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ing the commerce of the Old into its harbour mouths; and its peculiar possession of the largest gold and diamond mines in the globe.

In the Spanish invasion of 1761, the emigration was strongly proposed, and under the advice of Pambel, the ablest minister that Portugal ever possessed, and one of the most intelligent public men of Europe, it was on the point of being carried into effect. But the invasion passed away. The natural indolence of the Portuguese, the reluctance of the nation to see their government transferred to the mountains and forests three thousand miles off, and the equally strong reluctance of the Allied Powers to see Portugal left open to seizure by Spain, broke up the project, and abandoned the Brazils to their original solitude. In the commencement of Napoleon's power, Portugal became again the object of a French and Spanish intrigue of the most extraordinary kind. About the period of the Egyptian expedition, when French affairs were declining every where, and Suwarrow threatened a march to Paris, there appears to have been some intention on the part of the Spanish government, centred in the person of Godoy, to make common cause with the victorious allies. The old monarchy hated the young Republic; the Spanish Bourbons equally hated the French Jacobins; and there was a lure for the nation's vanity, in the recovery of the national honours, which had been a little tarnished by the French victories among the Pyrenees in the commencement of the war.

But Bonaparte came back from Egypt, the tide turned, the triumph was all on the side of the obnoxious Republic; and the Spanish cabinet, rejoicing that it had not yet plunged into open hostility with its formidable and vindictive neighbour, instantly laid aside all its preparations for war, and laboured, by the most humiliating subserviency, to win the favouritism of France. This was suffered for a while. Napoleon, now First Consul, was satisfied to appear a dupe, and Spain paid the price of this fancied triumph of subtlety, by being robbed, beaten, and degraded in every quarter of the globe. She had given herself, hand and foot, into the grasp of France, and France

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treated her as she has always treated the submissive. But deep as the veil of Napoleon's hypocrisy was, it was not deep enough to conceal his perfect knowledge and perfect memory of the projected alliance. Godoy, conscious that when the visitation came, it must chiefly fall upon his own head, now endeavoured personally to conciliate Napoleon, by a project of seizing on Portugal, always obnoxious as this little country was to France, from its close connexion with England. Napoleon had already conceived bolder views; but, for the purpose of blinding the Spanish minister to the ruin that he was hourly gathering round Spain, he adopted his profligate and treacherous design in its full extent, and ordered an army to march for the seizure of Portugal. In the partition of the conquest, Godoy was to be put in possession of the Alentejo, one of the most valuable of the Portuguese provinces, with the title of Sovereign Prince; and he was thus to be secured from the possible results of his growing unpopularity in Spain.

It was now that Napoleon began to make himself felt. His army for the Portuguese invasion was stipulated at 20,000 men; it amounted to 40,000. Its line of march through the Spanish territory was marked out by the secret treaty. It moved where it pleased, in scorn of the Spanish remonstrances; and when at length the Spanish cabinet began to tremble for the consequences of its own folly, Napoleon suddenly involved it in the disputes of the royal family, plunged it into such an abyss of perplexity, fear, treachery, and folly, that it instantly abandoned the government, and surrendered Spain entire into his unhallowed hands.

The history of that most memorable of modern wars, has been already written in the brightest page of our national glory. Napoleon there received the retribution of his long career of treachery and blood. The invasion of the Peninsula is the true date of his downfall. But while his main battle was turned on Spain, Portugal was not forgotten. seizure had now become only a part of his grand scheme of ambition, but it was instantly and indefatigably pursued. The troops which had ori

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ginally been directed towards that quarter, but called off for the moment by the pressing necessity of overwhelming Spain at once, were now poured back upon its frontier, and put under the command of Soult, the most sagacious and successful officer of the army.

