THE dramatic and singular revolution of which Portugal has recently been the theatre, the strange fluctuations and ultimate success of Marshal Saldanha's insurrection, the narrow escape of Donna Maria from at least a temporary expulsion from her dominions, have attracted in this country more attention than is usually bestowed upon the oft-recurring convulsions of the Peninsula. Busy as the present year has been, and abounding in events of exciting interest nearer home, the English public has yet found time to deplore the anarchy to which Portugal is a prey, and to marvel once more, as it many times before has marvelled, at the tardy realisation of those brilliant promises of order, prosperity, and good government, so long held out to the two Peninsular nations by the promoters of the Quadruple Alliance. The statesmen who, for nearly a score of years, have assiduously guided Portugal and Spain in the seductive paths of modern Liberalism, can hardly feel much gratification at the results of their well-intended but most unprosperous endeavours. It is difficult to imagine them contemplating with pride and exultation, or even without a certain degree of self-reproach, the fruits of their officious exertions. Repudiating partisan views of Peninsular politics, putting persons entirely out of the question, declaring our absolute indifference as to who occupies the thrones of Spain and Portugal, so long as those countries are wellgoverned, casting no imputations upon the motives of those foreign governments and statesmen who were chiefly instrumental in bringing about the present state of things south of the Pyrenees, we would look only to facts, and crave an honest answer to a plain question. The question is this: After the lapse of seventeen years, what is the condition of the two nations upon which have been conferred, at grievous expense of blood and treasure, the much vaunted blessings of rulers nominally Liberal, and professedly patriotic? For the present we will confine this

inquiry to Portugal, for the reason that the War of Succession terminated in that country when it was but beginning in the neighbouring kingdom, since which time the vanquished party, unlike the Carlists in Spain, have uniformly abstained-with the single exception of the rising in 1846-7— from armed aggression, and have observed a patient and peaceful policy. So that the Portuguese Liberals have had seventeen years' fair trial of their governing capacity, and cannot allege that their efforts for their country's welfare have been impeded or retarded by the acts of that party whom they denounced as incapable of achieving it, however they may have been neutralised by dissensions and anarchy in their own ranks.

At this particular juncture of Portuguese affairs, and as no inappropriate preface to the only reply that can veraciously be given to the question we have proposed, it will not be amiss to take a brief retrospective glance at some of the events that preceded and led to the reign of Donna Maria. It will be remembered that from the year 1828 to 1834, the Liberals in both houses of the British Parliament, supported by an overwhelming majority of the British press, fiercely and pertinaciously assailed the government and person of Don Miguel, then de facto King of Portugal, king de jure in the eyes of the Portuguese Legitimists and by the vote of the Legitimate Cortes of 1828, and recognised (in 1829) by Spain, by the United States, and by various inferior powers. Twenty years ago political passions ran high in this country: public men were, perhaps, less guarded in their language; newspapers were certainly far more intemperate in theirs; and we may safely say, that upon no foreign prince, potentate, or politician, has virulent abuse-proceeding from such respectable sources-ever since been showered in England, in one half the quantity in which it then descended upon the head of the unlucky Miguel. Unquestionably Don Miguel had acted, in many respects, neither well nor wisely: his early

