1831.3 Parliament — the Cunt'ment. 471 



straight for war. The dismantling of the Belgian fortresses is a step 

 which no power would have demanded, whose purpose was not to take 

 advantage of the naked frontier. The dismantling of those fortresses 

 has actually not found a single argument, except the one that it was the 

 desire of France — an argument, which ought instantly to have roused 

 the vigilance of the Continent, and to have set every engineer in 

 Belgium instantly at work, to render them impregnable. As to the 

 palliative, that their repairs would have drawn too heavily on the 

 Belgium exchequer, the answer is obvious ; that supposing these re- 

 pairs to have been too costly for Belgium, which is by no means 

 proved, they might have been provided for as the fortresses were built 

 — out of the money of the continental powers, who are all interested in 

 rescuing Belgium from the grasp of France ; or, at least, it could cost 

 nothing to let them take the chance of time, and fall to pieces in the 

 course of a century. 



Or if the Belgian army were too small to supply their garrisons, what 

 was to prevent their being garrisoned by the bands of temporary troops, 

 that a week would at any time put under arms. With a population of 

 four millions, Belgium might have a national guard of five hundred 

 tliousand men — a force equal to have manned twenty times the number 

 of the fortresses. But the demand was from France — for French pur- 

 poses ; and in the first ripple of continental affairs, we shall see that 

 France knew well what she asked, when she commissioned M.Talleyrand 

 to insist on the demolition of the Belgian fortresses. 



The Portuguese question is still unsettled. Don Miguel still sits on 

 his unacknowledged throne. Don Pedro still makes his pilgrimage to 

 the courts, protesting against having the slightest personal desire ever 

 to wear the "gaUing circle of a crown" again, yet soliciting every 

 court to embark in his cause ; disclaiming all hostility, yet collecting 

 partizans, soldiers, and exiles ; telling Portugal tnat he has no wish 

 whatever to divide or disturb her, yet actually arming a fleet in the 

 French ports, obviously for the purpose of invasion. We only hope, that 

 England will not be involved in the quarrels of either of the Dons. The 

 difference to us of Don Pedro or Don Miguel is not worth the ink that 

 writes their names. Don Pedro, if we had taken him by the hand, and 

 led him him up to his throne in Lisbon yesterday, would treat us to-day 

 just as every foreigner does, the day after we feed and clothe him. In 

 those fellows we place no faith. Don Miguel has the ill fortune of be- 

 ': ing drawn in the ttackest colours by every one. We have Lord Aber- 

 deen loading him with a richer variety of contumely than we thought 

 political wrath could find words for, from the lips of that remarkably 

 heavy and frigid lord. We find the Duke of Wellington himself, 

 -J warmed beyond that delicacy — that notoriously prudential caution, with 

 •j.^which the statesman speaks of every sovereign in whose dominions he 

 1 jus an estate, or in whose service a commission ; that wise reserve which 

 ,-,can suffer itself to detect neither avarice in the Dutchman, nor tyranny 

 ., in the Spaniard, nor any thing, beyond a little excusable savageness, in 

 the Russian ; yet even this man of delicacy could suffer himself to glow 

 ^, into something extremely akin to contempt of the unhappy Don who 

 > .now rules the Portuguese by the right divine of the stronger. Still Don 

 Miguel keeps his hold, in spite of ]Mr. Consul Hoppner's ill opinion of 

 his proceedings, — in spite of the displeasure of the JVIurquis Palmella, 

 the injured feelings of little Maria de Dolores, who is now all but hope- 



