Mascarenhas, which, though one of the most ancient houses in Portugal,
was not one of the most noble, and he certainly had no claim to the
distinguished rank he afterwards held, which he owed entirely to his
uncle, brother Gaspard, a mere Portugueze gentleman; he himself being
incapable of pushing his fortune, or aspiring to favour through his
personal merit. His figure was greatly against him, for he was short,
and far from handsome; add to this, he was ignorant, obstinate, deranged
in his fortune, and capable of every crime; meanly servile towards
Carvalho, whom he secretly detested; and so proudly vain of his birth,
as openly to declare, that his family, being descended from _George_
(_the natural son of John the IId, surnamed the Great_) _he was but one
degree removed from the crown_.
Stung to the quick at being no longer treated with the same distinction
as during the reign of John the Vth, he formed the terrible design of
assassinating his successor; and his pride giving way to his resentment,
he indiscriminately attached himself to every one who had, or who
thought he had, reason to complain of the court; particularly to the
Jesuits, and the family of Tavora. To the former he had always testified
the greatest aversion during the administration of his uncle, brother
Gaspard, but he now sought their society, frequently visiting them, and
receiving them night and day in his own apartments. After some little
time, he judged them worthy of his confidence, and revealed his shocking
design to father Malagrida. The Jesuit having succeeded in bringing
about a reconciliation between the duke and the Tavoras, who had long
resented his having deprived them of several domains formerly belonging
to their family, prevailed upon him to open his heart to the old
marchioness de Tavora, whose confessor he was. The duke the more readily
consented to this plan as he knew the implacable hatred borne by the
marchioness to the king, and his minister, who had refused her
solicitations in favour of her husband, for whom she wished to procure
the title of duke. This lady was in every respect widely different from
her brother-in law, the duke d'Aveiro. Nature had bestowed on her the
most striking beauty, the most imposing carriage, and the most seductive
graces. She was endowed with a genius capable of conceiving the most
extensive plans, with judgment to ripen, and talents to execute them.
The strength of her body fitted her to support the greatest fatigue, the
temper of her mind to brave the greatest dangers, whilst the firmness of
her character made her disdain to submit to the king or to his minister.
Nature had also planted in her bosom the shoots of the noblest
passions--passions, alas! which, as they are well or ill directed, form
the greatest men, or the most atrocious villains.
Mistress of immense riches, her liberal spirit induced her to bestow
them freely; whilst her superior judgment taught her to set bounds to
her generosity. Thus endowed with qualities both of body and mind, so
infinitely above those of the duke d'Aveiro, the marchioness soon became
the life and soul of the conspiracy, which she conducted with the most
wonderful skill and address. Her principal accomplices were chosen from
the members of her own family, but her insinuating manners gained her
several partizans, not only in the highest, but even in the lowest ranks
of the people. Her conduct, in the mean time, was of a very
extraordinary nature, since she never endeavoured to conceal from the
prime minister the hatred she bore him, nor failed speaking of him
openly, in terms of the greatest contempt. The sovereign himself was not
treated with more indulgence; he became the subject of the most poignant
satire, and the bitterest sarcasms; whilst the queen and princesses were
the constant objects of her ridicule.
Inspired by the most diabolical sentiments, she put on the mask of
religion to effect her purpose, and by her feigned devotion deceived
the most clear-sighted. Whilst her thoughts were employed in forming
plans of the blackest treason, she frequented the churches, made one in
the different processions, went on pilgrimages, and practised all the
external forms of religion with the greatest ostentation. Her confessor,
father Malagrida, was an Italian Jesuit, sent by the general of the
society on a mission to Portugal. Zealous, eloquent, and enthusiastic,
he presently became the most fashionable spiritual director: people of
every description made choice of him for their confessor: he was
regarded as a saint, and consulted as an oracle.
More than two hundred and fifty persons of consequence were concerned in
this conspiracy, and nothing now seemed wanting but to fix the day for
putting their design into execution.
