CASE OF DONNA MARIA. It left the choice of time, manner, and conditions to himself, requiring only good faith, and interdicting nothing but fraudulent delay. Had he not (according to the principle of all hereditary monarchs) become King of Portugal at the instant of his father's demise, here would have been no person possessed of the legal and actual power in both countries necessary to carry the treaty of separation into effect. If the Portuguese had not acquiesced in his authority, they must have voluntarily chosen anarchy; for no one could have the power to discharge the duty imposed by treaty, or to provide for any of the important changes which it might occasion. The most remarkable example of this latter sort, was the order of succession. The separation of the two crowns rendered it absolutely impossible to preserve that order in both monarchies; for both being hereditary, the legal order required that both crowns should descend to the same person, the eldest son of Don Pedro-the very union which it was the main or sole purpose of the treaty to prevent. A breach in the order of succession became therefore inevitable, either in Portugal or Brazil. Necessity required the deviation. But the same necessity vested in Don Pedro, as a king and a father, the power of regulating in this respect, the rights of his family; and the permanent policy of monarchies required that he should carry the deviation no farther than the necessity. As the nearer female would inherit before the more distant male, Don Miguel had no right which was immediately involved in the arrangement to be adopted. It is acknowledged, that the two daughters of John VI., married and domiciled in Spain, had lost their rights as members of the Royal Family. Neither the Queen, nor indeed any other person, had a legal title to the regency, which in Portugal, as in France and England, was a case omitted in the constitutional laws, and, as no Cortes had been assembled for a century, could only be provided for by the King, who, of necessity, was the temporary lawgiver. The only parties who could be directly affected by the allotment of the two crowns, were the children of Don Pedro, the eldest of whom was in her sixth year. The more every minute part of this case is considered, the more obvious and indisputable will appear to be the necessity, that Don Pedro should retain the powers of a King of Portugal, until he had employed them for the quiet and safety of both kingdoms, as far as these might be endangered by the separation. He held, and holds, that crown as a trustee for the execution of the treaty. To hold it after the trust is performed, would be usurpation to renounce it before that period, would be treachery to the trust. That Don Pedro should have chosen Brazil, must have always been foreseen; for his election was almost determined by his preceding conduct. He preferred Brazil, where he had been the founder of a state, to Portugal, where the most conspicuous measures of his life could be viewed with no more He After this exposition of the rights and duties of Don Pedro, founded on the principles of public law, and on the obligations of treaty, and of the motives of policy which have influenced him in a case where he was left free to follow the dictates of his own judgment, let us consider very shortly what a conscientious ruler would, in such a case, deem necessary to secure to both portions of his subjects all the advantages of their new position. He would be desirous of softening the humiliation of one, of effacing the recent animosities between them, and of reviving their ancient friendship, by preserving every tie which reminded them of former union and common descent. He would therefore, even if he were impartial, desire that they should continue under the same Royal Family which had for centuries ruled both. would labour, as far as the case allowed, to strengthen the connections of language, of traditions, of manners, and of religion, by the resemblance of laws and institutions. He would clearly see that his Brazilian subjects never could trust his fidelity to their limited monarchy, if he maintained an absolute government in Portugal; and that the Portuguese people would not long endure to be treated as slaves, while those whom they were not accustomed to regard as their su periors were thought worthy of the most popular constitution. However much a monarch was indifferent or adverse to liberty, these considerations would lose nothing of their political importance: for a single false step in this path might overthrow monarchy in Brazil, and either drive Portugal into a revolution, or seat a foreign army in her provinces, to prevent it. It is evident that popular institutions can alone preserve monarchy in Brazil from falling before the principles of republican America; and it will hardly be denied, that, though some have questioned the advantage of liberty, no people were ever so mean-spirited as not to be indignant at being thought unworthy of it, as a privilege. Viewing liberty with the same cold neutrality, a wise statesman would have thought it likely to give stability to a new government in Portugal, and to be received there as some consolation for loss of dominion, Portugal, like all the other countries between the Rhine and the Mediterranean, had been convulsed by conquest and revolution. Am. bition and rapacity, fear and revenge, political fanaticism and religious bigotry,-all the ungovernable passions which