won for Spain. The viceroy, however, had only yielded to the public feeling, because he was not able to oppose it. The governor of Vera Cruz also was disposed to transfer his loyalty to the intruder; and when a ship with French colours arrived at that port, and having been boarded from barges sent out by the commander of the marine, was brought in, he forbade all persons, on pain of death, from going on board her. The needless severity of this edict served only to exasperate the people, and heighten their suspicions. They assembled tumultuously; yet, like their fellow patriots in Spain, observing constitutional forms, even in insurrection, they called upon the regidores of the town, and required them to bring the dispatches from the French vessel, and communicate their contents. This was done; and as the papers consisted of proclamations and orders from the intruder, they were publicly burnt. The house and effects of a merchant, who was suspected to be in the French interest, shared the same fate his life was also threatened; but when the nuns came out of their convent, and the host, under its pall, was brought forth, the fury of the populace yielded to their devotional feeling, and the tumult was appeased. The people, however, insisted that the place should be put in a state of defence; and they formed a junta, in whose vigilant patriotism they might confide against the treasonable inclinations of their governor.

Even at Buenos Ayres, where that animosity against the English, occasioned, throughout the Spanish colonies, by the ravages of Drake and Cavendish, and the buccaneers, had been so unhappily revived, just when the lapse of time had obliterated it, there prevailed among the people a

feeling of stronger and juster resentment against the French. Nevertheless, there existed a party there, in consequence of Sir Home Popham's wretched expedition, numerous_enough to support the governor Liniers in a temporising policy, which, while it waited to acknowledge the right of the strongest, evidently inclined towards the Buonapartes. A French agent was received by this governor; and Liniers informed the people, that the Emperor of the French had been compelled to recognise the abso- Aug. 15. lute independence of the Spanish monarchy, and of all its transmarine possessions, without retaining or dismembering the minutest portion of its dominions; that a cortes was assembled at Bayonne, where the fate of the monarchy was to be decided; that the Emperor of the French, applauding the triumph and constancy of the inhabitants of Buenos Ayres, exhorted them to maintain the high reputation which they had acquired, and offered them succours of every description. He had not hesitated, in reply, to assure his imperial majesty, that the city over which he sided was chiefly distinguished for its loyalty to its lawful sovereign; and that he should thankfully_receive arms, ammunition, and Spanish troops. Let us, he added, imitate the example of our ancestors in this happy land, who escaped the. disasters that afflicted Spain in the war of the succession, by wisely awaiting the fate of the mother country, to obey that power which occupied the sovereignty. Nevertheless, he said, as he had received instructions from the council of the Indies to proclaim Ferdinand, and take the oath to him, and had no orders sufficiently authoritative to counter

pre

mand them, that ceremony was to be performed with solemnities and public rejoicings. Notwithstanding this readiness, on the part of the governor, to acknowledge the intruder, the patriotic cause daily acquired strength; it soon became as unpopular to speak French as it had ever been to speak English; and an arrangement was made with the Brazilian court for opening the place to British and Portugueze ships.

While the last act of the Corsican's perfidiousness, and of the tragedy of the Bourbons, was representing at Bayonne, the Prince of Brazil, having safely reached that city, which ought long since to have been made the capital of May 1. the Braganzas, published a justificatory exposition of his conduct towards France, from the commencement of the French revolution, in order that his subjects, impartial Europe, and distant posterity, might judge of the purity of his conduct, and the principles upon which he had acted. It is not in invectives, said this manifesto, that the court of Portugal will raise its voice from the midst of the new empire which it is about to found: by a plain and faithful statement, it would make known to the world all that it had suffered, and then appeal to Providence. A religious prince felt the importance of such an appeal; for guilt could not always remain unpunished, and usurpation and violence enfeeble themselves by the continual efforts they are obliged to employ. In explaining the motives and conduct of Portugal during the anti-jacobine war, it was averred, that, though she sent troops for the defence of the Pyrenees, in conformity to the treaty of alliance with Spain, she, nevertheless, endeavoured to preserve the