education had been ill-adapted to the high position he was one day to fillat a later period of his life he was destined to take lessons of wisdom and moderation in the stern but wholesome school of adversity. But it is also beyond a doubt, now that time has cleared up much which then was purposely garbled and distorted, that the object of all this invective was by no means so black as he was painted, and that his character suffered in England from the malicious calumnies of Pedroite refugees, and from the exaggerated and easily-accepted statements of the Portuguese correspondents of English newspapers. The Portuguese nation, removed from such influence, formed its own opinions from what it saw and observed; and the respect and affection testified, even at the present day, to their dethroned sovereign, by a large number of its most distinguished and respectable members, are the best refutation of the more odious of the charges so abundantly brought against him, and so lightly credited in those days of rampant revolution. It is unnecessary, therefore, to argue that point, even were personal vindication or attack the objects of this article, instead of being entirely without its scope. Against the insupportable oppression exercised by the monster in human form, as which Don Miguel was then commonly depicted in England and France, innumerable engines were directed by the governments and press of those two countries. Insurrections were stirred up in Portugal, volunteers were recruited abroad, irregular military expeditions were encouraged, loans were fomented; money-lenders and stock-jobbers were all agog for Pedro, patriotism, and profit. Orators and newspapers foretold, in glowing speeches and enthusiastic paragraphs, unbounded prosperity to Portugal as the sure consequence of the triumph of the revolutionary party. Rapid progress of civilisation, impartial and economical administration, increase of commerce, development of the country's resources, a perfect avalanche of social and political blessings, were to descend, like manna from heaven, upon the fortunate nation, so soon as the Liberals obtained the sway of its

destinies. It were beside our purpose here to investigate how it was that, with such alluring prospects held out to them, the people of Portugal were so blind to their interests as to supply Don Miguel with men and money, wherewith to defend himself for five years against the assaults and intrigues of foreign and domestic enemies. Deprived of support and encouragement from without, he still held his ground; and the formation of a quadruple alliance, including the two most powerful countries in Europe, the enlistment of foreign mercenaries of a dozen different nations, the entrance of a numerous Spanish army, were requisite finally to dispossess him of his crown. The anomaly of the abhorred persecutor and tyrant receiving so much support from his ill-used subjects, even then struck certain men in this country whose names stand pretty high upon the list of clear-headed and experienced politicians, and the Duke of Wellington, Lord Aberdeen, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Lyndhurst, and others, defended Miguel; but their arguments, however cogent, were of little avail against the fierce tide of popular prejudice, unremittingly stimulated by the declamations of the press. To be brief, in 1834 Don Miguel was driven from Portugal; and his enemies, put in possession of the kingdom and all its resources, were at full liberty to realise the salutary reforms they had announced and promised, and for which they had professed to fight. On taking the reins of government, they had everything in their favour; their position was advantageous_and brilliant in the highest degree. They enjoyed the prestige of a triumph, undisputed authority, powerful foreign protection and influence. At their disposal was an immense mass of property taken from the church, as well as the produce of large foreign loans. Their credit, too, was then unlimited. Lastly-and this was far from the least of their advantagesthey had in their favour the great discouragement and discontent engendered amongst the partisans of the Miguelite government, by the numerous and gross blunders which that government had committed-blunders which contributed even more to its

downfall than did the attacks of its foes, or the effects of foreign hostility. In short, the Liberals were complete and undisputed masters of the situation. But, notwithstanding all the facilities and advantages they enjoyed, what has been the condition of Portugal since they assumed the reins? What is its condition at the present day? We need not go far to ascertain it. The wretched plight of that once prosperous little kingdom is deposed to by every traveller who visits it, and by every English journal that has a correspondent there; it is to be traced in the columns of every Portuguese newspaper, and is admitted and deplored by thousands who once were strenuous and influential supporters of the party who promised so much, and who have performed so little that is good. The reign of that party whose battle-cry is, or was, Donna Maria and the Constitution, has been an unbroken series of revolutions, illegalities, peculations, corruptions, and dilapidations. The immense amount of misnamed "" national property" (the Infantado and church estates,) which was part of their capital on their accession to power, has disappeared without benefit either to the country or to its creditors. The treasury is empty; the public revenues are eaten up by anticipation; civil and military officers, the court itself, are all in constant and considerable arrears of salaries and pay. The discipline of the troops is destroyed, the soldiers being demoralised by the bad example of their chiefs, including that of Marshal Saldanha himself; for it is one of the great misfortunes of the Peninsula, that there most officers of a certain rank consider their political predilections before their military duty. The "Liberal" party, divided and subdivided, and split into fractions, whose numbers fluctuate at the dictates of interest or caprice, presents a lament

able spectacle of anarchy and inconsistency; whilst the Queen herself, whose good intentions we by no means impugn, has completely forfeited, as a necessary consequence of the misconduct of her counsellors, and of the sufferings the country has endured under her reign, whatever amount of respect, affection, and influence the Portuguese nation may once have been disposed to accord her. Such is the sad picture now presented by Portugal; and none whose acquaintance with facts renders them competent to judge, will say that it is overcharged or highly coloured.