But tyranny has its fears like meaner guilt, and some expressions of Soult awoke the jealousy of Napoleon, now Emperor. It was rumoured in Paris, that Soult might avail himself of his power, to resist the Imperial plans of subjugation, or even make himself independent. The rumour was probably untrue, and only one of the thousand instances of that perpetual suspicion which haunts the usurper. But the command of the force destined to seize Lisbon was suddenly assigned to Junot, a bold soldier, but too indolent for suspicion, and too amply satisfied with dependence on his master, to think of crowns and sceptres five hundred miles from the Parisian theatres. Junot now marched direct on the capital. This movement had been long foreseen by the British cabinet, and the Portuguese monarch had been sedulously supplied with proofs of the determination of Napoleon to seize and subvert his dynasty. But nothing could overcome the habitual apathy of the Portuguese court; the King was not to be persuaded by any thing short of the sight of the French army, that a hostile force would ever have the audacity to march in at the undefended avenues of his city, or seize his ungarrisoned castles. Lord Robert Fitzgerald was the British envoy at Lisbon at the time. This minister has derived an unfortunate celebrity from his being the brother of the late Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the miserable rebel, who, in violation of his duty as a subject, and of his oath as a soldier, attempted to revolutionize Ireland à la Française -the most impotent attempt of the most impotent mind; a Jacobin bagatelle, which even its chance of massacre could not render an object of consideration in the eyes of any man of common thought; but which brought to a speedy and disgraceful fate, this contemptible compound of fashionable absurdity and giddy

treason.

The Envoy had, from ill health, or some other reason, returned to England, leaving Lord Strangford, the Secretary of the Embassy, to transact affairs in his absence. No crisis could have been more disastrous for the one, or more lucky for the other. In mentioning Lord Strangford, it is but just to the honour of literature, and the memory of a good King, to say, that to his literary efforts he was indebted for the commencement of a career, which he has since followed with distinction. At an early age he had written poetry, and among the rest, some sonnets purporting to be translations of Camoens, but which were in fact but pretty paraphrases of the Portuguese poet. But they were poetry,-were on graceful subjects, gracefully expressed-were pleasing and popular, and in the course of their popularity they reached Windsor Castle. Diplomacy, or the army, are the usual roads of the nobility who pursue public em ployment, and the coincidence of those Portuguese poems with a vacancy for a Secretary of Legation at Lisbon, induced the good-natured King, George the Third, to fix upon the young poet for the appointment. Such at least was the story of the day.

The absence of the envoy naturally made his secretary the instrument of all the communications between the British government, now anxiously labouring to awake the Portuguese to its danger; and the Portuguese, alternately frightened and rash, doubting every thing, and daring every thing. The impossibility of defending the country by its native force was strongly urged by the British agent, and the project of carrying off the whole government to America was proposed again, as the only hope of preserving the King from a French prison, and the country from remediless slavery. The tardiness of the Portuguese government, on this occasion, was one of the most extraordinary instances of the inaptitude of understanding that results from long neglect of its exercise. At length Napoleon, in a burst of that arrogance which so often overthrows the subtlest contrivances of the proud, proclaimed that "The dynasty of the house of Braganza had ceased to reign." The secretary, armed with

this formidable auxiliary to his advice, hastened to the palace, where it produced instant alarm, and the order was given to prepare for the voyage to the Brazils. But the national spirit was not yet exorcised from those fluctuating_and_somnolent councils. The French were not come, the palace was not fired, nor Lisbon paying a forced loan to Napoleon's Field-Marshal; and satisfied with this, the preparations paused again. Napoleon's avidity was the notorious cause of his final ruin. But we must have a deeper knowledge of the history of his vivid and triumphant career, to know how often he who overreached all others overreached himself; how often he marred his own successes by furious rashness and violent cupidity, and how keenly he paid the penalty of grasping at all things, with a contempt alike of the common decorums even of triumph, and an insulting confidence in his own fortune. He would have been master of Portugal and its monarch, if he had kept every soldier of France, for a year to come, a hundred miles from its frontier. He threw his troops into the country, and from that moment it was his no longer; he seized the capital, and found that the only result was the escape of the King.

At length the news was brought that the enemy were not only in Portugal, but hurrying on at full speed; and that the next twenty-four hours would see Junot in Lisbon. The court were now fully roused at last. Orders were given for conveying the royal family, the court, and all their property, on board the fleet in the Tagus. On the 29th of November 1807 the embarkation was effected, with all the tumult, loss, and misery that belong to excessive haste and a fugitive throne. But it was effected; another day would have made the difference to the King of Portugal between sovereignty and a dungeon. The French dragoons arrived while the fleet were still within the Tagus, and the last look of the King shewed him the French flag waving on the hills above Lisbon. But he was escorted by the British fleet; and Junot, outrageously disappointed, was forced to be content with having driven a dynasty from the Old World to the New.

