PORTUGAL. 





the incessant drain of their population, paralysed and 

 Misj.Mided industry at home, and, by substituting arti- 

 ficial for real wealth, paved the way for that deteriorat- 

 ed domes! ie economy, which Still obtains in Portugal. 

 J'he delusive sources of wealth in which the Portugue-e. 

 o long trusted, are now beginning to be seen in their 

 true light: they now begin to appreciate the value of 

 internal resources, and to see that it is impolitic to import 

 from their African or Asiatic dominions commodities 

 which their own country itself can produce, and by 

 the exertion of a liule industry can produce with less 

 uncertainty, and probably at less ex pence, than they can 

 be procured from distant colonies. Their ignorance of 

 agriculture, however, is yet proverbial. They are still 

 unacquainted wirh rotation in crops; and so uncon- 

 scious are they of the difference between one kind of 

 soil and another, that they extract the same crop indis- 

 criminately from every species of land. The plough, 

 awkwardly and clumsily made, moves almost on the 

 surface; the ground is seldom harrowed; and the use 

 of the hoe, and the nature of fallow, are nearly en- 

 irely unknown. Even thrashing, the most simple and 

 >vious of all operations, is seldom practised; the same 

 result being obtained by the antiquated and wasteful 

 method of trampling the straw under the feet of oxen 

 and horses. Portugal, as may easily be supposed from 

 these statements, has not yet produced corn adequate 

 to the consumption of its inhabitants, and the defi- 

 ciency requires to be supplied by importation. The 

 products of the soil, however, are extremely various; a 

 circumstance resulting from the great difference of lati- 

 tude (about five degrees,) and from the great variety of 

 elevation by which the country is distinguished. The 

 higher grounds produce wheat, barley, oats, flax, hemp; 

 lands of an inferior altitude, and warmer temperature, 

 grow vines and maize ; while rice, and other articles, 

 are raised in the low grounds. The cultivation of po- 

 tatoes has been introduced on the more elevated parts 

 of the country with such success, that they now form a 

 considerable proportion of the sustenance of the inha- 

 bitants. The Portuguese are extremely indolent and 

 lazy; and accordingly those productions that require 

 little labour, such as chesnuts, almonds, oranges, le- 

 mons, citrons, are profusely raised. Olive trees are one 

 of their chief products; and the oil obtained from them 

 forms an important article of the table; and though not 

 of a character or flavour that causes it to be used as an 

 article of sustenance in foreign countries, it is exported 

 to a great extent, being used by the woollen manu- 

 facturers of England, Holland, and Germany, in their 

 respective operations. Improvements in husbandry, 

 and in the general cultivation of the soil, have of late, 

 as hinted above, been rapidly made ; but the only pro- 

 vince that has yet attained to much distinction in this 

 way, (a distinction, indeed, which it has enjoyed more 

 or less for centuries,) is that of Entre Douro e Minho. 

 It possesses, indeed, some peculiar advantages; its 

 supply of water is great, and its surface is compara- 

 tively level; but it is to be hoped that the slight natu- 

 ral disadvantages of the other provinces will not deter 

 them from endeavouring to rival a province which has 

 set them so noble an example, and the improvements 

 and cultivation of which have gained to its population a 

 degree of wealth and refinement unequalled by the 

 other inhabitants of the country. The quantity of land 

 belonging to the monasteries, which may or may not 

 be cultivated or neglected, as the lazy proprietors in- 

 cline, and which is excluded from the enterprising ef- 

 forts of private individuals, may be mentioned among 



the causes already stated, on account of which agricuU Portugal, 

 ture in this kingdom has been so long overlooked or '^y*"* 

 despised. 



Nor are the manufactures of Portugal in a much Muufo. 

 more thriving condition than her agriculture. The ture *' 

 1'ortuguese manufactures, indeed, are few and unim- 

 portant. With the exception of the lower orders of 

 the nation, who are clothed with their domestic manu- 

 factures, or with the skin of their sheep, nearly the 

 whole of the population besides maybe regarded 'as 

 furnished with their apparel from England, Holland, 

 and Germany. They, however, export wool to a con- 

 siderable amount. Extensive manufactories, and those 

 chiefly for woollens, silk, and earthen-ware, are ex- 

 tremely rare: they are in general carried on in sepa- 

 rate cottages, on the most limited scale, each district, 

 as it were, manufacturing for its own consumption. 

 The most common manufactories, which the kingdom 

 contains, are those of cotton, linen, woollen-cloths, 

 silk, paper, glass, earthen-ware, salt. C imbrics, shirt- 

 ing and table-linens, and sewing threads, are those in 

 which she principally excels. There is one species of 

 manufacture, however, in which Portugal has obtain- 

 ed great celebrity, namely, that of wine, which is car- 

 ried on to a great extent, chiefly in the northern pro- 

 vinces. It is probably indeed owing to the great ex- 

 tent to which the vine is cultivated, that their pursuits, 

 particularly those of agriculture, have been so much 

 neglected, as, according to Mr. Murphy, the culture 

 of the vine is four times more profitable than that of 

 wheat or maize. The quantity of wine usually made 

 is about 80.000 pipes of red, and 60,000 of white, an- 

 nually. Of these wines, about a half are exported to 

 England alone, and the remainder to the different 

 countries in Europe; and formerly a great quantity 

 was sent to Brazil, the average annual value exported 

 being about 2,000,000. The Portuguese themselves 

 generally drink wine of a quality so inferior, that it 

 could not find a vent in a foreign market. 



The navigation and commercial intercourse of For- Commerct 

 tugal are more considerable than her manufactures. 

 The emigration of the court to Brazil, in 1807, deeply 

 injured the interests of the kingdom in this respect. 

 The colonial produce of Brazil was formerly mono- 

 polized by the Portuguese, and Portugal formed the 

 emporium at which the imports and exports of that co- 

 lony met and were exchanged. The exports of Brazil, 

 during the residence of the court there, instead of be- 

 ing imported to Lisbon, and thence distributed through- 

 out Europe, were carried directly to their several places 

 of consumption, without the intervention of the mo- 

 ther country ; and on the same principle of exclusion 

 from the parent state, the Brazilians obtained their 

 supplies of European commodities without any con- 

 nexion with Portugal. The import and export trade 

 of Portugal has for a considerable time been chiefly 

 in the hands of foreigners, particularly British, settled 

 in Lisbon and Oporto. The commercial relation, in- 

 deed, between England and Portugal, has long been 

 very important ; and the balance, to a great degree, is 

 in favour of England. England exports to Portugal 

 woollens, hardware, salted and dried fish, shoes, stock- 

 ings, and such articles as can be furnished by a coun- 

 try like England, far advanced in the division of la- 

 bour, to one in which productive industry is still in its 

 'infancy; while Portugal gives in return bullion, coin, 

 diamonds, precious stones, wines, salt, wool, oil, 

 oranges, lemons. Portugal has a very trifling com- 

 mercial connexion with any of the other countries of 



