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power, not to interfere. The pledge was offered; Count Itabayana declaring that he could give a clear and precise reply, that there was no intention of employing these stores in the civil dissensions of Portugal. Yet, the arms and powder were immediately conveyed, not to Brazil, but to Terceira. Terceira, the largest island of the Azores, which are under the dominion of Portugal, had declared in favour of the young queen, and driven off the troops of Don Miguel. The sending these arms there in such a mode awakened the suspicions of our government that men would soon be sent after them; and thus the island would be garrisoned and strengthened by England for war against the actual ruler of Portugal; a proceeding which would have been a direct breach of neutrality. In October, application was made for a conveyance for the Portuguese troops to Terceira. The reply of the Duke of Wellington was, that England was determined to maintain a neutrality in the civil dissensions of Portugal, and that the king, with that determination, could not permit the ports and arsenals of England to be made places of equipment for hostile armaments.' He intimated also that the 4000 Portuguese troops could not be allowed to remain in any English port, as a military body, ready for action. All needful hospitality should be shown them; but they must disband, and distribute themselves over the neighbouring towns and villages, or wherever they pleased, and not remain concentrated in Plymouth. The answer

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was, that sooner than separate and dissolve their military organisation, they would go to Brazil. The duke's reply was, that we did not wish to send them away, but that they could repair to Brazil if they chose; and a British convoy was offered to protect them from Portuguese cruisers. This convoy was declined. In the next December, application was made for permission and means of transport to send the refugees, unarmed, to Terceira; and this was refused on the ground of the former deception. The applicants were told: We have been already deceived; you profess to sail as unarmed men, but you will find arms on your arrival at Terceira.' The profession then, on the part of the Portuguese leaders, was that they were going to Brazil; but the government were aware that

VOL. II.

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they sailed with false clearances, which were obtained at the custom-house as for Gibraltar, for Virginia, and for other places. The expedition consisted of four vessels, which carried 652 officers and men, under the command of General Count Saldanha, who had been the Portuguese war-minister under the constitution. Distinct notice had been given to the heads of the expedition that any attempt to land at Terceira would be prevented; and that a British force would be found ready for the purpose stationed off the island.

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A small force of armed vessels had, in fact, been despatched under the command of Captain Walpole, of the Ranger, with instructions to cruise off the island, and to inform the Portuguese under Saldanha, if they appeared, that he had authority to prevent their landing. And,' continued the instructions, should they persist, notwithstanding such warning, in hovering about, or in making any efforts to effect a landing, you are then to use force to drive them away from that neighbourhood, and keep sight of them until you shall be convinced by the course they may steer, and the distance they may have proceeded, that they have no intention of returning to the Western Islands. As Captain Walpole was keeping his watch, on the 16th of January, off Port Praya, in Terceira, the expedition appeared. The vessel which carried Saldanha came first. It paid no attention to the two shots fired by the Ranger to bring them to; and appeared resolved to push into port at all hazards. Captain Walpole was compelled to fire; and his shot killed one man and wounded another. That single shot echoed round the world; and it was years before the reverberation died away. Everybody in all countries, who did not know what had passed unseen, asked what this could mean. England had received the young queen and her adherents with all hospitality and encouragement; had withdrawn her ambassador from Lisbon on the avowal of Don Miguel's usurpation; and now was firing upon the young queen's troops, when they were entering the port of an island which had remained faithful to her. The most mortifying comment was that of the usurper. Don Miguel announced in the Lisbon Gazette, that, the conduct of England towards Portugal, in such

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circumstances, had been above all praise.' The steady reply of the English government was that we were not at war with Portugal; and we should not go to war with Portugal while her conflicts were civil. Our obligations were to defend her, on her own appeal, against foreign aggression; and beyond these obligations we would not go. Our immediate business was to preserve our neutrality.