such scenes excite, still agitated the minds of those who had been actors or victims of them. Experience has proved, that no expedient can effectually allay these deep-seated disorders, but the institution of a government in which all interests and opinions are represented, which keeps up a perpetual negotiation be tween them, which compels each in its turn to give up some part of its pretensions, and which provides a safe field of contest in these cases where a treaty cannot be concluded. Of all the stages in the progress of human society, the period which succeeds the troubles of civil and foreign war is that which most requires this remedy: for it is that in which the minds of men are the most dissatisfied, the most active, and the most aspiring. The experiment has proved most eminently successful in the Netherlands, now beyond all doubt the best governed country of the Continent. It ought to be owned, that it has also in a great measure succeeded in France, Italy, and Spain. Of these countries we shall now say nothing but that, being occupied by foreign armies, they cannot be quoted. If any principle be now universally received in government, it seems to be, that the disorders of such a country must either be contained by foreign arms, or composed by a representative con Etitution. But there were two circumstances which rendered the use of this latter remedy peculiarly advisable in Portugal. The first is, that it was so explicitly, repeatedly, and solemnly promised by John VI. In the second place, the establishment of a free constitution in Portugal, afforded an opportunity of sealing a definitive treaty of peace between the most discordant parties, by opening (after a due period of probation) to the Prince whom the Ultra-Royalist faction had placed in their front, a prospect of being one day raised to a higher station, under the system of liberty, than he could have expected to reach if both Portugal and Brazil had continued in slavery.* being liable to others. All comparison of the two systems is, in the present case, a mere exercise of ingenuity: for it is appa parent, that liberty has at this time no chance of establishment in Portugal, in any other form than that of a limited monarchy. The situation of Don Miguel renders it possible to form the constitution on an union between him, as the representative of the Ultra-Roy alists, and a young Princess, whose rights will be incorporated with the establishment of liberty. As soon as Don Pedro was informed of his father's death, he proceeded to the perform ance of the task which had devolved on him. He began, on the 20th of April, by granting a Constitutional Charter to Portugal. On the 26th, he confirmed the Regency appointed by his father, till the proclamation of the constitution. On the 2d of May he abdicated the crown in favour of his daughter, Donna Maria; on condition, however, that the abdication should not be valid, and the Princess should not quit Brazil, until it be made officially known to him, that the constitution had been sworn to, according to his orders; and that the espousals of the Prin cess with Don Miguel should have been made, and the marriage concluded; and that the abdidation and cession should not take place if either of these two conditions should fail."* On the 26th of April, Letters-Patent, or writs of summons, had issued, addressed to each of those who were to form the House of Peers, of which the Duke de Cadaval was named President, and the Patriarch Elect of Lisbon Vice-President. A Decree had also been issued on the same day, commanding the Regency of Portugal to take the neces sary measures for the immediate election of members of the other House, according to the tenor of the constitutional law. When these laws and decrees were received at Lisbon, the Regency proceeded instantly to put them into execution; in consequence of which, the Constitution was proclaimed, the Regency installed, the elections commenced, and the Cortes were finally assembled at Lisbon on the 30th of October. Whether the Emperor of Brazil had, by It is unworthy of a statesman, or of a phi- the laws of Portugal, the power to regulate losopher, to waste time in childishly regret- the affairs of that kingdom, had hitherto ting the faults of a Prince's personal character. given rise to no question. All parties with The rulers of Portugal can neither create in and without Portugal had treated his right circumstances, nor form men according to of succession to his father in the throne of their wishes. They must take men and that kingdom as undisputed. But no sooner things as they find them; and their wisdom had he exercised that right, by the grant of will be shown, by turning both to the best a free constitution, than it was discovered account. The occasional occurrence of great by some Ultra-Royalists, that he had forpersonal faults in princes, is an inconveni- feited the right itself; that his power over ence of hereditary monarchy, which a wise Portugal was an usurpation, and his constitulimitation of royal power may abate and tional law an absolute nullity! Don Miguel, mitigate. Elective governments are not alto-whose name was perpetually in the mouth gether exempt from the same evils, besides This was written in the month of December, 1826, before the plan for conciliating the two opposite political parties by means of a matrimonial alliance between Donna Maria and her uncle was abandoned.