Part 28

In July, 1832, the ex-emperor with an army of 7,500 men arrived at Oporto, where he was enthusiastically welcomed, and Dom Miguel then laid siege to the city. European opinion was divided between the two parties; partisans of freedom and of constitutional government called the Miguelites “slaves of a tyrant,” while lovers of absolutism, alluding to the loans raised by the ex-emperor, used to speak of the “stock-jobbing Pedroites.” The siege was long and protracted; Dom Miguel finding himself invariably repulsed in his assaults, turned it into a blockade, and want within the walls and cholera among the besiegers decimated the armies. On both sides the commanders quarrelled among themselves, and the only event worthy of mention is the defeat of the Miguelite fleet by Sartorius on the 11th of October, 1832. In 1833 more vigorous action marked the career of the Pedroites. Major-General João Carlos Saldanha de Oliveira e Daun, an old officer of Beresford, and a friend and former colleague of Palmella, took the command of the army in Oporto, and defeated the Miguelites under the Count of San Lourenço, on the 4th of March, and under General das Antas, on the 24th of March, 1833. Captain Charles Napier, of the English navy, succeeded Sartorius as admiral of the Pedroite fleet, and conveyed a force of one thousand five hundred men from Oporto to the Algarves, under the Count of Villa Flor, now created Duke of Terceira, and then practically destroyed the Miguelite fleet off Cape Saint Vincent on the 5th of July, 1833. The Duke of Terceira was equally successful on land; he was warmly welcomed by the people of the Algarves and the Alemtejo; his army was increased by volunteers as he advanced; he utterly defeated the Miguelites under General Telles Jordão at Covada Piedade, and triumphantly entered Lisbon on the 24th of July. Dom Pedro immediately sailed round to the capital, and summoned his daughter from France, and on her arrival he again proclaimed the Charter of 1826. The Miguelites, under the French Marshal, Bourmont, then attacked Lisbon, but were easily beaten off. The year 1834 was one of unbroken success for the Chartists. England and France recognized Maria da Gloria as Queen of Portugal, and the ministry of Queen Isabella of Spain, knowing Dom Miguel to be a Carlist, sent two Spanish armies under Generals Rodil and Serrano to the help of Dom Pedro. Saldanha took Leiria and defeated the disheartened Miguelites at Torres Novas and Almoster; Captain Napier having destroyed the usurper’s fleet, took to the land, and reduced the Beira, capturing Caminha, Vianna, Ponte de Lima and Valença; General Sá de Bandeira conquered the Alemtejo; and the Duke of Terceira overran the Tras-os-Montes, and won a victory at Asseiceira. Finally the combined Spanish and Portuguese armies surrounded the remnant of the Miguelites at Evora Monte, and on the 26th of May, 1834, Dom Miguel surrendered. By the Convention of Evora Monte, Dom Miguel abandoned his claim to the throne of Portugal, and in consideration of a pension of £15,000 a year promised never again to set foot in the kingdom.

Dom Pedro declared the young queen of age, and summoned a full Cortes to meet at Lisbon. He appointed a strong ministry with the Duke of Palmella as president, and the Duke of Terceira at the War Office, and an attempt was made to rearrange the finances and settle the kingdom. The Cortes declared Dom Miguel and his heirs for ever ineligible to succeed to the throne and forbade them to return to Portugal under pain of death, and struck a fatal blow at the influence of the Miguelites by abolishing all the orders of the friars, who had hitherto kept alive his party in the provinces. Dom Pedro, who had throughout the struggle been the heart and soul of his daughter’s party, had thus the pleasure of seeing the country at peace, and a regular parliamentary system in operation, but he did not long survive, for on the 24th of September, 1834, he died at Queluz near Lisbon, of an illness brought on by his great labours and fatigues, leaving a name, which deserves all honour from Portuguese and Brazilians alike.