The hearts of kings are not invulnerable; their passions are frequently
strong, and their means of satisfying them easier than those of other
men; this facility ought, in fact, to put them on their guard, and teach
them to curb the violence of their inclinations, since their elevated
rank, and the crowd by which they are constantly surrounded, make it
impossible that their actions should long remain concealed. Joseph the
1st made frequent visits to the young marchioness of Tavora; these gave
rise to suspicions of an affair of gallantry being carried on between
them, which, whether just or unjust, served as a plausible pretext for
attempting his life. On the 3d of September, his majesty visited the
marchioness, and remained with her, contrary to custom, till eleven
o'clock at night. We dare not investigate the reasons of this visit
being so unusually prolonged, lest it should implicate other persons in
this horrid transaction, without diminishing the enormous guilt of the
regicides. The king was on that night attended by only one domestic, who
went with him in his calash, drawn by two mules, and driven by a
postilion. The conspirators, perfectly well acquainted with the road he
would take in returning to Belem, placed themselves in the most
convenient spots for the execution of their dreadful project. To secure
their success, they divided into different parties; the first of which
let the carriage pass quietly on, till it arrived in the midst of the
assassins, who consisted of a hundred and fifty persons. Some of these
immediately fired, and the pannels of the calash were shivered to
pieces by balls of different sizes: the king received several wounds;
whilst his valet de chambre, whose name was _Taxera_, with a degree of
courage, and a sublime devotion to his master, worthy of the greatest
encomium, prevailed on the king to sink to the bottom of the carriage,
and seating himself upon him, screened his sovereign from the impending
danger. The postilion (called _Castodio da Costo_) at the same moment,
with the greatest presence of mind and intrepidity, whipping his mules
with violence, gallopped forwards, and in the midst of continual firing,
forced them down a steep precipice, and dashing over wide fields, and
through bye roads, reached Belem in safety.[42] The king, on alighting
from his carriage, wrapped himself in a large cloak, belonging to one of
the guards, and sent immediately for Carvalho, for whom he waited with
such impatience that he remained at the gate of the palace, without
suffering his wounds to be dressed, and without either breathing a
complaint, of expressing the smallest signs of apprehension. The prime
minister hastened to attend his sovereign, and listened to all that had
passed without change of countenance. He then entreated the king to keep
the affair secret, and gave orders to the valet de chambre and guards to
be equally silent; thus prudently deciding on concealing for some time
the punishment awaiting the regicides, with as much art as they had
employed in forming so treasonable and bloody a design; for it must be
allowed that no conspiracy was ever kept more secret, or was so near
being successful; but the attempt being once made, and by so
considerable a number of persons, it was scarcely possible the original
authors of the plot could long remain concealed.
Notwithstanding all the above-mentioned precautions, a report was
presently circulated throughout Lisbon, that the king had been
assassinated. Crowds of people assembled before the palace, and eagerly
demanded to see his majesty, who immediately complied with their
request, and declared aloud, that the hurts he had received were
occasioned by being overturned in his calash. He afterwards engaged the
nobles more particularly attached to his person, and who had eagerly
flown to attend him, to leave no means untried to remove every
suspicion from the minds of the public, of an attempt having been made
against his life.
The duke d'Aveiro, who had been the first to propose pursuing the
assassins at the head of the horse guards on duty that night at the
palace, seemed unwilling to consent to the plan of secrecy adopted by
the king: but Carvalho, who began to entertain some suspicions of his
being concerned in the conspiracy, was not the dupe of his zeal: he
therefore pretended to entrust him with some particular secrets, whilst
he insisted upon his entering into the views, and complying with the
injunctions of his majesty.
Difficult as it appears to keep secret an affair of this nature, it,
however, never transpired; and the king, even before his wounds were
closed, appeared in public, and took his usual exercise. The
conspirators also put on a calm appearance, and began to believe all
danger over. One man only amongst the number, named Polycarpe, who was a
domestic in the Tavora family, mistrusted such mysterious inactivity on
the part of government, and taking alarm, quitted the kingdom.
