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and of the Foreign Secretary it is enough to say, that he was Lord Dadley, a nobleman whose condition of mind then was nearly as eccentric as it is now. With a Sovereign racked by pain, and a minister proverbial for the ramblings of his mind, we must require more evidence than has hitherto transpired, to decide that any pledge was given which could convict the giver of a deliberate intention to deceive.

have no idea of charging the English councils with any factious and intermeddling ambition. They may have been involved in the dispute by the original weakness of Mr Canning's intervention-policy, and by the new system of flattering the French government. We speak of the whole transaction, not in the spirit of party, but in the common sense of everyday life. With the Portuguese choice of the sitter on the throne, England has unquestionably no right whatever to interfere.

But let us suppose that he did intend to deceive-that he was dipped in the deepest stain of tergiversation But in one point we must beware -what is that to the English people? lest we are, however unconsciously, Where have we acquired the right of drawing a degree of guilt upon ourbringing foreign princes into judg- selves; and that point is, the present ment, let their veracity be what it practice of raising soldiers for the may? The point is altogether per- Portuguese contest. No man has a sonal. It involves no breach of na- right to shed the blood of man but tional treaty, it has perfected no in self-defence, or for the protection national offence. It may be a matter of the weak, and this latter only in for the Portuguese nation to consi- extreme cases. The soldier fighting. der. But it is evident that they have for his country, fights virtually in not considered it to be worth their self-defence. But who can place the attention; and what right have we to recruits that are going off daily to declare to Portugal that she shall not fight in Portugal, in the list of selfhave a King according to her own defenders? We are not at war with choice, because he broke his oath to Portugal as a nation, yet do we not his Austrian jailer, or beguiled the sanction, by this winking at the act, wandering intellects of an English the crime of men going to shoot PorSecretary? To put the extreme case- tuguese for their pay? The same if Don Miguel were personally guilty rule which now leads the British reof every crime that could degrade cruit to fight in Portugal, would the human character, we might sanction murder on the high-road. scorn and hate the individual, we The highwayman shoots men for might pronounce him unfit to sit what he can get by it. What perupon a throne, if we will, but the sonal feeling can the British half-pay arbitration does not rest with us. The officer, or the common soldier, have Portuguese nation, fully acquainted in the quarrel between two Portuwith the man and the character, have guese princes? His feeling is, notochosen him for their monarch. And riously and simply, a desire to be which among our most red-hot set- employed, to get pay and promotion, tlers of nations, will venture to say and for that purpose he sheds the that they must wait for the approba- blood of Portuguese officers and soltion of England on the matter? if diers; strangers, whom he would they have chosen ill, the ill be on never meet but for thus seeking them. But the choice can be no their blood; and with whom he has more an affair of ours than the cala- no more national or personal quarmity. The Portuguese have shewn rel than with the man in the moon. that their choice was spontaneous; Beyond all doubt, this act of utterly they have since shewn that they ad- unprovoked and unnecessary aggreshere to their choice; they are at this 'sion in the individual, is murderhour holding out defiance to the two murder in the eyes of God and man. most powerful nations of Europe, In this statement, we advocate the England and France, in assertion of cause, no more of Dom Miguel than their choice and in the name of of Dom Pedro. Embarking in the justice, freedom, and common sense, service of either, the British officer what right have we to say that they would be equally criminal. Our shall not have the King Whom t they government may not be able to prehave chosen? In these remarks wevent the entering of private and mi,

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order to quiet the public tumults, and preserve any, shew of dependence on Dom Pedro. But with this nominal Sovereign the Portuguese nation were not content. They considered a regency to be an acknowledgment of dependence on a power which had constituted itself altogether a separate and foreign state. With a perfectly justifiable national feeling, they refused to suffer the colony to become the disposer of the parent state; and they, in 1828, proclaimed Dom Miguel king, for the mere object of national independence, and in undoubted consistency with the spirit of their whole code of laws referring to the throne. Dom Pedro now, for the purpose of shaking Dom Miguel's succession, transferred to his daughter, Donna Maria, a right which existed no longer, he having already alienated it from himself, and set her up as a rival to the prince of the national choice. The Portuguese nation, still considering that the government of a child must be but a contrivance for keeping the country under the jurisdiction of the father, and being justified by the laws of the Cortes, rejecting the foreign King and his descendants, refused to receive her as their Queen; and have armed in defence of the sovereign whom they chose, certainly without any intervention of foreign aid, for whom they are now fighting, and whom they have hitherto shewn no tendency whatever, under all their temptations, to abjure.