Queen Maria da Gloria was only fifteen, when she thus lost the advantage of her father’s wise counsel and steady help, yet it might have been expected that her reign would be calm and prosperous. But neither the queen, the nobility, nor the people, understood the principles of parliamentary government, and the army, accustomed to fight and unable to do anything else, was a constant source of danger. Members of different parties could not or would not believe that all true Portuguese alike loved Portugal; the party in power proscribed and exiled its opponents, while the party in opposition invariably appealed to arms, instead of seeking to enforce its opinions by legitimate parliamentary means. In addition, the unfortunate country was ravaged by numerous brigands, generally disbanded soldiers, who called themselves Miguelites, and who invariably escaped into Spain, when attacked in force. Each successive government refused to recognize or to pay interest upon the loans raised by its predecessor, and the financial credit of Portugal soon fell to a very low ebb in the money markets of Europe. It is unprofitable and almost impossible to examine here the tendencies of the chief statesmen of the time, for new governments quickly succeeded each other, and it will be sufficient to notice only the most important “pronunciamentos” and appeals to arms. The whole reign was one of violent party struggles, for they hardly deserve to be called civil wars, so little did they involve, which present a striking contrast to the peaceable constitutional government that at present prevails.

In her earlier years, Queen Maria da Gloria was chiefly under the influence of her stepmother, Amelia of Bavaria, and in January, 1835, she married the Queen Dowager’s brother, Augustus Charles Eugène Napoleon, Duke of Leuchtenberg, second son of Eugène de Beauharnais by Princess Augusta of Bavaria, to the great chagrin of Louis Philippe of France, who had proposed his son, the Duke of Nemours. This prince died after two months’ residence in Portugal, but it was so necessary to have an heir to the throne, that the queen was pressed to marry again at once. She complied, and in January, 1836, she married Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, nephew of Leopold, King of the Belgians, and it was his nomination to the high office of commander-in-chief, which brought about the first appeal to arms. In September, 1836, Fernando Soares da Caldeira headed a “pronunciamento” in Lisbon for the re-establishment of the Constitution of 1822, which was entirely successful, and resulted in the drawing up of a new constitution. This “pronunciamento” was followed by various other “pronunciamentos” and good deal of fighting, but eventually the new Constitution of 1838, which was really that of 1822 slightly modified, was generally adopted. It worked until 1842, when one of the radical ministers, Antonio Bermudo da Costa Cabral, suddenly declared for the Charter of 1826 at Oporto. The Duke of Terceira at once headed a “pronunciamento” in Lisbon in favour of the Charter, and came into office with Costa Cabral as home secretary, and virtual prime minister. Costa Cabral, who was in 1845 created Count of Thomar, made himself very acceptable to the queen, and by interpreting the Charter in the most royalist sense, even attempted to check the liberty of the press. It was now the turn of the Septembrists to have recourse to arms, and after an attempt to place Saldanha in office, the opposition broke out into open insurrection under the Viscount Sá de Bandeira, the Count of Bomfim and the Count das Antas. This new insurrection was followed by what is known as the war of Maria da Fonte or “Patuleia,” which is even more pitiable than its predecessors. Foreign powers eventually intervened, and on the 29th of June, 1847, the Convention of Granada was signed, by which a general amnesty was declared, and Saldanha was maintained in power. In 1849 the Count of Thomar once more came into office, and in 1851 he was again expelled by Saldanha at the head of his troops. This was the last “pronunciamento” worthy of notice; in 1852 the Charter was revised to suit all parties; direct voting, one of the chief claims of the radicals, was allowed, and the era of civil war came to an end. Maria da Gloria did not long survive this peaceful settlement, for she died on the 15th of November, 1853, and her husband the King-Consort, Ferdinand II., assumed the regency until his eldest son Pedro V. should come of age.

The era of peaceful parliamentary government, which succeeded the stormy reign of Maria II., has been one of material prosperity for Portugal; agriculture and commerce revived, and a great literary and historical revival took place, marked by the names of João Baptista de Almeida-Garrett, Antonio Feliciano de Castilho, and José da Silva Mendes Leal, the poets, and of Alexandra Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo, the Viscount de Santarem, and Luis Augusto Rebello da Silva, the historians. Men were not wanting in the first half of the nineteenth century to advocate the formation of an Iberian republic or kingdom, comprising the whole of the peninsula, but the revival of national pride in recalling the glorious past of Portuguese history, which has been the work of these great poets and historians, has breathed afresh the spirit of patriotism into a people which had been wearied out by perpetual “pronunciamentos” and absurd civil wars.