Every thing now appeared quiet; the public mind was re-assured; the
conspirators thought themselves in safety, and the attempt on the king's
life seemed forgotten. Carvalho, however, had been constantly and
secretly employed in diving to the bottom of this dreadful transaction:
the principal contrivers of it were already known to him, when, by the
effect of the most extraordinary chance, he became acquainted with the
whole of their accomplices.
The conspirators, once relieved from all apprehensions of discovery,
without the smallest compunction for the enormity of their crime, turned
their thoughts towards a second attempt, and the means of making it a
successful one. The spot chosen for their private meetings, was a garden
belonging to Tavora, which also served as a place of rendezvous to a
foreign servant, who carried on a clandestine correspondence with a
woman in the house: she, one night, failing in her appointment, her
lover concealed himself in the garden, near the very spot where the
conspirators held their assembly. Not one word which passed escaped the
ears of the attentive listener, who, by that means, became acquainted
not only with every particular relative to the first attempt, but with
the plan laid for the execution of the second. This man, no sooner
contrived to quit the garden, than he flew to the prime minister, and
related with the utmost precision every thing which had passed.
Carvalho instantly perceived the imminent danger to which he was
exposed; and having now the most convincing proofs, of what before he
only suspected, nothing remained to be done but to deliver up the
criminals to the severity of the law: he, however, still continued to
dissemble; and the duke d'Aveiro, either from his own apprehensions, or
by the advice of his friends, having asked leave of absence for three
months, it was immediately granted, and that in the most obliging and
flattering manner. The marquis de Tavora was at the same time appointed
to a commandery, which he had solicited during several years.
Favours thus repeatedly conferred on the principal conspirators,
completely put an end to the apprehensions of their friends, relations,
and accomplices. The public was likewise deceived; every thing which had
passed was buried in oblivion; and nothing was talked of but the
intended marriage between the daughter of Carvalho, and the comte de
Sampayo, with the entertainments which would naturally take place on so
brilliant an alliance. The king himself signed the contract of marriage,
promised to defray the expences of the wedding, and invited all the
grandees of the kingdom to be present on the occasion.
The duke d'Aveiro no sooner received this intelligence, than he left the
country, and repaired with all possible haste to Lisbon; where every
thing around him wore the face of joy and pleasure; but on the very day
when the court and city were busily employed in preparing for two balls,
the one at the prime minister's at Belem, and the other in Lisbon, at
the _long room_;[43] intelligence was brought that troops, composed both
of horse and foot, had unexpectedly entered the city, and that great
numbers of persons of all ranks and descriptions had been taken into
custody.
Never was there a transition so sudden from the greatest joy to the
deepest sorrow; never were wedding garments so shortly changed to
mourning habits; never were criminals so speedily brought to trial, nor
sentences so quickly executed. Scarcely ten days had elapsed since their
first imprisonment, before the duke d'Aveiro was drawn and quartered;
the marquis de Tavora, his wife, his two sons, and his son-in-law, the
count d'Atouguia, beheaded, and four other persons of inferior rank
burnt alive.
Dreadful as is the spectacle of punishments, so repugnant to the
feelings of humanity; let us, however, take a view of the fatal spot,
where the minister, far from listening to the impulse of compassion, but
too frequently injurious to the interests of both king and state,
delivered up to the hand of the executioner the noble and ignoble, whose
blood was suffered to flow indiscriminately in the same channel.
The duke d'Aveiro, on approaching the scaffold, shewed every symptom of
the most abject fear, and by his cowardice lost that interest in the
hearts of the spectators, which a contrary conduct, even in the greatest
criminals, never fails to inspire; whilst the old marchioness of Tavora
was all herself, never losing sight of the character by which she had
constantly been distinguished, and preserving to the last moment of her
existence an heroic firmness, and an unalterable presence of mind.