-ED. of these writers, continued at Vienna. The Spanish Government and its officers breathed menace and invective. Foreign agency * Diario Fluminense, of the 20th of Mav + Ibid. 3d of May manifested itself in Portugal; and some bodies of troops, both on the northern and southern frontier, were excited to a sedition for slavery. "All foreigners," say the objectors," are, by the fundamental laws of Portugal, excluded from the succession to the crown. This law passed at the foundation of the monarchy, by the celebrated Cortes of Lamego, in 1143, was confirmed, strengthened, and enlarged by the Cortes of 1641; and under it, on the last occasion, the King of Spain was declared an usurper, and the House of Braganza were raised to the throne. Don Pedro had, by the treaty which recognised him as Emperor of Brazil, become a foreign sovereign, and was therefore, at the death of his father, disqualified from inheriting the crown of Portugal.” A few years after the establishment of the Normans in England, Henry, a Burgundian Prince, who served under the King of Castile | in his wars against the Moors, obtained from that monarch, as a fief, the newly conquer ed territory between the rivers Douro and Minho. His son Alfonso threw off the superiority of Castile, and, after defeating the Moors at the great battle of Campo Ouriquez, in 1139, was declared King by the Pope, and acknowledged in that character by an assembly of the principal persons of the community, held at Lamego, in 1143, composed of bishops, nobles of the court, and, as it should seem, of procurators of the towns. The crown, after much altercation, was made hereditary, first in males and then in females; but on condition "that the female should always marry a man of Portugal, that the kingdom might not fall to foreigners; and that if she should marry a foreign prince, she should not be Queen;""because we will that our kingdom shall go only to the Portuguese, who, by their bravery, have made us King without foreign aid." On being asked whether the King should pay tribute to the King of Leon, they all rose up, and, with naked swords uplifted, and answered, "Our King is independent; our arms have delivered us; the King who consents to such things shall die." The King, with his drawn sword in his hand, said, "If any one consent to such, let him die. If he should be my son, let him not reign." The Cortes of 1641, renewing the laws of Lamego, determined that, according to these fundamental institutions, the Spanish Princes had been usurpers, and pronounced John, Duke of Braganza, who had already been seated on the throne by a revolt of the whole people, to be the rightful heir. This Prince, though he appears not to have had any pretensions as a male heir, yet seems to have been the representative of the eldest female who had not lost the right of succession by marriage to a foreigner; and, consequently, he was entitled to the crown, according to the order of succession established at Lamego. The Three Estates presented the Heads of laws to the King, praying that effectual means might be taken to enforce the exclu sion of foreigners from the throne, according to the laws passed at Lamego. But as the Estates, according to the old constitution of Portugal, presented their Chapters severally to the King, it was possible that they might differ; and they did so, in some respects, on this important occasion,-not indeed as to the end, for which they were equally zealous, but as to the choice of the best means of securing its constant attainment. The answer of the King to the Ecclesiastical Estate was as follows:-"On this Chapter, for which I thank you, I have already answered to the Chapters of the States of the People and of the Nobles, in ordaining a law to be made in conformity to that ordained by Don John IV., with the declarations and modifications which shall be most conducive to the conservation and common good of the kingdom." Lawyers were accordingly appointed to draw up the law; but it is clear that the reserve of the King left him ample scope for the exercise of his own discretion, even if it had not been rendered necessary by the variation between the proposals of the three Orders, respecting the means of its execution. But, in order to give our opponents every advantage, as we literally adopt their version, so we shall suppose (for the sake of argument) the royal assent to have been given to the Chapter of the Nobles without alteration, and in all its specific provisions; it being that on which the Absolutists have chosen to place their chief reliance. The Chapter stands thus in their editions:-"The State of the Nobility prays your Majesty to enact a law, ordaining that the succession to the kingdom may never fall to a foreign Prince, nor to his children, though they may be the next to the last in possession; and that, in case the King of Portugal should be called to the succession of another crown, or of a greater empire, he be compelled to live always there; and that if he has two or more male children, the eldest son shall assume the reins in the foreign country, and the second in Portugal, and the latter shall be the only recognised heir and legitimate successor; and, in case there should be only one child to inherit these two kingdoms, these said kingdoms shall be divided be tween the children of the latter, in the order and form above mentioned. In case there shall be daughters only, the eldest shall succeed in this kingdom, with the declaration that she marry here with a native