The only political event of any importance during the reign of Pedro V., who came of age and assumed the government in 1855, and who in 1857 married the Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern, was the affair of the _Charles et Georges_. This French ship was engaged in what was undoubtedly the slave trade, though slightly disguised, off the coast of Africa in 1858, when it was seized by the Portuguese authorities of Mozambique, and, in accordance with the laws and treaties against the slave trade, the captain, Roussel, was condemned to two years’ imprisonment. The Emperor Napoleon III., glad to have a chance of posing before the French people, and counting on his close alliance with England to prevent the intervention of the ancient ally of Portugal, instantly sent a large fleet to the Tagus under Admiral Lavaud, and demanded compensation, which, as England gave no hint of assistance, Portugal was obliged to pay. The whole country, and especially the city of Lisbon, was during this reign, on account of the neglect of all sanitary precautions, ravaged by cholera and yellow fever, and it was in the midst of one of these outbreaks, on the 11th of November, 1861, that Pedro V., who had refused to leave his pestilence-stricken capital, died of cholera, and was followed to the grave by two of his younger brothers, Dom Ferdinand and Dom John.

At the time of Pedro’s death, his next brother and heir, Dom Luis, was travelling on the continent, and his father, Ferdinand II., who long survived Queen Maria da Gloria, and morganatically married Elise Hensler, a dancer, assumed the regency until his return, soon after which King Luis married Maria Pia, younger daughter of Victor Emmanuel, king of Italy. The new monarch followed his brother’s policy, and allowed his ministers to fight out their battles in the chambers without any interference from himself. During his reign, the old combatants of the stormy reign of Maria da Gloria, Palmella, Terceira, Sá de Bandeira, Thomar, and Saldanha, all died off, and with them their peculiar method of enforcing their political views. Their successors in the leadership of political parties, the Duke of Loulé and the Marquis of Avila, Antonio Manoel Fontes Pereira de Mello and Antonio José Braamcamp, were men of greater administrative ability, who did not go to war when they were defeated in Parliament, and they therefore do not contribute any striking pages to the national history, though they have done much for the prosperity of the country. The last “pronunciamento,” or rather attempt at a “pronunciamento,” of the last survivor of Maria da Gloria’s turbulent statesmen, the Duke of Saldanha, in 1870, only proved how entirely the time for such movements had passed away. He conceived the idea that the Duke of Loulé was too great a favourite at court, and so he one day came to the palace and after recalling to the king’s mind a few historical examples, such as the fatal intimacy of Charles X. of France with the Due de Polignac, he threatened an appeal to arms unless the Duke of Loulé was at once dismissed. King Luis, perceiving that the old man was in earnest and not wishing to have the peace of the country disturbed, humoured his fancy, and after keeping Saldanha himself in office for four months, despatched him as ambassador to London, where the old warrior died in 1876. With this trifling exception, the reign of King Luis was prosperous and peaceful, and the news of his death on October 9, 1889, was received with general regret.

Luis I. was succeeded on the throne by his elder son, Dom Carlos, or Charles I., a young man of twenty-six, who married in 1886, the Princess Marie Amélie de Bourbon, the eldest daughter of the Comte de Paris. His accession was immediately followed by the revolution of the 15th of November, 1889, in Brazil, by which his great uncle, Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil, was dethroned and a republican government established in that country. This news created a profound impression in Portugal; the republican party, which has for some years been growing in strength in the cities of Lisbon and Oporto hailed it with delight, and the democratic journals urged that the example of Brazil should be followed. The young king’s difficulties have been further increased by the disputes which have arisen with regard to Africa, and there is no concealing the fact that Charles I. will have to show the greatest political wisdom, if he is to weather the storms now besetting the position of Portugal, and to save the Portuguese monarchy.