The party in Portugal who advocate a return to the ancient constitution,* under which the country flourished-which fell into abeyance towards the close of the seventeenth century, but which it is now proposed to revive, as preferable to, and practically more liberal than, the present system-and who adopt as a banner, and couple with this scheme, the name of Don Miguel de Bragança, have not unnaturally derived great accession of strength, both moral and numerical, from the faults and dissensions of their adversaries. At the present day there are few things which the European public, and especially that of this country, sooner becomes indifferent to, and loses sight of, than the person and pretensions of a dethroned king; and owing to the lapse of years, to his unobtrusive manner of life, and to the storm of accusations amidst which he made his exit from power, Don Miguel would probably be considered, by those persons in this country who remember his existence, as the least likely member of the royal triumvirate, now assembled in Germany, to exchange his exile for a crown. But if we would take a fair and impartial view of the condition of Portugal, and calculate, as far as is possible in the case of either of the

two Peninsular nations, the probabilities and chances of the future, we must not suffer ourselves to be run away with by preconceived prejudices, or to be influenced by the popular odium attached to a name. After beholding the most insignificant and unpromising of modern pretenders suddenly elevated to the virtual sovereignty however transitory it may prove-of one of the most powerful and civilised of European nations, it were rash to denounce as impossible any restoration or enthronement. And it were especially rash so to do when with the person of the aspirant to the throne a nation is able to connect a reasonable hope of improvement in its condition. Of the principle of legitimacy we here say nothing, for it were vain to deny that in Europe it is daily less regarded, whilst it sinks into insignificance when put in competition with the rights and wellbeing of the people.

As far back as the period of its emigration, the Pedroite or Liberal party split into two fractions. One of these believed in the possible realisation of those ultra-liberal theories so abundantly promulgated in the proclamations, manifestoes, preambles of laws, &c., which Don Pedro issued from the Brazils, from England and France, and afterwards from Terceira and Oporto. The other fraction of the party had sanctioned the promulgation of these utopian theories as a means of delusion, and as leading to their own triumph; but they deemed their realisation impossible, and were quite decided, when the revolutionary tide should have borne them into power, to oppose to the unruly flood the barrier of a gradual but steady reaction. At a later period these divisions of the Liberal party became more distinctly defined, and resulted, in 1836, in their nominal classification as Septembrists and Chartists-the latter of whom (numerically very weak, but comprising Costa Cabral, and other men of talent and energy) may be compared to the Moderados

of Spain-the former to the Progresistas, but with tendencies more decidedly republican. It is the ambitious pretensions, the struggles for power and constant dissensions of these two sets of men, and of the minor fractions into which they have subdivided themselves, that have kept Portugal for seventeen years in a state of anarchy, and have ended by reducing her to her present pitiable condition. So numerous are the divisions, so violent the quarrels of the two parties, that their utter dissolution appears inevitable; and it is in view of this that the National party, as it styles itself, which inscribes upon its flag the name of Don Miguel

