of deep and bitter anguish. Such facts as that sketched above, should lead us deeply to feel for the perils of seamen ; and, when quietly seated by our own firesides, we hear the tempest howling wildly around us, we should, from our hearts, with the poet, exclaim,

"But chiefly spare, O King of Clouds,

The sailor on his airy shrouds,

When wrecks and beacons strew the steep,

And tempests toss the raging deep."

And here, by way of variety, as also with a view of showing the expedients which are resorted to on shipboard, to relieve the monotony of life at sea, an incident of a somewhat childish nature will be given. On the morning of the 1st of April, 1836, as we were cruising along the coast of Portugal, one of our Lieutenants, in the spirit of his boyish days, wished to put an April-fool joke upon a certain other officer, who shall be nameless. After taxing his brains somewhat severely for matter and rhyme, he sent him, in a note, the following verses: On the first of this month, my navy friend,

Deceit is permitted to rule,

And this little billet to you I send,

To make you an April-fool.

I've despatched these lines to the Doctor, too,
But to read them he was loth;

So a second edition I send to you,

And a fool make of one 'stead of both.

To these lines the following reply was sent:

Your April-fool verses, with pleasure, I've read,
And a way of escape is quite easy;

Which thus I proceed to explain, though instead
Of delighting, it sore may displease ye.
If rightly the case of your lines you would hit,
The bitee is less bit than the biter :

For if I am a fool for reading such wit,

How much greater a fool is the writer?

Our first visit to Portugal was during the autumn and winter, and the second was the following spring. As from the harbour of Lisbon, where was our place of rendezvous, I visited at leisure the adjoining city, together with Cintra and other places of interest in the vicinity, and also travelled from thence across Portugal to Madrid, it may not perhaps be amiss to allude in this connexion to some historical facts, which added much to the interest felt in visiting this once enterprising and powerful kingdom.

The ancient and classic name of Portugal was Lusitania. In the year 1095 the northern portion of the kingdom, from which the Moors had been expelled, was given by Alfonso the Sixth, king of Spain, to Henry, Count of Besançon, the husband of his daughter. The name Portugal, it has been supposed, was derived from Oporto, then its most important city, though others ascribe to it a different origin. The final expulsion of the Moors from the peninsula, together with other causes, gave at length to the kingdom of Portugal its present form and extent. At a subsequent period the adventurous spirit of the Portuguese discoverers widely extended the national sway in various parts, both of the old world and the new, and was at the same time the means of untold wealth to the mother land. Her flag was unfurled on every sea; she had rich and flourishing colonies in Africa, South America, and both the Indies; a hundred vessels and thousands of seamen engaged in the fisheries on the Banks of Newfoundland; and like England now was the leading naval and commercial power in the world. This is not the place to trace the causes of her downfall from such a height of greatness and of power, until at length she was so low that the royal family fled from their native land for safety, and returned only to be the servile minions of England, receiving from her dictation even a husband for her queen.

As to the recent history of Portugal, one needs but to look at the portrait of King John the Sixth, to perceive that he must have been a weak and inefficient man, for this fact is fully proclaimed by his large stupid eyes, his open drivelling mouth, and his fat, sensual, and senseless face. With such a father it is not strange, that one of a wild fiery spirit, like Don Miguel, should when a mere boy have been able repeatedly to assemble in the Capital a mob of 20,000 persons, and seize for the time the sovereign power. And when his father,

and the foreign ministers resident at Lisbon, decoyed him on board a British ship of war, and then banished him to England, and from thence to Austria, the evil was only for a time removed, and not wholly eradicated. When the old king died, and Don Pedro, his oldest son, resigned his claim to the crown in favor of his daughter the present queen, and consented that Don Miguel should share the throne with her provided he would marry her, the way for his return was opened, after he had taken his oath to these conditions, and also to support the new constitution and the then existing Cortes.

When Don Miguel first left Portugal he was a raw ignorant boy, scarce able to read and write, but his foreign education did wonders for him. He returned a showy polished gentleman, replied in a handsome manner to the compliments and speeches made to him at his levees by foreign ministers and others, and by his dashing equipage and the splendor with which he appeared in public, he completely won the hearts of his admiring subjects. So long as he followed the advice of a man who had once been a barber, but had risen from that art to that of a surgeon, which in these countries is a kindred one, he ruled wisely. Soon intoxicated with power, however, and sick of judicious restraint, he invited his prime counsellor to meet him at a given time at a house without the city, and then told him to continue there until he was sent for. Thus was he confined for two or three years. Don Miguel then, like Rehoboam of old, threw himself into the hands of a set of reckless young rakes, and with that ancient monarch, too, he said, by his actions at least, —“ My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins; for, whereas my father made your yoke heavy, I will add thereto my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions." He levied forced loans upon his subjects, had twelve or fifteen thousand of them thrown into prison, permitted his beard and whiskers to grow out to a truly savage length, dashed about in his carriages and yacht, and played the king-fool on no mean scale. Entirely disregarding his oath, he threw aside the new constitution, abolished the then existing Cortes, restored the old civil and religious despotism, and having obtained, from a council of the kingdom which he called, a decision based on ancient law of the realm, that Don Pedro as Emperor of Brazil was a foreign prince, and hence had no right either to hold the crown of Portugal himself, or to abdicate in favor of another, he forthwith assumed it as wholly his own. Even then, with a little prudence, he might still have retained his position, for the common people, led on by a bigoted priesthood, were strongly in favor of the old order of things; and, had he in some degree relaxed the oppressive grasp of his power, he might yet have been secure.