litary persons into the quarrels of foreign countries. But over its half pay list it has a hold; and if it shall suffer a single individual to raise men in this country for either of the parties, it, beyond all controversy, puts itself into a position of bellige rency. On this head we shall rejoice to see our policy retracted, If the Portuguese princes will continue to present to Europe a spectacle unprecedented among all the frightful, disgusting, and guilty spectacles of later times, two brothers seeking each other's blood; let the British take the only part suitable to a wise and moral people; let the British nation distinctly refuse to be an accomplice in this hideous exhibition; . or, if we must exert our power, let us exert it to conciliate and appease, and put forth our intervention to stop a contest which outrages every public interest, every principle of humanity, and every command of religion. The exact state of the question is this. Before the death of the late King John the Sixth, Dom Pedro had, by an act of direct revolt, declared Brazil independent of Portugal, and bimself Emperor. On the death of the late King, in 1826, the Portuguese nation, notwithstanding the revolt, offered their crown to Dom Pedro, on condition of his returning to Portugal, which, by the ancient laws, was essential to his possession of the throne. The throne then, by those laws, came to the second son of the late King, but that son was a prisoner in Austria. A regency was It is evident that Dom Pedro, withappointed in this emergency, by the out his foreign brigades, and his foinfluence of Dom Pedro, at the head reign money, could not stay an hour of which was his sister, the Infanta, in Portugal; it is equally clear that which regency was suffered only in Dom Miguel is fighting with no other consequence of the annexed condi- strength than the force of the countion, that on the second son's arri- try. It is equally clear that a conving at the age of twenty-five that tinuance of the struggle can only son should assume the regency; a alienate Portugal from England, disprovision which notoriously pointed turb Spain with fears of revolution out Dom Miguel, he being twenty- abetted by England, and, as the rethree at the time, but incapable of sult, make them both listen to the first the throne by reason of his being in overtures from Austria and Russia captivity, But even with this proviso as conservatives of the old European the national discontent grew so vio- system, in case of that war which lent, that it produced the insurrec- now seems to menace Europe. The tion and invasion, which were put character of the individuals is comdown only by the British troops sent paratively unimportant, to the quesout by Me Canning, on the pretext tion. The only point for England to that, as coming from Spain, they con-consider is, whether, she can have any stituted a Spanish invasion. It was right to dictate the choice of a Sovethus found necessary to release Dom reign to an independent nation, Miguel, and appoint him Regent in

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THE spirit had indeed fled-the ethereal essence had departed-and the poor wasted and blood-stained husk which lay before us, could no longer be moved by our sorrows, or gratified by our sympathy. Yet I stood riveted to the spot, until I aroused by the deep-toned voice of Padre Carera, who, lifting up his hands towards heaven, addressed the Almighty in extempore prayer, beseeching his mercy to our erring sister who had just departed. The unusualness of this startled me."As the tree falls, so must it lie," had been the creed of my forefathers, and was mine; but now for the first time I heard a clergyman wrestling in mental agony, and interceding with the God who hath said, "Repent before the night cometh in which no man can work," for a sinful creature, whose worn-out frame was now as a clod of the valley. But I had little time for consideration, as presently all the negro servants of the establishment set up a loud howl, as if they had lost their nearest and dearest. "Oh, our poor dear young mistress is dead! She has gone to the bosom of the Virgin!-She is gone to be happy!"

"Then why the deuce make such a yelling?" quoth Bang in the other room, when this had been translated to him. Glad to leave the chamber of death, I entered the large hall, where I had left our friend.

"I say, Tom-awful work. Hear how the rain pours, and-murdersuch a flash! Why, in Jamaica, we don't startle greatly at lightning, but absolutely I heard it hiss-there, again"-the noise of the thunder stopped further colloquy, and the wind now burst down the valley with a loud roar.

