontier to which 

 their retreat, unless by the most gross mismanagement is always easy and 

 certain : and although England may determine that Spain shall no longer 

 give military aid to the refugees of Portugal, it is impossible to say that she 

 shall be prohibited from receiving and protecting them. 



For these reasons it is, as it seems to us, that, in the work of reform, 

 and organization, and in short, regeneration, no moment ought to be lost by 

 the constitutional government of Portugal. Enterprises of sedition and 

 rebellion will not fail to be abundant in that country, so long as the incom- 

 petency orsupineness of the executive system, offers a premium for their forma- 

 tion. How little these attempts need alarm an administration of the most 

 moderate strength and vigour has been sufficiently proved. The mere 

 landing of six thousand British soldiers in Lisbon, put the Portuguese in- 

 surgents at a distance of two hundred miles to flight. The power of 

 only ten available regiments of such troops as our officers, at the close of 

 the last war, had made tbe native Portuguese would have left the con- 

 stitutional government nothing to apprehend from the Marquis de Chaves's 

 enterprise ; and, in all probability, under such circumstances, it would never 

 have existed. Within what period, or to what extent, such an improved 

 state of things may be capable of being brought to bear, it might be diffi- 

 cult to predict ; but, decidedly, there is nothing impracticable in the task : 

 and in candour, we are inclined to believe that some steps have been taken 

 towards its accomplishment already. In some of those very circumstances 

 which those who opposed our interference were ready to quote the moment 

 they took place, as an evidence that the constitutional cause was indifferently 

 held in Portugal, a more sound and liberal construction perhaps would be 

 inclined to see the first proofs of an increasing energy in the national cha- 

 racter. The very aversion which the people displayed to the thought of 

 being protected by the presence of foreign troops, may fairly be taken as the 

 first evidence of that feeling which would induce them to take a position in 

 which they could protect themselves. So again for the little accusation of 

 " insensibility," which one of the daily papers whimsically brings against 

 the populace of Lisbon, because they witnessed the reviews and parades of 

 our British lancers and dragoons without " acclamation, whose appear- 

 ance was so far superior to that of their own " it may fairly be 

 questioned, at least, whether this conduct was not an equal evidence of 

 the sensibility of the people that they were rather ashamed of a comparison 

 which did so little, credit to themselves? The provisions too of the consti- 

 tution, however below the desires and demands of a people whose boast for 

 centuries has been that they are "free," amounts at least to a recognition, 

 which Portugal never enjoyed before, that those classes have some "rights" 

 in her community whose numbers form four-fifths of it. 



Whatever may be the extent however of that which has been done, as to 

 that which must be done, there ought to be no delay, as there can be no 

 question. The country must have the advantages of a change, as well as 

 the name of one, if the new powers hope to hold out against the spirit which 

 is resisting and opposing them. There must be a change from bigotry and 

 tyranny to free and enlightened legislation, and not from the rule of one 

 party of imbecile despots to that of another party. The abuses that dis- 

 graced the old system must not be perpetuated under the authority of the 

 new. The whole scheme of rottenness, and pride, and falsehood, and job, 

 and favouritism, and insolence, and implicit submission, must be cast away : 