of the country, chosen and named by the Three Estates assembled in Cortes: should she marry without the consent of the States, she and her descendants shall be declared incapable, and be ousted of the succession; and the Three Estates shall be at liberty to choose a King from among the natives, if there be no male relation of the Royal Family to whom the succession should devolve.” Now the question is, whether Pedro IV. as the monarch of Brazil, a country separated from Portugal by treaty, became a foreign prince, in the sense intended by these an cient laws, and was thereby disabled from | tion is, by the rules of fair construction, apinheriting the crown of Portugal on the decease of John VI.? plicable to every truly and evidently parallel case; and there is precisely the same reason for the tutelary power of Pedro IV. as there would be for that of a father, in the event contemplated by the law of 1641. The effect of the Treaty of Rio Janeiro cannot be inconsistent with this temporary union. Even on the principle of our opponents, it must exist for a shorter or longer time. The Treaty did not deprive Pedro of his option between Portugal and Brazil: he must have possessed both crowns, when he was called upon to determine which of them he would lay down. But if it be acknowledged that a short but actual union is necessary, in order to effect the abdication, how can it be pretended that a longer union may not be equally justifiable, for the honest purpose of quiet and amicable separation? tion by treaty to separate the kingdoms, the whole is consistent with itself, and every measure is quietly and regularly carried into effect. This question is not to be decided by verbal chicane. The mischief provided against in these laws was twofold:-the supposed probability of mal-administration through the succession of a foreigner, ignorant of the Country and not attached to it; and the loss of domestic government, if it fell by inheritance to the sovereign of another, especially a greater country. The intention of the lawgiver to guard against both these occurrences affords the only sure means of ascertaining the meaning of his words. But the present case has not even the slightest tendency to expose the country to either danger. Pedro IV. is a native Portuguese, presumed to have as much of the knowledge and feelings belonging to that character as any of his predecessors. The danger to Portuguese inde- The Treaty of Rio de Janeiro would have pendence arises from the inheritance of the been self-destructive, if it had taken from crown devolving in perpetuity, and without Pedro the power of sovereignty in Portugal qualification, to a foreign sovereign. Such immediately on the death of his father: for was the evil actually experienced under in that case no authority would exist capable Philip II. King of Spain, and his two succes- of carrying the Treaty into execution. It sors; and the most cursory glance over the must have been left to civil war to determine law of 1641 shows that the Cortes had that who was to govern the kingdom; while, if case in view. Had the present resembled it we adopt the principle of Pedro's hereditary in the important quality of a claim to un-succession by law, together with his obligaconditional inheritance, the authority would have been strong. But, instead of being annexed to a foreign dominion, Pedro IV. takes it only for the express purpose of effectually and perpetually disannexing his other terri- To these considerations we must add the tories from it;-a purpose which he imme-recognition of Pedro "as heir and successor" diately proceeds to carry into execution, by in the Ratification. Either John VI. had establishing a different line of succession power to decide this question, or he had not. for the crowns of both countries, and by an If he had not, the Treaty is null; for it is abdication, which is to take effect as soon as impossible to deny that the recognition is he has placed the new establishment in a really a condition granted to Brazil, which is state of security. The case provided against a security for its independence, and the by the law is, that of permanent annexation breach of which would annul the whole to a foreign crown: the right exercised by contract. In that case, Portugal and Brazil Pedro IV. is, that of a guardian and adminis- are not legally separated. Pedro IV. cannot trator of the kingdom, during an operation be called a foreign prince;" and no law which is necessary to secure it against such forbids him to reside in the American proannexation. The whole transaction is con- vinces of the Portuguese dominions. In that formable to the spirit of the two laws, and case also, exercising all the power of his imnot repugnant to their letter. mediate predecessors, his authority in Portugal becomes absolute; he may punish the Absolutists as rebels, according to their own principles; and it will be for them to show, that his rights, as supreme lawgiver, can be bounded by laws called 'fundamental.' But,-to take a more sober view,-can it be doubted, that, in a country where the monarch had exercised the whole legislative power for more than a century, his authoritative interpretation of the ancient laws, especially if it is part of a compact with another state, must be conclusive? By repeatedly declaring in the introduction to the Treaty, and in the Ratification of it, that Pedro IV. was "heir and successor" of Portugal, and that he was not divested of