Don Ricardo joined us. "My good friends-we are in a scrape herewhat is to be done ?-a melancholy

The Tempest.

affair altogether."-Bang's curiosity here fairly got the better of him.

"I say, Don Ricardibus-do-beg pardon, though-do give over this humbugging outlandish lingo of yours-speak like a Christian, in your mother tongue, and leave off your Spanish,which now,since I know it is all a bam, seems to sit as strangely on you as my grandmother's toupee would on Tom Cringle's Mary."

"Now do pray, Mr Bang," said I, when Don Ricardo broke in

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Why, Mr Bang, I am, as you now know, a Scotchman."

"How do I know any such thing —that is, for a certainty-while you keep cruising amongst so many lingoes, as Tom there says ?"

"The docken, man," said I.-Don Ricardo smiled.

"I am a Scotchman, my dear sir; and the same person who in his youth was neither more nor less than wee Richy Cloche, in the long town of Kirkaldy, is in his old age Don Ricardo Campana of St Jago de Cuba. But more of this anon,-at present we are in the house of mourning, and alas the day! that it should be so."

By this time the storm had increased most fearfully, and as Don Ricardo, Aaron, and myself, sat in the dark damp corner of the large gloomy hall, we could scarcely see each other, for the lightning had now ceased, and the darkness was so thick, that had it not been for the light from the large funeral wax tapers, which had been instantly lit upon poor Maria's death, in the room where she lay, that streamed through the open door, we should have been unable to see our very fingers before

us.

"What is that ?" said Campana; "heard you nothing, gentlemen?"

In the lulls of the rain and the blast, the same long low cry was

heard, which had startled me by Maria's bedside, and occasioned the sudden and fatal exertion which had been the cause of the bursting out afresh of the blood vessel.

"Why," said I, "it is little more than three o'clock in the afternoon yet, dark as it is; let us sally out, Mr Bang, for I verily believe that the hollo we have heard is my Captain's voice, and, if I conjecture rightly, he must have arrived at the other side of the river, probably with the Doctor."

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Why, Tom," quoth Aaron, "it is only three in the afternoon, as you say, although by the sky I could almost vouch for its being midnight, --but I don't like that shouting-Did you ever read of a water-kelpie, Don Richy?"

"Poo, poo, nonsense," said the Don; "Mr Cringle is, I fear, right enough." At this moment the wind thundered at the door and windowshutters, and howled amongst the neighbouring trees and round the roof, as if it would have blown the house down upon our devoted heads. The cry was again heard, during a momentary pause.

"Zounds!" said Bang, "it is the skipper's voice, as sure as fate-he must be in danger-let us go and see, Tom."

"Take me with you," said Campana, the foremost always when any good deed was to be done, and, in place of clapping on his great-coat to meet the storm, to our unutterable surprise, he began to disrobe himself, all to his trowsers and large straw hat.

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He then called one of the servants, "trae me un lasso." The lasso, a long thong of plaited hide, was forthwith brought; he coiled it up in his left hand. "Now, Pedro," said he to the negro servant who had fetched it, (a tall strapping fellow,) you and Gaspar follow me. Gentlemen, are you ready?" Gaspar appeared, properly accoutred, with a long pole in one hand and a thong similar to Don Ricardo's in the other, he as well as his comrade being stark naked all to their waistcloths. "Ah, well done, my sons," said Don Ricardo, as both the negroes prepared to follow their master. So off we started to the door, although we heard the tormenta raging without with appalling fury. Bang undid the

latch, and the next moment he was flat on his back, the large leaf having flown open with tremendous violence, capsizing him like an infant.

The Padre from the inner chamber came to our assistance, and by our joint exertions we at length got the door to again and barricaded, after which we made our exit from the lee-side of the house by a window. Under other circumstances, it would have been difficult to refrain from laughing at the appearance we made. We were all drenched in an instant after we left the shelter of the house, and there was old Campana, naked to the waist, with his large sombrero and long pigtail hanging down his back, like a mandarin of twenty buttons. Next followed his two black assistants, naked as I have described them, all three with their coils of rope in their hands, like a hangman and his deputies; then advanced friend Bang and myself, without our coats or hats, with handkerchiefs tied round our heads, and our bodies bent down so as to stem the gale as strongly as we could.