The sentence which condemned her to death having been read to her, she
ordered her breakfast as usual, and seated herself at her toilette,
where she dressed herself in her accustomed manner. Her confessor having
hinted that her moments ought to be otherwise employed, she calmly
answered, _that there was time enough for every thing_. She afterwards
breakfasted with her female attendants, and conversed without the
smallest emotion. On arriving at the foot of the scaffold, she refused
all assistance, and addressing herself in a loud voice to those who had
offered it, _I am very well able to mount it by myself; for I have not
been put to the torture like the others_. She accordingly went up with a
firm step, but on reaching the platform of the scaffold, her constancy
was put to the most cruel proof; for meeting her husband, the marquis de
Tavora, he reproached her in the bitterest terms for having caused the
destruction of her family. Looking towards him with a serene
countenance, she only replied, _Well, then! bear your misfortunes as I
do, and do not reproach me with them_. The executioner coming towards
her, she bound her eyes herself, begged him to dispatch his business
quickly, spoke a very few words to her confessor, and with her
handkerchief gave the fatal signal.
The second son of a woman, whose greatness of mind makes her criminality
the more severely to be regretted, displayed a degree of courage equal
to that of his mother: he was only nineteen years of age, but his youth
did not exempt him from the torture. The severest torments, however,
lost their effect; not a groan, not an avowal of any kind escaped him;
till at last the executioner hoping that filial affection might draw
from him a confession, which the most excruciating tortures could not
extort, brought his father to him, who exhorted him in the most pathetic
terms not thus uselessly to prolong his sufferings, since not only he
himself, but all the accomplices had made an ample confession. Scarcely
could the marquis finish his discourse, before he was interrupted by his
son, who briefly answered, _Father, it was you who gave me life, and you
are at liberty to deprive me of it_.
The sword of justice hung some time longer suspended over the three
Jesuits, Malagrida, Alexander, and Matos, who had been taken up as
_instigators and principal chiefs of the conspiracy._[44] Their
execution was daily expected; but unfortunately the common modes of
justice had not been allowed to take their course, and to the
astonishment of all the world, it was not till some years after their
imprisonment, that Gabriel Malagrida was alone condemned by an
extraordinary court of justice, to be burned alive, (the 21st September,
1761) and then not as a conspirator and regicide, but as a heretic and
impostor.[45]
Carvalho, now made count d'Oeyras, had not, however, waited the
execution of Malagrida, to banish the Jesuits from Portugal.[46] That a
religious order, which causes disturbances in the state, and enters into
conspiracies, deserves banishment, and even capital punishment, no one
will pretend to deny; but, on the other hand, may it not be alledged
that the religious order which had rendered the most essential services
to the state, and indeed to Christian countries in general, by
instructing youth, and civilizing colonies, might better have been
reformed, than entirely destroyed.
A conspiracy, which had been preceded by a revolution in America,
attended by circumstances capable of overturning the mother country, and
which was followed by the expulsion of the Jesuits, ended at last in a
state of tranquillity, which it had cost too many sacrifices to obtain,
not to employ every possible means to ensure its duration: but
notwithstanding all the endeavours of the king and his minister, the
Spaniards and French were determined to disturb it.
A Spanish army, composed of forty thousand men, entered Portugal in
1762; their progress, however, through that country was but very short;
and by the assistance of the English, and the count de la Lippe, to whom
the former had given the command of the Portugueze troops,[47] an
honourable peace was signed on the 10th of February in the following
year: after which their quiet was only disturbed by some hostilities in
America, which terminated very much in the same manner as the former
ones, without the powers of Europe being engaged in the quarrel. The
count d'Oeyras, afterwards created marquis de Pombal, never lost sight,
even in the midst of all his difficulties, of his original plan of
reforms and ameliorations. The greatest obstacles he had to encounter
proceeded from Brazil, and the town of Oporto, from the inhabitants of
which he had but little reason to expect opposition, since the measure
to which they so strongly objected was shortly followed by an increase
of their wine trade, which became twice as considerable as before.
