! THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. AUGUST, 1810. ART. I. Observador Portuguez, Historico e Politico, de Lis- T produced VOL. IV. NO. VIL 1 sented, and so little has there been to tempt them in the rewards or applause which the public could bestow, that a very large proportion of Portugueze literature exists at this day in manuscript. Men were always found who delighted in acquiring knowledge for its own sake, who amused themselves in composing works for their own instruction and that of their friends, contented with selfapplause, and with the thought that they were preparing materials for which future historians would be grateful. The author of the Portugueze Observer is a man of this description. During the tyranny of Junot, he collected every edict which was issued, kept a faithful journal of the events passing within his own knowledge, and procured accounts on which he could rely from other parts of the kingdom. When this melancholy task was begun, there could have been no other feeling to alleviate it, than the desire of leaving to posterity a faithful detail of an aggression, at that time unparalleled for injustice and cruelty in the annals of Europe. On the deliverance of his country, he was enabled to publish as much of this journal as prudence would permit; much, he confesses, has been withheld, because the times required it; that is to say, he has been unwilling to make himself obnoxious by exposing the misconduct of individuals; and there is as yet no liberty of the press in Lisbon. But though he admits that it has not been possible for him to relate the whole truth-his book contains nothing but the truth: this he solemnly affirms; it is corroborated by the testimony of persons best acquainted with the transactions of that period, and the work itself bears the strongest marks of veracity. According to this writer, the circumstance which made the Prince of Brazil resolve upon retiring to his vast empire in America, was the communication of the secret treaty of Fontainbleau from the English court. Had this measure been earlier resolved on, the act itself might have been one of the sublimest spectacles recorded in history; but the haste with which it was conducted rendered it a scene of confusion. On the part of the emigrants, nothing was to be seen but hurry and disorder-on the part of the people, astonishment and dismay. Sir Sidney Smith offered to bring his fleet abreast of the city, and there, seconded by the indignant populace, dispute every inch of the ground with the invader. Lisbon, he said, was surely as defensible as Buenos Ayres. It was well for Junot, that this resolution was not effected. The first division of the French army, consisting of 10,000 men, reached the villages adjoining Lisbon on the 29th of November, while the Prince and his faithful followers were sailing out of the river. They arrived without baggage, having only their knapsacks, and a half-gourd slung from their girdle as a drinking cup; their muskets were rusty and many of them out of repair: the men were mostly bare-foot, foundered with their march, and almost fainting from fatigue and want of food. The very women of Lisbon might have knocked them on the head. On the following day, the royal guard of police went out to meet Junot, and he made his entrance into the city. A proclamation had previously been circulated, in which the General added to his other titles that of Great Cross of the Order of Christ, an honour conferred on him by that very Prince whom he came to entrap and destroy. Inhabitants of Lisbon !' he said, I come to save your port and your Prince from the malignant influence of England. That Prince, otherwise respectable for his virtues, has permitted himself to be drawn away by perfidious counsellors, to be delivered by them to his enemies: they alarmed him for his personal safety -his subjects were regarded as nothing, and your interests were sacrificed to the cowardice of a few courtiers. People of Lisbon, remain at peace in your houses, fear nothing from my army-nor from me; our enemies and the criminal are the only persons who ought to fear us. The Great Napoleon, my master, sends me to protect you: I will protect you.' The first act of this protection was to seize the fortresses upon the river, and fire upon the ships which had not yet got out. The shops were shut; the streets full of people; and the discount upon the paper money rose to 50 per cent. The next day, December 1, was the anniversary of the Acclamation-of that revolution which restored the crown of Portugal to its rightful heir. What a day for those inhabitants of Lisbon who loved their country, and were familiar with the history of its age of glory! Powderwaggons were now creaking through the streets; the patroles and the whole force of the police were employed in calming and controlling the people who beheld all this with indignation, and an instinctive longing to vindicate themselves. The parish ministers went from house to house, informing the inhabitants that they must prepare to quarter the French officers, and collecting mattrasses and blankets for the men. In the midst of all this, so violent a storm of wind arose, that it shook the houses like an earthquake; and in the terror which it occasioned many families fled into the open country. Many buildings were injured; the treasury and arsenal unroofed; and the tide suddenly rose twelve feet. The circumstance was noted in the Paris papers; and in the spir. it of those writers who speak of the tempest which occurred at Cromwell's death as something supernatural, it was added that no sooner had the French flag been hoisted, than the elements were calmed, and the sun broke forth in all its splendour. This interpretation however could not be current at Lisbon, because the French