PORTUGAL (LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.) 



lence on some constitutionalists. The officers of 

 the garrisons favourable to the charter were remov- 

 ed, ami their places filled by men devoted to the 

 court. It was now determined that Miguel should 

 go to Villa Vi<josa, a town near the Spanish fron- 

 tier, where he could be supported by the troops of 

 the marquis of Chaves, and be proclaimed absolute 

 king ; but this project was frustrated by the deci- 

 sion of Mr Lamb, the British minister, who counter- 

 acted the order for the departure of the British 

 troops, and prevented the payment of the loan made 

 to dom Miguel under the guarantee of the British 

 government. The cortes, being opposed to the 

 designs of the prince, was dissolved March 14, and 

 the recall of the British troops in April removed 

 another obstacle from his path. May 3, he accord- 

 ingly issued a decree in his own name, convoking 

 the ancient cortes of Lamego, which had not met 

 since 1697. The military in general was not favour- 

 able to the projects of the prince, and, May 18, the 

 garrison of Oporto proclaimed dom Pedro and the 

 charter. They were soon joined by the other gar- 

 risons, and by the students of Coimbra, and the 

 constitutional army, 6000 strong, advanced towards 

 Lisbon. But they pushed their operations with little 

 vigour, until at length they were met by superior 

 forces and defeated, towards the end of June. The 

 constitutional junta at Oporto dissolved itself, 

 and the troops either forced their way to the 

 Spanish frontiers, or embarked for England. Thus 

 terminated the first efforts of the constitutionalists 

 in Portugal, and, with the extinction of that party, 

 the influence of England in the Portuguese govern- 

 ment ceased. Miguel now turned his attention to 

 the consolidation of his power ; severity and cruelty 

 were his expedients ; the prisons were crowded with 

 the suspected, and foreign countries were full of 

 fugitives. The cortes met, June 23, and, with 

 great unanimity (all, whose opposition was feared, 

 being in prison or having taken flight), declared 

 dom Miguel lawful king of Portugal and Algarve, 

 chiefly on the grounds that dom Pedro had become 

 a foreigner by becoming a Brazilian citizen, and 

 was not a resident in the country, and that therefore 

 he could neither succeed to the throne himself, nor 

 name the person who should succeed in his stead. 

 July 4, 1828, Miguel confirmed the judgment of the 

 cortes, and assumed the royal title. He immediately 

 established a special commission to punish all who 

 had taken part in the Oporto insurrection, the mem- 

 bers of the commission being to be paid from the con- 

 fiscations they should make. An expedition was sent 

 out (August 9) against the islands which refused to 

 acknowledge Miguel, and Madeira and the Azores, 

 with the exception of Terceira were reduced. A new 

 expedition against the latter place (October) failed. 

 In the islands, the same course of condemnation 

 was pursued, that had been practised at home. Por- 

 tugal now became the prey of political and religious 

 bigots. In March, 1830, the regency appointed by 

 dom Pedro, as guardian of his daughter, was installed 

 in Terceira, consisting of Palmella, Villa Flor, and 

 Guerreiro. The other islands were afterwards re- 

 duced by the forces of the regency, and subsequently 

 to the return of dom Pedro to Europe, it was well 

 known that he was making preparations for displac- 

 ing Miguel from his usurped seat. Meanwhile 

 insurrections repeatedly broke out at home, but 

 were suppressed by the vigour of the government 

 and the want of concert in the insurgents. In 

 1830, it was estimated that the number of prisoners 

 confined for political causes was above 40,000, and 

 that the number of persons concealed in different 

 parts of the country was about 6000. Besides these 

 victims of tyranny, foreign countries, as is well 



known, were thronged with Portuguese fugi- 

 tives. In consequence of some acts of violence, 

 and a refusal of redress on the part of the govern- 

 ment, a British fleet was sent to the Tftgus to 

 enforce the demands of the English government 

 (May 4, 1831); but on its appearance the conces- 

 sions required by Great Britain were made. In 

 July (11), Miguel was obliged to suffer a second 

 humiliation of this nature ; a French fleet having 

 forced the passage of the Tagus, and taken posses- 

 sion of the Portuguese fleet, in consequence of the 

 demands of the French government, for satisfaction 

 for injuries to French subjects, committed by the 

 Portuguese authorities, not having been complied 

 with. The court of Lisbon was forced, by this 

 vigorous measure, to submit to the terms imposed 

 by the French, which included the dismissal of 

 some of the Portuguese functionaries, an indemnity 

 for the expenses incurred by the expedition, the 

 reversal of all sentences pronounced against 

 Frenchmen for political opinions, and the publica- 

 tion of these terms in the Lisbon Gazette. In 

 August, an insurrection of the troops broke out 

 against Miguel. In the midst of these events, dom 

 Pedro was on his way for Europe. He embarked 

 on board an English ship of war, in the spring of 

 1831, and arrived in France in June. From thence 

 he proceeded to Oporto, and immediately com- 

 menced operations for displacing dom Miguel from 

 the throne, and establishing donna Maria as queen, 

 under a regency. Previous to this, large bodies 

 of volunteers had embarked from Britain and Ire- 

 land in the cause of dom Pedro, the greater number 

 of whom were garrisoned in Oporto Dom Miguel, 

 meanwhile, was not inactive, but advanced with 

 his adherents towards that city, which he attacked 

 several times without success. His most energetic 

 attack was made on the 21st September, 1832, 

 when he was repulsed with the loss of 1500 men, 

 dom Pedro's loss being calculated at 500. In July 

 of the same year, a naval battle took place between 

 the fleet of dom Pedro, under the command of ad- 

 miral Napier, and that of dom Miguel, in which 

 the latter was defeated, with the loss of -two ships 

 of seventy-four guns, a frigate of fifty-six, a store- 

 ship of forty-eight, and two smaller vessels. This 

 event, with other successes of the Pedroite party, 

 led to dom Miguel's abandonment of the throne. 

 Donna Maria da Gloria was proclaimed queen of 

 Portugal, and in 1 835, was married to the duke of 

 Leuchtenberg, son of Eugene Beauharnais. This 

 prince died in March of the same year, after having 

 been married little more than one month. In July, 

 1836, there was a sudden outbreak of a new revo- 

 lution at Lisbon, with a demand for the Portuguese 

 Constitution of 1820. This demand was acquiesced 

 in, but not cordially, by the queen and peers, and 

 at present the political horizon of Portugal is 

 unsettled. See the works of Murphy, Link, 

 Ruder, Chatelet, Costigan, Southey, &c.; see, also, 

 Antihon's Geografia d' Espanua y Portugal (Valen- 

 cia, 1815) ; Balbi's Essai Statistique sur Portugal 

 (Paris, 1822), and his J'arietes Politico- statistiques 

 sur la Monarchic Portugaise; and Miss Baillie's 

 Lisbon in 182123. 



Portuguese Language and Literature. Among 

 the Romanic languages, which originated from a 

 mixture of the Latin and Teutonic, is the Portu- 

 guese. It is not a dialect of the Castilian ; for, 

 besides the difference in its structure and pronun- 

 ciation, it was formed earlier than the Castilian. 

 The two resemble each other about as much as the 

 Danish and the Swedish. Respecting the mixture 

 of the Arabic, Fr. Joao de Souz has written a good 

 book (Vestigios da Lingua Arabica em Portugal.} 