Many allusions have been made to the possessions of Portugal in Africa. It has been seen that certain places both on the east and west coasts of Africa, such as Angola and Mozambique, were originally occupied and fortified as resting-places for the Portuguese fleets on the way to and from India, and that when they were re-taken after the Revolution of 1640, they were occupied only because they had formerly belonged to Portugal and not because of their intrinsic value. Of recent years, however, the value of these settlements has increased owing to the opening up of Africa to commerce. This is thoroughly understood by the more intelligent of modern Portuguese statesmen, and courageous Portuguese travellers, such as Serpa Pinto, Roberto Ivens, and Brito Capello, have taken their part in obtaining a more correct knowledge of the geography of Africa. But the opening up of Africa has attracted settlers and explorers of other nations to the “Dark Continent,” who, if they have not denied the rights of Portugal, have certainly infringed them. The original Portuguese settlements were merely ports at which ships might rest and refit; and the points at issue now concern the amount of the territory adjoining those settlements or of the “hinterland” behind them towards the interior, which rightly belongs to Portugal. This question of boundaries is in the nature of things a difficult one to settle, and it is much to be regretted that the disputes which have arisen have chiefly been with England, the ancient ally of Portugal. The high spirit of the Portuguese people has been wounded by the tone of part of the English press, and their knowledge of their own present weakness and of their past greatness has made them the more sensitive. Some of their agents in Africa have possibly acted in an arbitrary and high-handed manner, and Englishmen have not been slow to resent such treatment. Yet it is to be sincerely hoped that these differences between the two ancient allies may be peacefully settled, and it may be that some knowledge of how close the friendship of the two nations was for many centuries may make the English people feel more tolerantly inclined towards the claims of the Portuguese to consideration and respect.

Within recent years the internal prosperity of Portugal has increased; railways and telegraphs have been constructed; sanitary improvements have been introduced; and a good system of national primary and secondary education has been established, owing mainly to the efforts of the poet, Antonio Feliciano de Castilho. Its financial condition, however, may well give rise to the deepest apprehension; the amount of its national debt is nearly as heavy in proportion to its population as that of England, and the repudiation of loans during the reign of Maria II. has made it difficult to raise money in the more wealthy countries of Europe. Even more serious danger to the prosperity of Portugal is threatened by the continued emigration to Brazil, to which country a large number of the sturdy peasants flock every year, chiefly from the northern provinces of the Tras-os-Montes and the Entre-Minho-e-Douro. This continuous stream of emigration, though prejudicial to Portugal, has been of the greatest service to Brazil, and Greater Portugal, as the mother country and her colony in South America may be termed, though politically divided, is more prosperous than ever.

Even more striking than the advance of material prosperity has been the great literary revival, which has marked the era of peaceful parliamentary government. King Luis was an enlightened patron of letters, and translated some of the plays of Shakespeare into Portuguese in a manner which showed him to be well versed in the capabilities of his own language. In the country of Camoens there has been no lack of poets, though none of the modern writers would dare to class themselves with him. Foremost among these poets are Almeida-Garrett and Castilho, who alike sang the ancient glories of Portugal, but among their followers are many whose inspiration is hardly inferior to their own. Such men as José da Silva Mendes Leal, Luis Augusto Palmeirim, and João Soares de Passos, have written poems worthy to rank with the classics of Portuguese literature, and their muse has generally been fostered by a knowledge of ancient writers and of old national lyrical forms. Even more important than the poets are the historians of modern Portugal, for they are the men who have made the Portuguese so proud of their nationality that they still cling closely to their independence and oppose the advocates of “Iberianism.” The founder of the new school of scientific historians was Alexandra Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo, who, after imitating Sir Walter Scott in his historical novels, showed that he had been influenced by Niebuhr and Ranke in his famous history of Portugal, of which the first volume was published in 1848. He it was who first grasped the fact that history can only be rightly studied and correctly written after a careful and critical investigation of documents, and he manifested both energy and discernment in clearing away the cobweb of legend which had been spun about the early days of the nation. Herculano inspired his spirit into the new generation, and he has had many painstaking and able followers, among whom the ablest are Luis Augusto Rebello da Silva, Simião José da Luz Soriano, and José Maria Latino Coelho. In general literature, the modern Portuguese are equally distinguished, though their greatest strength lies in poetry and history, and it is worthy of notice, that literary fame is a sure passport to rapid advancement in political life. The high opinion held of literary endeavour is an evidence of the persistency of the national spirit, and as such may be welcomed as the brightest augury for the future development of the Portuguese nation.

Few countries of Europe will repay attentive study better than Portugal; no nation, except Spain, passed through such a trial as the reign of Maria da Gloria, and in no country have the advantages of representative institutions been better realized; socialism possesses there a reforming, not a revolutionary, force; knowledge of the history of their nation, inspired by great writers, has made the modern Portuguese ambitious to revive the glories of the past, and has united men of all shades of opinion in a common patriotism. The Camoens celebration of 1880 showed that the Brazilians are still proud of their mother country, and that the Portuguese race on both sides of the Atlantic was ready to develop new energy and perseverance, and to prove its descent from the men who under Affonso Henriques conquered the Moors; who under John I. and John IV. rejected the rule of the Spaniards; who under Affonso de Alboquerque and João de Castro made their names famous from Arabia to Japan; and who, by the labours of Prince Henry “the Navigator” and the voyage of Vasco da Gama, initiated a new era in the history of the world.