On the 17th of January the first intelligence was brought to Rio de Janeiro that the King and royal family had left Europe, and were at hand. The Brazilians were delighted with the prospect. They saw in this arrival the commencement of freedom of trade, of general opulence, of public improvements, and, above all, the high gratification of their pride in becoming a kingdom. From the first report of the good news, the whole sea-coast was in a state of excitement bordering on frenzy. Every hand was busy in preparation, every eye was turned to the telegraph which was to announce the first symptom of the royal fleet on the horizon; houses were furnished for the illustrious guests, palaces were cleared of the murkiness of a century; the masters of such mansions as were likely to be required for the accommodation of the court, were called on to surrender them, which they are said to have done without a murmur. Such was the eager loyalty of the time; all Brazil was in a ferment with anxiety, expectation, and rejoicing, that at last they were to see their monarch among them.

The royal squadron followed the intelligence in a few days. Its passage had been rapid, and on the 17th of January 1808, it was signalled as off the coast. But the public disappointment was proportionably great, on learning that this arrival was confined to a single ship, containing some of the ladies of the court. The fleet had been dispersed in a storm a month before; and as the dispersion was complete, fears began to be entertained for the safety of the King. But the Brazilians were resolved to have a fête at all risks. The day on which this single vessel appeared was the feast-day of St Sebastian, the usual illumination of one day was prolonged to three, and at the same time the churches rang with supplications and ceremonies for the royal safety. This suspense continued an entire month. At its close the public fears were appeased by an express from Bahia, announcing that the fleet had reached that port in safety, and all was exultation once

more.

The Sovereign, whom I have hitherto called King, was nominally

but Prince Regent until the year 1816, his mother, the Queen Donna Maria, dying in that year, and the Prince even then deferring the proclamation of his accession to the throne till the year of mourning was at a close. He arrived in his South American empire evidently willing to conciliate the people. His first act in landing at Bahia was to issue a decree worthy of a King. It was a declaration freeing the Brazils from all the fetters of the exclusive Portuguese system, and opening to them the commerce of all nations. The decree was received with universal rejoicing. The Regent then re-embarked for Rio de Janeiro, to the great sorrow of the Bahians. There he arrived on the 7th of March 1808, and was received with all the plaudits and honours that could be heaped on a popular monarch by a grateful and zealous people. The arrival of the court was a matter of eminent importance to the prosperity of Rio; it brought a conflux of the Portuguese nobility, who, of course, quickened expenditure in every direction; the court festivities not only enlivened the people, but excited their industry; foreigners began to visit the port, and before the expiration of a few months, several opulent and active foreign establishments were formed in the capital. The government seconded those favourable incidents with praiseworthy assiduity. Early in the same year Dom John proclaimed the right of every Brazilian to exercise trade, profession, and pursuit, according to his free will. The old restrictions which the jealousy of the parent state had, for nearly three centuries, laid upon the activity of this great province, were thus totally abolished. In the lan guage of the decree, "The government, desirous of increasing the wealth and prosperity of the Brazilian people by manufactures, agriculture, and arts, and thus increasing the number of productive hands, and diminishing the amount of that vice and misery which result from idleness and poverty, have now fully revoked every prohibition which still exists, and hereby encourage and invite all faithful Brazilians to engage in every kind of manufacture to which they are inclined, on a large

or limited scale, without reservation or exception." The next step was one of extraordinary daring for Portuguese legislation. It was the establishment of a newspaper. The fortyfirst birthday of the Prince Regent was made memorable in all the future records of Brazilian literature by the appearance of a royal gazette, published at a royal printing office! The spirit spread, and in a short period newspapers were propagated throughout the entire country.

