that, to speak the truth, his Minister sent to him, whilst on his journey, a copy of the note presented to France by the Ambassador, simply for his information, and without adding other directions; that having well meditated on this note, he saw that it related to the establishment of a negotiation between Spain, France, and England, for the evacuation of the Peninsula, and that if this negotiation took place, it was natural to embrace in it the future state of Portugal, as a condition of the proposed evacuation, and of the cessation of the extraordinary military measures taken by the Cabinet of Madrid; that this mode appeared to him the fittest for bringing about a satisfactory conclusion, and that he was the more confirmed in his opinion after the audience which he had just obtained of the King, his Majesty having told him that he ardently longed to see the moment arrive, when the troops might quit the Peninsula without inconvenience, but that in the actual state of things, the interest of the King of Spain, and his own, required the continuation of the occupation, until the relations between Spain and Portugal should be established on a certain and unalterable footing.

M. d'Ofalia will write, therefore, to-morrow, to

his Court, to request to be authorised to give the above-mentioned developement to the proposal of the withdrawal of the troops, in such a manner as to make it depend on the arrangements which refer to the future state of Portugal, in order then to make use of this authorisation, when he repairs to London.

Without adding implicit faith to the ignorance in which he pretended to be of the proposal of his Cabinet, at the moment of his departure from Madrid, I told him that since the King had spoken to him in so explicit a manner, it appeared to me indispensable to take into great consideration the words of his Most Christian Majesty, and to make of them the text of new explanations in the sense the most adapted to give to the step of Spain the character of reason and prudence, which it did not appear at first sight to possess.

The course which the Spanish Minister is preparing to adopt, already announces that he has ceased to hasten, or that he never intended to hasten, the decision. We shall see the answers that he will receive from his Court, and the ulterior communications that he will make.

Affairs with this government invariably assume

a character of slowness, tergiversation and intrigue, which cause fastidiousness and discomfort; but one must not be discouraged, or disgusted, because great interests depend on them.

[The following Despatch shows the success of Russian diplomacy in Portugal, and the attitude in which that country was thereby placed towards England, by the triumph of the apostolical faction.]

THE EARL OF DUDLEY TO THE MARQUIS DE

PALMELLA.

Foreign Office, 22nd April, 1828.

THE undersigned, &c., has received His Majesty's commands to acknowledge the receipt of the note of his Excellency the Marquis de Palmella, &c. dated the 8th instant, in which his Excellency has enclosed the extract of a letter from the Vicomte de Santarem, and to inform his Excellency that his Majesty receives the assurances of the sincerity of the intentions of his Royal Highness the Infant Regent, which his Excellency the Vicomte de Santarem has conveyed to the Marquis de Palmella, for the information of his Majesty's Government, as a proof of the desire of his Royal Highness the Infant Don Miguel to cultivate the friendship and acquire the confidence of his Majesty.

The undersigned, however, would be wanting, both to his duty, and to that frankness and sincerity which ought to prevail in the intercourse betwixt two countries so long and so closely connected as England and Portugal, if he were to conceal from his Excellency, that many events which have marked the outset of his Royal Highness's Regency, had excited in the mind of his Majesty sentiments of uneasiness and disappointment.

By the letter of those engagements, under which his Royal Highness took upon himself the government of Portugal, he was obliged to observe the Constitutional Charter; by the whole spirit and tenour of them, he was no less bound to abstain from all such measures as might afford just cause of public apprehension and alarm. It is with the utmost regret that the undersigned feels himself compelled to remark, that in neither view do these engagements appear to have been fulfilled.

It may not be improper to recall to his Excellency the promises. by which his Royal Highness bound himself, before his arrival in