flag was not hoisted there till ten days after the storm. The troops entered Lisbon mostly by night, and without beat of drum. Eleven thousand were now posted in the city from Belem to the Grilo, and from the Castle to Arroios. The generals of division and brigade took possession of the houses of those fidalgos who accompanied the Prince, and of the principal merchants; and as the first fruits of that protection which the religion of the country was to experience, all persons in the great convents of Jesus, the Paulistas, and S. Francisco da Cidade, who had any relations by whom they could be housed, were ordered to turn out, that the French soldiers might be quartered in their apartments. On the 3d the merchants were called on for a forced loan of two millions of cruzados, and this at a time when their ships had been seized in France, when a British squadron blockaded the port of Lisbon, when the ships from Brazil were warned off by that squadron and sent to England, and all foreign commerce utterly destroyed! Every day, almost every hour, brought with it some new mark of French protection. Account was taken of the property of all those persons who followed the Prince, that it might be confiscated. M. Hermann was added to the Regency, and made minister of finance and of the interior by an appointment of Buonaparte, which by its date sufficiently proved, if any proof had been needed, that whatever the conduct of the Prince might be, that tyrant had resolved to usurp the kingdom. The edict which Junot had issued on his first entrance into Portugal was now printed and circulated in Lisbon. Beginning in the usual stile of French hypocrisy, it ended with their usual insolence and cruelty. Every Portugueze, it said, who not being a soldier of the line was apprehended in an armed assembly, should be shot. If any Frenchman was killed in the country, the town or village to which the district belonged where the murder was committed, should be fined in not less than three times the amount of its whole annual rents, and the four principal inhabitants taken as hostages for the payment. And as an exemplary act of justice, the first city, town, or village, in which a Frenchman was assassinated, should be burnt to the ground. When this decree was issued the Prince of Brazil was in alliance with France, and Junot protested that he was entering as a friend, expressing his confidence that the fine city of Lisbon would joyfully receive an army which alone could preserve it from becoming the prey of the English. The next measure was an edict for the confiscation of English goods, ordering all persons who had any English property in their possession to give an account of it within three days, on pain of being fined in a sum ten times the amount of the property concealed, and even of corporal punishment, if it was thought proper to inflict it. On the same day the use of fire-arms in sporting was prohibited throughout the whole kingdom, and any person detected in carrying fowling pieces or pistols without a license from General Laborde, the commandant of Lisbon, was to be considered as a vagabond and highway murderer, carried before a military commission, and punished accordingly. The next day all kinds of arms whatsoever were prohibited; and the wine-sellers were ordered to turn out all soldiers at seven in the evening, on pain of a heavy fine, and of death for the third offence. The troops as they continued to arrive, were quartered in all the convents, and their women with them, as if to insult the religious feelings of the people. Complaints were made that the officers required those persons upon whom they were billeted to keep a table for them: an order was issued in which Junot expressed his displeasure, saying that the French officers in Portugal were to consider themselves as in garrison, and had no right to demand any thing more than lodging, fire, and lights. He reminded them also that the Emperor had placed them on the same footing as the grand army, in consequence of which they would regularly receive extraordinary pay sufficient to defray all their expenses. This edict was in the true spirit of the French generals; it was something to be published in foreign newspapers as a proof of the good order which they observed: meantime all the superior officers not merely compelled those upon whom they had billeted themselves, to furnish a table, but every kind of provision also for the entertainments which they thought proper to give. Many persons gave up their houses to these insolent guests and retired into the country; still they were obliged to support the establishment, and answer all the demands which the intruders chose to make. There now appeared a pastoral letter from the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon, written at the request, that is to say, under the orders of Junot. The author of this journal apologizes for its abject and servile language: its secret meaning, he says, will be apparent if it is read with attention; and its effect was, as the venerable pastor intended, to strengthen the veneration of the Portugueze for their religion, and tend to the destruction of the impious wretches who were profaning it. It is to be regretted that so faithful and patriotic a writer should, in his wish to excuse another, attempt to justify what ought not even to be published. For whatever may have been the Patriarch's secret desires, and however his language may have belied his heart, certain it is that he now betrayed his country, and as far as in him lay, contributed to its degradation and destruction. He told the Portugueze that the French were come to assist them; that they were under the protection of Napoleon the Great, whom God had destined to support and defend religion, and to constitute the happiness of his |