The government, encouraged by the popularity with which its new measures were hailed on all sides, now pursued its manly and wise progress with double activity. It had actually to lay the foundations of the whole system of public prosperity, for hitherto this magnificent territory had known nothing of civilized rule but its monopolies, privations, and oppressions. The coarsest manufacture had been forbidden; the attempt to print a page of any thing, much more a newspaper page, would have sentenced the unlucky innovator to the mines. But now all the privileges of rational freedom, which amount, in their highest and happiest state, simply to the permission to every man to follow the bent of his own abilities without injury to others, and with protection in the fruits of his industry, were accorded to the population. A national bank was next formed, an essential expedient to quicken and direct the national industry. A royal treasury was then established, with a council of finance to regulate the public expenditure. Then followed royal schools of medicine, lazarettoes, royal powder manufactories, commissions of justice, ordinances for the Indians, &c. Vaccination was introduced soon after, a great blessing in a country where the small-pox still amounts to a frightful pestilence. In the rear of those important and necessary provisions followed the arts of enjoyment. In 1813 the Theatre of St John, so called in compliment to the Prince, was opened on the birthday of his son Dom Pedro. The higher donative of a public Library was given in the next year to Rio. The royal library having been saved from the grasp of the French, and conveyed with the fleet, it was now put under

the care of two learned Portuguese, and opened to the public. A new Treasury and Mint were built. Foreigners were invited to reside in the cities. Indian villages were raised. And the whole fabric of constitution al and patriotic activity was consummated by a royal decree of the 16th of November 1815, declaring Brazil to be elevated to the dignity of a kingdom; thenceforth to form with the European dominions of the monarch, the United Kingdoms of Portugal, Algarves, and Brazil." The proclamation was received with a transport of national joy. All the towns were illuminated. Deputations and addresses poured in upon the palace, thanksgivings were offered up in all the churches, and in the midst of the tumult of festivity and gratitude the national_constitution was born. On the 5th of January 1818, the Prince Regent, Dom John, was proclaimed and crowned first King of Brazil, or, in the ancient phrase of the Portuguese constitutions, "Royal, royal, royal, the very high and powerful Senhor, King Dom John the Sixth, our Lord."

Dom Pedro, whose reverses, activity, eccentricity, and present enterprise, now occupy so considerable a space in the eyes of Europe, was born in Lisbon, on the 12th of October 1798, the second son of Dom John VI., and of Carlotta Joaquina, daughter of Charles IV. of Spain. By the early death of his brother, Dom Antonio, he became heir-presumptive to the throne. His frame was feeble, and he seemed to be of a sickly temperament. In the first alarm of the Portuguese court, it had been intended to send the young heir to Brazil, for the purpose of securing him from French hands. But the rapid advance of Junot's troops made a general movement necessary, and the Prince was embarked along with the court. He was at this time ten years old, had acquired some education, and exhibited considerable intelligence. His quickness of mind and body on the voyage gave favourable symptoms of his future career. occupied himself much with the working and machinery of the ship; and, when not thus engaged, was often employed in reading Virgil at the foot of the mainmast, comparing

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the voyage of Eneas with his own. The fleet had put to sea in too much haste to provide the due accommodations for its multitude of passengers. Among other things, the stock of royal linen ran low, and the young Prince landed in shirts made of the sheets of his own bed. On the death of his tutor, which occurred at an early period after his arrival, the young Prince considered his education complete, and thenceforth pursued knowledge in his own way. He had a natural dexterity of hand, and became a turner, made a billiard table, a model of a man-of-war, and other ingenious things. He became a first-rate billiard player, and, by a better application of his tastes, an excellent musician, a performer on several instruments, and a clever musical composer. His feebleness of frame had now disappeared, and he exhibited himself as a capital horseman, a daring rider through the forests and precipices of his untamed country, and a charioteer of the highest breed of Jehu, distinguished for "driving furiously."

The time was now come when he must undergo the common fate of princes, and marry a wife of the ambassador's choosing. The bride selected was the Archduchess Leopoldina, daughter of the Emperor Francis the First, and sister of Maria Louisa, the Queen of Napoleon. The Marquis of Marialva had the honour to be the official lover and husband on the occasion. This marriage by proxy was celebrated on the 13th of May 1817; an auspicious day in the royal kalendar, as the anniversary of his father's birth, and his grandmo. ther's accession. The Austrian princess was received at Rio with great popularity; her florid face and light hair looked captivating in the eyes of the Brazilians; and her honest and good-humoured manners, which gave at once curious evidence of the rusticity of even the highest German life, and of her genuine good-nature, made her instantly and universally popular.

But other thoughts than marrying and giving in marriage were soon to try the wisdom of the government, and the energy of the Prince. Oporto, the headquarters of liberalism in Portugal, raised a riot, which it called a

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