Portugal being much more fruitful in vines than in corn, the king
published an edict in 1765, commanding all the vines in the environs of
the Tagus, Mondego and Vecha, to be rooted up, and the land sown with
wheat.
The vineyards in the neighbourhood of Lisbon, Oeyras, and some other
places, were, however, suffered to remain. By a former edict, of the
month of October, 1761, twenty-two thousand writers or clerks employed
in the different tribunals were reduced to only thirty-two persons. The
minister, by a salutary law, which took place on the 25th of May, 1773,
_for ever_ abolished the odious distinction formerly existing in
Portugal, between the _old_ and _new_ christians. The latter, composed
of converted Jews and Moors, were always suspected of insincerity, and
regarded in the kingdom _as marked with infamy, and for ever separated
from the other Christians, and incapable of acting in any capacity,
either ecclesiastical or civil_. The progress of learning also was a
principal object in the marquis de Pombal's system of improvement: he
reformed the university of Coimbra; he converted on the 19th of May,
1766, the college occupied by the novices of the order of Jesus, and
which was esteemed one of the finest buildings in Lisbon, into a school
for the nobility: he likewise established other schools for children of
all descriptions; and published a plan of public education, which, if
properly followed, could not fail of restoring science and good morals
throughout the whole of Portugal. He left no means untried to wrest from
the hands of the English the different branches of commerce, of which
they were become exclusive possessors. He set just bounds to the
despotic authority of the holy office, which, by an edict of the 20th of
May, 1769, became merely a royal tribunal, invested with no other power
than what was transmitted to it by the sovereign, thus depriving it of
all its odious privileges and pretensions; such as the form of its
proceedings, and the absurd idea of uniting the authority of the pope
and bishops to that of the king; whilst at the same time, it
acknowledged no supreme chief but the pope alone. He patronised the
arts, and caused a statue of Joseph the Ist to be erected to him. It was
on the very day of its exhibition to the public eye, the day he justly
esteemed the happiest of his life, that he discovered it had been marked
for his destruction. The last melancholy satisfaction, in attending his
master's dying moments, together with the sixty millions of cruzadoes
found in the royal treasury after his decease, formed a sufficient proof
of the uprightness of his administration.
The reigning queen of Portugal, who was married in 1760, to her uncle,
don Pedro,[48] signalized her accession to the throne, by throwing open
the prison gates, and causing the proceedings against the criminals
concerned in the conspiracy of the 3d of September, 1758, to be revised;
after which the greater part were restored to their former rights;
though the examination which had taken place, rather confirmed their
guilt, than proved their innocence. Far different was the action
commenced against the marquis de Pombal, by the enemies of that able
minister; for the proceedings which _declared him criminal, and
deserving of condign punishment_, so evidently proved his innocence, and
the injustice of such a sentence, that he was suffered to die quietly in
his bed, at his country seat, whither he had some time retired, on the
5th of May, 1782.[49]
The health of the queen, on the demise of her husband, in 1786, was so
much deranged, that the prince of Brazil took into his own hands the
reins of government. This enlightened and prudent prince has neglected
nothing to promote the national industry; he has encouraged literature,
made commerce flourish, and even sometimes caused the Brazil gold to
circulate again from England to Portugal. He has established so strict a
police in Lisbon, that it is impossible for an assassin or conspirator,
should such still exist, to escape the punishment due to his crimes. He
has augmented the land forces, and invited the most experienced foreign
officers to command them; and he has attended particularly to the navy,
for which he has been justly rewarded. Pacific, and faithful to his
allies, he has followed as exactly as possible the system of neutrality
traced by his mother, who has ever been at peace with her neighbours,
and never engaged in any of their wars, till she joined them in that
declared against France at the commencement of the revolution: since
which, the fate of Portugal has so entirely depended on that of Spain,
that the fall of the one must necessarily be succeeded by the
destruction of the other. How noble an instance of generosity then does
the conduct of England afford, thus to fly to the relief of a country,
which, though an ally, had so lately declared war against her?