348 England and the Continent. [^OcT. 



foresaw, and which every one would have burned to avert. The cause 

 of freedom in that most unhappy land has been a second time trampled 

 down, and Europe has now nothing more to do than to receive the 

 illustrious refugees with the honours due to disastrous patriotism, and 

 valour thrown away. 



France is still disturbed. The king sits on an uneasy throne. The 

 populace remember their late mastery, and every murmur terrifies the 

 government as the sign of a coming storm. The king exhibits a mix- 

 ture of prudence and patience, which shews him to be worthy of a 

 throne ; but his supremacy depends upon accident, and the most trivial 

 change of popular opinion may send him and his race into exile. The 

 throne has no foundations in France. It stands upon the surface, and 

 that surface may in any hour of the night or day break in, and plunge 

 the seat of royalty into a depth from which no Jiving eye shall see it 

 brought up again. 



Portugal is still a source of bitterness, a thorn in the side of England, 

 instead of a staff in her hand. Yet the difficulty seems scarcely capable 

 of being reconciled. The mixture of insolence and coxcombry in the 

 miserable despot who sits upon the Portuguese throne, make all accom- 

 modation impossible. Such, at least, is the language of every ministry 

 of Europe. The Wellington ministry outlawed him: no man treated 

 him with more haughty scorn than the Duke of Wellington himself; 

 and no man lavished the language of vituperation on him, in a more 

 unmeasured style than his subordinate. Lord Aberdeen. These men 

 now make themselves only ridiculous by attempting to figure as Portu- 

 guese champions. Whether Lord Grey is wiser in his abstinence from 

 virulent language, admits of no question. But his policy is the same ; 

 though it may be more than doubted whether he has not, if possible, 

 aggravated the causes of quarrel, by sending Hoppner, as British agent — 

 a puppy, of whose pertness he ought to have been aware. But Don 

 Miguel has an obvious facility of getting himself into scrapes, and after 

 having alienated England, insulted France, being threatened and humi- 

 liated by the former, and chastised severely by the latter, he does not 

 seem brought to his senses an atom the more. The sooner the Portu- 

 guese make their peace with mankind the better, even though it should 

 be at the expense of sending this coxcomb to rove the world with the 

 Ex-King of Sweden, the Ex-Duke of Brunswick, the Ex-Emperor of 

 the Brazils, the Ex-Dey of Algiers, and all the other childish and trifling 

 personages who have sickened the continent so long, and who, if they 

 do not prodigiously change, are so likely tofolloAV them. 



But England has better things to think of than fighting for any but 

 herself. IMadness would not be too harsh a name for the councils which 

 would make her go to war for Don Pedro and his little Donna Maria. 

 The Don has shewn his qualifications for government already, on the 

 other side of the Atlantic, and we cannot afford to give him an oppor- 

 tunity of being turned out of another kingdom. But even if we were 

 to place him on the Portuguese throne, what security could we have for 

 his being a particle more grateful than we have always found foreigners .^ 

 No, we must let the Ex-Emperor pay for himself, which he seems not 

 at all disposed to do — diplomatize for himself, which he has evidently 

 failed to do — and fight for himself, which no man will ever see him do. 

 England can go on without any of those men of mustachios ; and her 

 common policy will be, to scorn them all. 