And here it may not be amiss to notice a single fact, connected with the history of the times, and illustrating the manner in which monarchs often reward their favorite subjects at the expense of the enterprising and industrious of the lower

orders. The Count de F is the richest man in Portugal. He has a splendid country-seat, gardens, and pleasure-grounds, with a marble opera-house and theatre, a short distance from Lisbon. He there gives magnificent entertainments, which some of the officers of our ship repeatedly attended. Don Miguel, in the day of his power, attempted to levy a forced loan upon the Count, to escape which he fled. When Don Pedro landed at Oporto he joined him and advanced him funds. As a reward for his loyalty he received the monopoly of the tobacco trade in Portugal for twelve years, which he immediately sold for the sum of $100,000 a year.

Some facts connected with a change of the Queen's ministers, which took place about the time we were there, may aid in rightly understanding the political character and prospects of the nation. A stipulation had been made to send ten thousand troops to aid the Queen of Spain in her war with the Carlists. This measure was unpopular with the army, because the mountain warfare in Spain had in it much of hardship and danger, with but little honor. The army officers were therefore very active in the national elections, and a few in Lisbon, who had thus made themselves peculiarly obnoxious to the ministry, were deprived of their commissions. Upon this two or three hundred of their brother officers collected in front of the palace, which sadly frightened the queen and her women. The officers demanded the restoration of their comrades or the acceptance of the resignation of all their commissions.

This movement of the officers, together with the result of the elections throughout the country, led to a change of the ministry. From these facts we may perceive, that there is danger that the influence of the army may become paramount in popular elections, and thus a kind of military despotism be established. The standing army contains men and officers to the number of 29,690, there being staff-officers enough for double the number of soldiers. To these we may add the Național Guard, who are regularly organized, clothed, and drilled, and amounting to about 100,000. Thus, in a population of only 3,000,000, there are, as military men, a very large proportion of those whose age and standing entitle

them to vote.

The Portuguese National Estate consists of what is called Crown property; that of the house of Braganza, or the private property of the family now on the throne; the Infantado,

which is an estate now annexed to the Crown, and the Church property, which has been confiscated. The three first produce or ought to produce $400,000 a year. The Church' property is valued at from $15,000,000 to $25,000,000. The expenses of the palace, or allowance to the Queen, is $1250 a day, or $ 456,250 a year. The income of the Government, in 1834, was $ 10,000,000, and the expenditures $15,000,000. The next year the expenditures were reduced to $13,000,000. The national debt is about $ 40,000,000.

The number of convents of monks and friars, previous to their recent abolition by Government, is said to have been 360, containing 5,760 inmates, with a yearly income of about $800,000. The number of nuns was 5,903, occupying 138 convents, with a revenue of about $940,000. The convents of friars and monks were suppressed by an order of the Government in May, 1834, and their property confiscated. Such of these orders as had not made themselves peculiarly obnoxious to Government for political offences, were promised sixty cents a day for their support. The number thus favored was at first 1,883, of whom 867 have since been stricken from the list for having shown themselves favorers of Don Miguel. The mendicant orders of friars, who were of low origin, have betaken themselves to their original employments of laborers and servants, and live well enough; but many of the more learned, such as the Benedictines and Augustinians, who had large incomes and were students only, have suffered much, not having even shoes to wear. A friend of mine in Lisbon informed me, that a short time before a beggar had come to a neighbour of his and informed him, that a monk, who had been known as a very learned man, was dying of hunger in a garret near. On visiting him it was found that he had begged of respectable families of his acquaintance until ashamed to do so longer, and had now concluded to die. He had tasted no food for thirty-six hours, and was in a truly famishing condition. His case was reported to the minister of the interior and something was given him.

The people everywhere in Catholic countries make a wide distinction between the parish clergy, who officiate in the churches, visit the sick, and bury the dead, and the lazy and comparatively useless friars. An old priest who officiates in one of the principal churches of Naples, remarked to me, that the bishops and the parish priests had a strong antipathy against the friars on account of their grossness, the coarse

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