strictest neutrality. This was the only weak part of the manifesto; and the assertion, strange as it is, was so needless in this place, that it would not have been advanced, if the Portugueze ministry had not, by some unaccountable mode of reasoning, persuaded themselves of its validity. With better reason, it complained of Spain; how that power, after having involved its ally in hostilities with France, joined France against her, and, by the help of that confederacy, extorted from Portugal the little territory belonging to her beyond the Guadiana. Then it was that France gave the first proof of its bad faith; for after the treaty of Badajoz had been signed by Lucien Buonaparte, the Prince de la Paz, and the Portugueze plenipotentiary, the French government refused to ratify it, and forced Portugal to sign a new treaty at Madrid, with much harder conditions: nor was there any motive assigned for this act of violence, except that such was the pleasure of France. Almost at the same time, the peace of Amiens was concluded, which moderated some conditions too oppressive to Portugal; and this consideration of England for its ancient ally, was regarded by France as a new proof of the servitude and bondage in which the English government held the court of Lisbon.

Portugal hastened to fulfil the burthensome conditions of the treaty. The war was soon renewed between England and France; and having made the greatest sacrifices for the sake of preserving itself in peace, the court thought itself fortunate, at a heavy expence of money, to conclude the treaty of 1804, in which the first consul expressly consented

to

" acknowledge the neutrality of Portugal during the present war,

and not to oppose any measures that might be taken with respect to the belligerent powers, conformably to the principles and general laws of neutrality." From that time the French government received all the advantages of such a treaty: it never had occasion to make the smallest complaint against Portugal; yet, during the same war, and after this same stipulation, it required of Portugal, not only an infraction of neutrality, but a declaration of war against England, in violation of the treaties existing between the two countries. Portugal had no grievance to complain of against England, which had, on the contrary, given her every kind of satisfaction, when the commander of some British ships of war failed in that respect which was due to a neutral flag. A French squadron, meantime, having on board the brother of the emperor of the French, anchored in Bahia de Todos os Santos, was received there with every kind of respect, and supplied with all sorts of refreshments. Yet that squadron burnt some Portugueze vessels, to conceal its route, promising, at the time, to indemnify the proprietors; which promise was never performed. This was a sample of the fate which awaited Europe, if ever France should acquire an ascendency by sea, equal to that which she had obtained by land; and hence the complaints which she so loudly uttered against the maritime tyranny of the English might be rightly estimated.

From 1804 to 1807, France re ceived from Portugal all the colonial commodities and first materials for her manufactures; thus profiting by the alliance between Portugal and England during a disastrous war by sea, in which she experienced nothing but defeats. The council of

Lisbon might therefore reasonably suppose, that that of the Thuilleries would respect a neutrality which it had acknowledged by a solemn treaty, and from which it derived such decided advantages; but from this security it was awakened, in the month of August, 1806, by a formal declaration of M. Talleyrand to Lord Yarmouth, that if England did not make a maritime peace, the French government would declare war against Portugal, and order that country to be occupied by 30,000 men. Roused at this declaration, England offered to Portugal every kind of succour; but just at this time, Prussia, who, twelve months before, might probably have delivered Europe, by acting in co-operation with Austria and Russia, came forward singly to oppose France. France. Buonaparte then found it convenient to spare Portugal, and accordingly found means to pacify her court:- his views were still farther protracted by the war with Russia, which continued; and it was not till the peace of Tilsit was concluded that he assumed a dictatorial language, such as it might have become Charlemagne to address to his vassal princes. He then, through the French charge d'affaires, and the Spanish ambassador at Lisbon, required the Prince of Brazil to shut his ports against England, to detain all Englishmen who resided in Portugal, and to confiscate all English property. If these demands were not complied with, both ministers had orders to depart on the first of September, that was, about three weeks after the proposition was made. Meantime, without waiting for the determination of Portugal, the French government ordered all Portugueze ships to be seized in the French ports; thus commencing hostilities without any declaration of

war, and carrying to a far greater length the proceedings which form its continual topic of reproach against England; reproaches which, after such conduct, Europe will know how to appreciate.