that character by the Treaty, which recognised him as Sove reign of Brazil, John VI. did most deliberately and solemnly determine, that his eldest That a temporary administration is perfectly consistent with these laws, is evident from the passage:-"If the King of Portugal should be called to the succession of another crown, and there should be only one child to inherit the two kingdoms, these said kingdoms shall be divided among the children of the latter"-meaning after his death, and if he should leave children. Here then is a case of temporary administration expressly provided for. The father is to rule both kingdoms, till there should be at least two children to render the division practicable. He becomes, for an uncertain, and possibly a long period, the provisional sovereign of both; merely because he is presumed to be the most proper regulator of territories which are to be divided between his posterity. Now, the principle of such an express excep on was not a "foreign prince" in the sense serve and maintain the constitution. In the in which these words are used by the ancient act of his espousals he acknowledges the sólaws. Such too seems to have been the vereignty of the young Queen, and describes sense of all parties, even of those the most himself as only her first subject. The mutibitterly adverse to Pedro IV., and most deep-nies of the Portuguese soldiers have ceased; ly interested in disputing his succession, till but the conduct of the Court of Madrid still he granted a Constitutional Charter to the continues to keep up agitation and alarm: people of Portugal. for no change was ever effected which did John VI., by his decree for the re-esta- not excite discontent and turbulence enough blishment of the ancient constitution of Por- to serve the purposes of a neighbour straintugal, had really abolished the absolute mo- ing every nerve to vex and disturb a country. narchy, and in its stead established a govern- The submission of Don Miguel to his brother ment, which, with all its inconveniences and and sovereign are, we trust, sincere. He defects, was founded on principles of liberty. will observe his oath to maintain the constiFor let it not be supposed that the ancient tution, and cheerfully take his place as the constitution of Portugal had become forgot- first subject of a limited monarchy. The ten or unknown by disuse for centuries, like station to which he is destined, and the inthose legendary systems, under cover of fluence which must long, and may always which any novelty may be called a restora- belong to it, form together a more attractive tion. It was perfectly well known; it was object of ambition than any thing which he long practised; and never legally abrogated. could otherwise have hoped peaceably and Indeed the same may be affirmed, with lawfully to attain. No man of common pruequal truth, of the ancient institutions of dence, whatever may be his political opi the other inhabitants of the Peninsula, who nions, will advise the young Prince to put were among the oldest of free nations, but such desirable prospects to hazard. He will who have so fallen from their high estate as be told by all such counsellors of every party to be now publicly represented as delighting that he must now adapt himself to occur in their chains and glorying in their shame. rences which he may learn to consider as In Portugal, however, the usurpation of ab- fortunate; that loyalty to his brother and solute power was not much older than a cen- his country would now be his clearest intertury. We have already seen, that the Cortes est, if they were not his highest duty; that of Lamego, the founders of the monarchy, he must forget all his enmities, renounce all proclaimed the right of the nation in a spirit his prejudices, and even sacrifice some of his as generous, and in a Latinity not much partialities; and that he must leave full time more barbarous, than that of the authors of to a great part of the people of Portugal to Magna Charta about seventy years later. recover from those prepossessions and reThe Infant Don Miguel has sworn to ob-pugnances which they may have contracted. CHARACTER OF CHARLES, FIRST MARQUIS CORNWALLIS." CHARLES, Marquis Cornwallis, the repre- | are therefore imposed on those who enjoy sentative of a family of ancient distinction, advantages which they have not earned. and of no modern nobility, had embraced Noblemen are required to devote themselves in early youth the profession of arms. The to danger for the safety of their fellow-citi sentiments which have descended to us from zens, and to spill their blood more readily ancient times have almost required the sa- than others in the public cause. Their crifice of personal ease, and the exposure choice is almost limited to that profession of personal safety, from those who inherit which derives its dignity from the contempt distinction. All the superiority conferred of danger and death, and which is preserved by society must either be earned by pre- from mercenary contamination by the severe vious services, or at least justified by subse- but noble renunciation of every reward ex quent merit. The most arduous exertions cept honour. In the early stages of his life there were This character formed the chief part of a dis- no remarkable events. His sober and wellcourse delivered at Bombay soon after the de-regulated mind probably submitted to that rease of Lord Cornwallis. industry which is the excellence of a subor |