JET. 28.] MISSION TO PORTUGAL. 339 



chose, to join his master ; but we had no idea that 

 anything would have tempted him to quit Europe, 

 particularly in these circumstances. The unhappy 

 condition of the queen would have required that she 

 should be conveyed on board in the night ; but the 

 regent would have been made to give the proper 

 directions, and one of the other ships being ready for 

 part of the Court, she might have been embarked in 

 that. To have left her behind would furnish the 

 invading army with the means of misrepresentation, 

 and even of acting in her name. 



As every part of the execution of this plan depended 

 upon the admiral himself, the only risk I could per- 

 ceive of its failure was if any attempt against him 

 had succeeded. But this must have been at the very 

 first ; and in case any troops should have been sud- 

 denly brought together from their accidentally being 

 near the spot, the marines were to be landed so as at 

 once to overpower them ; for part of the plan was to 

 have them repeatedly landed as for parade or review. 

 But the obtaining possession of the regent's person, 

 and the consequent acting in his name, rendered any 

 such emergency extremely unlikely. The picked men 

 who were to man the boats and to mix with the 

 crowd afforded abundant security against everything 

 except some chance attack upon the admiral's person. 



There could be little doubt that Lord St Vincent 

 had borrowed his plan from Cortes's seizure of the 

 Emperor Montezuma (at least the leading features of 

 it), and I told him he had been reading my great 