Desirous of sparing the blood of its people, and placing implicit confidence in the friendship of his Britannic Majesty, its old and faithful ally, the court of Portugal endeavoured to render the demands of France more moderate, by consent ing to shut its ports, but resisting the two other articles, as contrary to the principles of national law; and the prince regent, without hesitation, declared, that those articles equally wounded his religion and his principles of morality, from which he never deviated, and which were perhaps the true cause of that unshaken fidelity which he experienced from his subjects. He then began to adopt measures for securing a retreat to that part of his dominions which is not exposed to any invasion capable of exciting alarm: at the same time he directed the English to sell their property, and leave his kingdom. Not satisfied with this, Buonaparte demanded that the ports should be shut, that all British property should be confiscated, all British subjects imprisoned, and that the project of retreat to America should be abandoned. The prince, knowing that the King of England would consent to the exclusion of his ships, in order to save Portugal from invasion, and knowing also that all English property had been sold or removed, and no Englishman remained, except such as were naturalized, submitted even to these demands; but he declared, that, should the French troops enter his country, he was firmly resolved to remove the seat of government to Brazil, the

most important and best defended part of his dominions. He then ordered his whole army to move to the coast; and supposing that, as France had obtained essentially all which she demanded, she would have nothing more to ask, confided in that good faith which ought to be the fundamental principle of every government, and felt conscious that, having done every thing in his power to secure the tranquillity of his people, and avoid a useless effusion of blood, he had discharged his duty. General Junot, however, entered his kingdom with the vanguard of his army, without the consent of the prince, and without any declaration of war, assuring the people that he was marching to succour their prince against an invasion of the English, and that he came as a friend and ally. The temerity of advancing with so small and miserable a force would have been absurd, had not Junot, whose conduct at Venice and Lisbon has made him but too well known, relied on the feelings of a virtuous prince, and known that he would not expose his people to after calamities for the sake of a certain first success; for the prince, surprised as he was, might have rallied the troops around him, called in the English fleet, and have cut to pieces that general and his men.

Thus situated, the prince adopted the only measure which was consistent with his uniform principle of saving the blood of his people. The plan of the French government had nothing less in view than to secure his royal person and the whole royal family, in order to divide, at its own will and pleasure, the spoils of the crown of Portugal, and the Portugueze dominions. Providence favoured him: he retired with his august family to Brazil, and thus dis

concerted the project of the French. He had learnt, since his arrival, with horror, the usurpation of Portugal, the pillage and plunder practised there, and the tyrannical proceedings of the Emperor of France, who, as if he were the dictator of Europe, represented this removal to Brazil as a crime both in him and in the faithful subjects who accompanied him, and proscribed the right of the Braganzas to their crown. From what code of the law of nations had the Emperor of the French derived such principles, and received such an authority? He called the attention of all the European powers to this monstrous assumption of supremacy, to the criminal and treacherous conduct of a government which aimed at the universal domination of Europe, and of the whole world! These transactions were the forerunners of ages of barbarism and misery, such as followed the downfal of the Roman empire; nor could those fatal consequences be averted, unless exertions were unanimously made to restore the equipoise of Europe, setting aside those feelings of rivalship by which so tremendous a power had been enabled to raise itself, to the imminent danger, if not the destruction, of all.

The prince regent therefore, said this manifesto, after these unprovoked and unexampled injuries, declaring all those treaties null and void which the Emperor of the French had forced him to conclude, and particularly those of 1801 and 1804, because the emperor has violated and never respected them, breaks off all communication with France, authorizes his subjects to wage war by sea and land against the French, will not lay down his arms, unless in

* Appendix, No. XXXV.

concert with his Britannic Majesty, his old and faithful ally, and will never agree to a cession of Portugal, the most ancient part of the inheritance of his august royal family. *

Except in the strange supposition that Portugueze troops could be sent to act in alliance with the Spaniards against the French republic, and yet Portugal remain at peace with France, this manifesto was in all its parts as accurate as it is convincing. It becomes the more impressive when compared with the French official reports concerning Portugal, which are equally remarkable for the futility of the complaints alleged against her, and the insolence with which they are brought forward, as serious grounds for war. Every sovereign in Europe, it was here premised, must acknowledge, that, if his territory was violated, to the detriment of the Emperor of the French, he would be responsible for it. But when the Portugueze government suffered its ships to be visited by English ships, its independence was as much violated as it would have been if England had violated its ports. But this was done by the consent of Portugal. Portugal was therefore an accomplice in the wrongs committed by England; therefore in a state of war with France; and, notwithstanding the benevolent disposition of the emperor, war with Portugal was now a painful but necessary duty. † Such was M. de Champagny's logic; and it was accompanied with a statement of other grievances, equally futile, and with the direct falsehood, that the Portugueze nation unanimously wished the prince to break off his connection with England:—and at the very time when charges thus

† Appendix, No. XXXVI.