But the planting attorney, a great schemer, a kind of Will Wimble in his way, had thought fit, of all things in the world, to bring his umbrella, which the wind, as might have been expected, reversed most unceremoniously the moment he attempted to hoist it, and tore it from the staff, so that, on the impulse of the moment, he had to clutch the flying red silk and thrust his head through the centre, where the stick had stood, as if he had been some curious flower. As we turned the corner of the house, the full force of the storm met us right in the teeth, when flap flew Don Ricardo's hat past us; but the two blackamoors had taken the precaution to strap each of theirs down with a strong grass lanyard. We continued to work to windward, while every now and then the hollo came past us on the gale louder and louder, until it guided us to the fording which we had crossed on our first arrival. We stopped there ;—the red torrent was rushing tumultuously past us, but we saw nothing save a few wet and shivering negroes on the opposite side, who had sheltered themselves under a cliff, and were busily employed in attempting to light a fire. The holloing continued.

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He might as well have spared his breath, for, although they saw his gestures and the motion of his lips, they no more heard him than we did them, as they very considerately in return made mouths at us, bellowing no doubt that they could not hear us. "Don Ricardo-Don Ricardo!" at this crisis sung out Gaspar, who had clambered up the rock, to have a peep about him," Ave Maria-Alla son dos pobres, que peresquen pronto, si nosotros no pueden ayudarlos."

"Whereabout?" said Campana"whereabouts? speak, man, speak." "Down in the valley-about a quarter of a league, I see two men on a large rock, in the middle of the stream; the wind is in that direction, it must be them we heard."

"God be gracious to us! true enough-true enough, let us go to them then-my children." And we again all cantered off after the excellent Don Ricardo. But before we could reach the spot, we had to make a detour, and come down upon it from the precipitous brow of the beetling cliff above, for there was no beach nor shore to the swollen river, which was here very deep, and surged, rushing under the hollow bank with comparatively little noise, which was the reason why we heard the cries so distinctly.

The unfortunates who were in peril, whoever they might be, seemed to comprehend our motions, for one of them held out a white handkerchief, which I immediately answered by a similar signal, when the shouting ceased, until, guided by the negroes, we reached the verge of the cliff, and looked down from the red crumbling bank on the foaming water, as it swept past beneath. It was here about thirty yards broad, divided by a rocky wedgelike islet, on which grew a profusion of dark bushes and one large tree, whose topmost branches were on a level with us where we stood. This tree was divided, about twelve feet from the root, into two limbs, in the fork of which sat, like a big monkey, no less a personage than Captain Nhim self, wet and dripping, with his clothes besmeared with mud, and shivering

with cold. At the foot of the tree sat in rueful mood, a small antique beau of an old man in a coat which had once been blue silk, wearing breeches the original colour of which no man could tell, and without his wig, his clear bald pate shining amidst the surrounding desolation like an ostrich's egg.

Beside these worthies stood two trembling way-worn mules with drooping heads, their long ears hanging down most disconsolately. The moment we came in sight, the skipper hailed us.

"Why, I am hoarse with bawling, Don Ricardo, but here am I and el Doctor Pavo Real, in as sorry a plight as any two gentlemen need be. On attempting the ford two hours ago, blockheads as we were -beg pardon, Don Pavo"-the Doctor bowed, and grinned like a baboon-"we had nearly been drowned; indeed, we should have been drowned entirely, had we not brought up on this island of Barataria here. -But how is the young lady? tell me that," said the excellent-hearted fellow, even in the midst of his own danger.

"Mind yourself, my beautiful child," cried Bang. How are we to get you on terra firma?”!

Poo-in the easiest way possible," rejoined he, with true seamanlike self-possession. "I see you have ropes-Tom Cringle, heave me the end of the line which Don Ricardo carries, will you ?"

"No, no-I can do that myself," said Don Ricardo, and with a swing he hove the leathern noose at the skipper, and whipped it over his neck in a twinkling. The Scotch Spaniard, I saw, was pluming himself on his skill, but N- was up to him, for in an instant he dropped out of it,while in slipping through he let it fall over a broken limb of the tree.

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