JET. 28.] FOREIGN POLITICS. 32$ 



dominions, both in a commercial and political point 

 of view. Considerable as were the benefits we de- 

 rived from its trade, and great as was our preponder- 

 ance in its councils, he certainly formed an exagger- 

 ated estimate of both; seizing upon Portugal was 

 like a direct defeat of England. He was smarting 

 under the recent defeat at Trafalgar, and had found 

 not the least facility in his plans of invasion ; so that 

 anything like a territorial advantage over us would 

 be a gratification, if it did not amount to a compen- 

 sation. The possession of the Tagus was intimately 

 connected with our other great naval victory at St 

 Vincent ; but though the importance of that event in 

 rescuing us from the most complicated and almost 

 inextricable embarrassments must have been well 

 known to him, he cared little about anything that 

 had happened before his own reign, so entirely did 

 personal vanity form a part of his character more 

 entirely than of any other person of great renown. 

 To be able to boast that he had driven the English 

 into the sea, captured their only stronghold on the 

 Continent, and dethroned those who held it by and 

 for them, was his main object, and probably nearer 

 his heart than any substantial injury done to us, or 

 any real advantage gained to himself. 



The Courts too, both at Lisbon and Madrid, were 

 feeble beyond all description; their Governments, 

 both civil and ecclesiastical, as bad as possible ; the 

 Queen of Spain and the Prince of the Peace more 

 likely to assist the French in destroying Portugal 