not as an absolute sovereign, but with powers limited by legitimate constitutional forms, to whose strict observance they bind him as a condition of their support, and of his continuance upon the throne upon which they hope to place him-uplifts its head, reorganises its hosts, and more clearly defines its political principles. Whilst Chartists and Septembrists tear each other to pieces, the Miguelites not only maintain their numerical importance, but, closing their ranks and acting in strict unity, they give constant proofs of adhesion to Don Miguel as personifying a national principle, and at the same time give evidence of political vitality by the activity and progress of their ideas, which are adapting themselves to the Liberal sentiments and theories of the times.* And it were flying in the face of facts to deny that this party comprehends a very important portion of the intelligence and respectability of the nation. It ascribes to itself an overwhelming majority in the country, and asserts that five-sixths of the population of Portugal would joyfully hail its advent to power. This of course must be viewed as an ex-parte statement, difficult for foreigners to verify or refute. But of late there have been no lack of proofs that a large proportion of the higher orders of Portuguese are stead

fast in their aversion to the government of the "Liberals," and in their adherence to him whom they still, after his seventeen years' dethronement, persist in calling their king, and whom they have supported, during his long exile, by their willing contributions. It is fresh in every one's memory that, only the other day, twenty five peers, or successors of peers, who had been excluded by Don Pedro from the peerage for having sworn allegiance to his brother, having been reinstated and invited to take their seats in the Chamber, signed and published a document utterly rejecting the boon. Some hundreds of officers of the old army of Don Miguel, who are living for the most part in penury and privation, were invited to demand from Saldanha the restitution of their grades, which would have entitled them to the corresponding pay. To a man they refused, and protested their devotion to their former sovereign. A new law of elections, with a very extended franchise-nearly amounting, it is said, to universal suffrage-having been the other day arbitrarily decreed by the Saldanha cabinet (certainly a most unconstitutional proceeding,) and the government having expressed a wish that all parties in the kingdom should exercise the electoral right, and give their votes for representatives in the new parliament, a numerous and highly respectable meeting of the Miguelites was convened at Lisbon. This meeting voted, with but two dissentient voices, a resolution of abstaining from all share in the elections, declaring their determination not to sanction, by coming forward either as voters or candidates, a system and an order of things which they utterly repudiated as illegal, oppressive, and forced upon the nation by foreign interference. The same resolution was adopted by large assemblages in every province of the kingdom. At various periods, during the last seventeen years, the Portuguese government has endeavoured to inveigle the Miguelites into the representative assembly, doubtless hoping that upon its benches they would be more accessible to seduction, or easier to intimidate. It is a remarkable and significant circumstance, that only

in one instance (in the year 1842) have their efforts been successful, and that the person who was then induced so to deviate from the policy of his party, speedily gave unmistakable signs of shame and regret. Bearing in mind the undoubted and easily proved fact that the Miguelites, whether their numerical strength be or be not as great as they assert, comprise a large majority of the clergy, of the old nobility, and of the most highly educated classes of the nation, their steady and consistent refusal to sanction the present order of things, by their presence in its legislative assembly, shows a unity of purpose and action, and a staunch and dogged conviction, which cannot but be disquieting to their adversaries, and over which it is impossible lightly to pass in an impartial review of the condition and prospects of Portugal.

We have already declared our determination here to attach importance to the persons of none of the four princes and princesses who claim or occupy the thrones of Spain and Portugal, except in so far as they may respectively unite the greatest amount of the national suffrage and adhesion. As regards Don Miguel, we are far from exaggerating his personal claims-the question of legitimacy being here waived. His prestige out of Portugal is of the smallest, and certainly he has never given proofs of great talents, although he is not altogether without kingly qualities, nor wanting in resolution and energy; whilst his friends assert, and it is fair to admit as probable, that he has long since repented and abjured the follies and errors of his youth. But we cannot be blind to the fact of the strong sympathy and regard entertained for him by a very large number of Portuguese. His presence in London during some weeks of the present summer was the signal for a pilgrimage of Portuguese noblemen and gentlemen of the best and most influential families in the country, many of whom openly declared the sole object of their journey to be to pay their respects to their exiled sovereign; whilst others, the chief motive of whose visit was the attraction of the Industrial Exhibition, gladly seized the opportunity to