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Captain Walpole's shot compelled Saldanha to a conference, at the end of which he declared that he considered the whole expedition prisoners to the English, Captain Walpole took care not to indicate the direction in which the Portuguese should depart; and he told them to go where they pleased; only not to stay where they were. They sailed westwards; and he followed them, Saldanha keeping up the affectation of supposing him the captor of the expedition. On the 24th, when the vessels were within five hundred miles of Scilly, Captain Walpole thought it time to put an end to this pretence, lest any colour should be afforded, by their simultaneous arrival in the Channel, to the charge that England had violated her neutrality, to the injury of the constitutional cause. therefore sent to ask Saldanha where he was going. Saldanha expressed astonishment at the question, and said that prisoners of war always went wherever their captors chose to lead them. Captain Walpole, declaring that Saldanha's conduct determined him to escort the expedition no further, turned back to Terceira, where he intercepted another vessel charged with Portuguese officers, and fitted out from London. The vessel was just about to enter Port Praya. Captain Walpole supplied her with water and provisions, and bade her go. The case of the Portuguese does seem hard when viewed by itself; but their repeated deceptions show their own consciousness that they had no right to involve a neutral power, whose hospitality they were receiving, in their political conflicts. If they had brought their vessels and stores from Portugal or Brazil, or from any country beyond the limit of Portuguese alliance, it would have been well and good; but their conduct, however palliated by the temptation and distress of their circumstances, was not such as the English government could allow to pass unrebuked and unexplained.

Don Miguel's conduct was not such as to permit any reasonable person to suppose that the English government could have any partiality on his behalf. He set aside the sentences of the courts on political prisoners when they were not severe enough to please him; and actually caused death to be inflicted by his own mere order, when transportation had been decreed by the judges. He imprisoned multitudes, and confiscated their goods to himself without any pretence of law; and even attempted the life of his sister, the late regent, with his own hand. The princess was suspected by him of having sent a servant to England, with money and jewels, to save her property from his rapacious grasp. He rushed, armed, into her chamber, and demanded an account of the departure of this servant. When she did not reply, he rushed upon her with a bayonet which was fixed upon a pistol in his hand. She grappled with him, and actually threw him down. He sprang up, and again attacked her; but by this time her chamberlain was in the way. Don Miguel stabbed the chamberlain in the arm, and fired his pistol at the princess. The ball killed a servant by her side, but she was rescued by other servants, who came at the noise of the scuffle. Under such a sovereign, Portugal indeed deserved the pity expressed for her misfortunes in the king's speech, delivered by commission, at the close of the session of 1829, on the 24th of June: 'It is with increased regret that his majesty again adverts to the condition of the Portuguese monarchy. But his majesty commands us to repeat his determination to use every effort to reconcile conflicting interests, and to remove the evils which press so heavily upon a country, the prosperity of which must ever be an object of his majesty's solicitude.' The speech announced, in decorous terms, that the war with Turkey was turned over to Russia. Ambassadors from France and England were on their way to Constantinople; and Russia had not, on account of her own quarrel with the Porte, withdrawn her name from the negotiations for the final pacification of Greece. The king thanked his parliament for their attention to the affairs of Ireland and the Catholics, which he had especially recommended to their deliberations; and sincerely hoped

that the important measures they had passed would tranquillise Ireland, and draw closer the bonds of union between her and the rest of the empire.

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The king was not gone to the German baths and Hanover, leaving Clarence' or 'Sussex' to be king of the Catholics. He remained in seclusion at Windsor, Brighton, or London. It was generally understood that he was ill, and universally suspected that he was very miserable. The close of his unhappy life was now not far off; and the state of certain foreign affairs troubled him almost as much as the achievements of his own ministers and parliament at home.

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CHAPTER IX.

Affairs of France-Law of the Press - Villèle's Resignation - Prince Polignac-Polignac Ministry-Summons to the Chambers-Dissolution of the Chambers-The Elections-Ministers' Memorial-Issue of the Ordinances-Protest of the Journalists-Destruction of the Press Conference at the Tuileries — Messages to and from the King Marshal Marmont - Second Conference Retreat to St. Cloud-Wanderings of the Royal Family-Reception in EnglandConduct of the Revolution-Fate of the Ministers-Duke of Brunswick - Death of the Pope-Russia and Turkey-Settlement of Greece.

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Ir was about the political state of France that the king and ministers of England were troubled at the close of the year 1829. By that time, indeed, their relations of sympathy with the government of France were becoming the cause of more reasonable anxiety than even feelings of mutual hostility could have been. To understand this, we must look back a little.

At the time when Mr. Canning sent British troops to Portugal to repel aggressions from Spain, which were supported by France, there were three parties in France by whom England was very differently regarded. In 1827, indeed, there was such disorder in the political state of France, that there was scarcely any subject on which the three great parties were not in bitter enmity against,

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