INDEX.

A.

Abd-el-Melik, 248, 250, 253, 254

Abrantes, 57, 104, 392

Abrantes, Marquis of, 393

Abu Abdallah, Governor of Alcacer do Sal, 72, 73

Abu-l-Hasan, defeated at the Salado, 1340, 92

Abyssinia, visits of Portuguese travellers to, 167

“Academia Real das Sciencias,” 372, 396

Academy of History, 353

A’Court, Sir William; _see_ Heytesbury, Lord

Aden, 200, 214

Affonso Henriques, 24, 31, 34, 35, 37-58, 98

Affonso II., 70-74, 98

Affonso III., 79, 80-83, 89, 98

Affonso IV., 86, 91-99

Affonso V., 130-35, 138, 159, 160

Affonso VI., 324, 326-34

Affonso, son of Affonso III., 85, 86

Affonso, only son of John II., 163, 170

Affonso, João, bastard son of Diniz, 91

Affonso, Pedro, bastard son of Count Henry, 31

Affonso, Pedro, bastard son of Diniz, Count of Barcellos, 91

Africa, 144-56, 195, 213, 247, 343, 346, 428, 429

Agriculture, 87, 181, 368

Ahmed, Maulā, 248, 249, 253-55

Alans, the, conquer Lusitania, 10

Alarcos, battle of, 63

Albergaria, Diogo Soares de, 169

Albergaria, Francisco Soares de, 309

Albergaria, Lopo Soares de, 203

Albert, Cardinal, 286, 290

Alboquerque, Affonso de, 169, 185, 193, 197-201

Alboquerque, Francisco de, 193

Alboquerque, João de, 209

Alboquerque, Mathias de, 291

Alboquerque, Mathias de, 317

Alboquerque, Pedro de, 169

Alboquerque, Sancho, Count of, 101

Alcacer do Sal, 54, 62, 66, 72

Alcacer-Quibir, battle of (1578), 254

Alcanede granted to Knights of Calatrava, 66

Alcantara, battle of (1580), 283

Alçobaça, monastery of, 54, 69, 98, 99, 397

Alçobaça, Cortes of, 164, 165

Alemquer, 53, 104

Alemtejo, the, 55, 57, 66, 87, 181, 421

Alexander III., Pope, 57

Alexander VI., Pope, 163, 191

Alfarrobeira, battle of (1449), 133

Alfonso VI., 17, 18, 23

Alfonso VII., 30, 35, 37-39, 54

Alfonso VIII., 63, 71

Alfonso IX., 63, 64, 71

Alfonso X., 81

Alfonso XI., 92

Algarves, the, 43, 62, 76, 78, 80, 81, 181, 182

Alho, Affonso Martins, 94

Ali, Almoravide Caliph, 28

Ali Adil Shah, King of Bijápur, 247

Aljubarrota, battle of, 111, 113

Aljustrel, taken by Knights of Santiago, 76

Almada, 53, 62, 66, 104, 312

Almada, Alvaro Vaz de, _see_ Arronches, Count of

Almada, Antonio de, 308, 311

Almanza, battle of (1707), 351

Almeida taken by the Spaniards (1760), 363

Almeida, Francisco de, 195-97, 214

Almeida, Lourenço de, 175, 196

Almeida, Miguel de, 308, 309, 311

Almeida-Garrett, João Baptista, 425, 431

Almohades, the, 44, 55, 57, 62; _see_ Ya’kūb, Yūsuf

Almoravides, the, 17, 41

Almoster, battle of (1834), 421

Alorna, João de Almeida Portugal, Marquis of, 371, 374

Alorna, Pedro, Marquis of, 395

Alva, Duke of, 249, 281, 283

Alvares, Manoel, 276

Alvares, Mattheus, 287

Alvitiz, Pedro, 72

“Amadis of Gaul” romance, 126

Amarante, Francisco da Silveira, Count of, 415