a limited monarchy, enraged the nobility, and still more the clergy, who
looked with horror on the radical reforms of the constituent assembly,
and when the French invaded Spain in 1823 to suppress the rebellion in
that country, General Francisco de Silveira, Count of Amarante, raised a
“pronunciamento” in the Tras-os-Montes against the Constitution of 1822.
John VI. had imbibed some of his elder son’s ideas, and was in favour of
modifying the absolute character of the Portuguese monarchy, but he
never concealed his opinion that the radical party had gone too far in
its extreme reforms. He therefore took advantage of the “pronunciamento”
in the north to declare the Constitution of 1822 abrogated, and
appointed the Count of Palmella prime minister, with instructions to
form a “junta,” and to draw up a moderate and well-balanced
parliamentary constitution on the English model. But the absolutist
party, headed by the queen and Dom Miguel, who had been appointed
commander-in-chief of the army, would not tolerate any form of
constitutional monarchy; they raised an insurrection in Lisbon against
John VI.; the king’s greatest friend, the liberal-minded Marquis of
Loulé, was assassinated; Palmella and his colleagues were imprisoned;
and the king himself was shut up in his palace and eventually fled for
refuge on board an English man-of-war in the Tagus. The united action of
the foreign ambassadors and ministers accredited to Portugal, led by Sir
William A’Court, afterwards Lord Heytesbury, the representative of
England, secured the restoration of the king’s authority; the
insurrection was suppressed; Dom Miguel was banished; Palmella was
re-appointed prime minister; and at the close of 1824, the king returned
to Brazil to spend his last days in peace. On reaching Rio de Janeiro,
he recognized Dom Pedro as Emperor of Brazil, and on the 6th of March,
1826, John VI. died in the country of his choice. By his will, John VI.
left the regency of Portugal to his daughter Isabel Maria, to the
disgust of Dom Miguel, who had fully expected in spite of his conduct
that Portugal would be in some manner bequeathed to him, and that Dom
Pedro would be satisfied with the government of Brazil.
The next twenty-five years are the saddest in the whole history of
Portugal. The establishment of the system of parliamentary government,
which now exists, was a long and difficult task; it is almost impossible
to follow the rapid sequence of events, and quite impossible to
understand the varying motives of different statesmen and generals. The
keynote of the whole series of disturbances is to be found in the
pernicious influence of the army. Beresford’s creation was a grand
fighting machine, but armies, and more particularly generals, after a
long period of active service, are almost certain to become dangerous in
times of peace. In the case of Portugal, the army was disproportionately
large for the size and revenue of the country; there was no foreign or
colonial war to occupy its energies, and the soldiers would not return
to the plough nor the officers retire into private life.
The English Cabinet at this juncture determined to maintain peace and
order, and in 1826, a division of five thousand men was sent under the
command of Lieutenant-General Sir William Clinton to garrison the chief
towns. The accession of Pedro IV. to the throne was hailed with joy in
Portugal, though looked on with suspicion in Brazil. He justified his
reputation by drawing up a charter, containing the bases for a moderate
parliamentary government of the English type, which he sent over to
Portugal, by the English diplomatist, Lord Stuart de Rothesay. Then to
please his Brazilian subjects, he abdicated the throne of Portugal in
favour of his daughter, Donna Maria da Gloria, a child of seven years
old, on condition that on attaining a suitable age she should marry her
uncle, Dom Miguel, who was to swear to observe the new constitution. The
Charter of 1826 was thankfully received by the moderate parliamentary
party; Clinton’s division was withdrawn; Palmella remained prime
minister; and in the following year, 1827, Dom Pedro destroyed the
effect of his wise measures by appointing Dom Miguel to be regent of
Portugal in the name of the little queen.
Dom Miguel was an ambitious prince, who believed that he ought to be
king of Portugal; he was extremely popular with the old nobility, the
clergy, and the army, with all who disliked liberal ideas, and with the
beggars and the poor who were under the influence of the mendicant
orders. He was declared Regent in July, 1827, and in May, 1828, he
summoned a Cortes of the ancient type, such as had not met since 1697,
which under the presidency of the Bishop of Viseu offered him the throne
of Portugal. He accepted, and immediately exiled all the leaders of the
parliamentary, or, as it is usually called, the Chartist, party, headed
by Palmella, Saldanha, Villa Flor, and Sampaio. They naturally fled to
England, where the young queen was stopping on her way to be educated at
the court of Vienna, and found popular opinion strongly in their favour.
But the Duke of Wellington and his Tory Cabinet refused to countenance
or assist them. The duke urged on the marriage of the queen with her
uncle, and persisted in confusing the moderate and the radical parties,
and in believing that Palmella was a democrat. The little queen was
herself kindly received by George IV., but the behaviour of the Duke of
Wellington was so obnoxious to her guardians, Amelia of Bavaria, Empress
of Brazil and second wife of Dom Pedro, and Felisberto Caldeira Brant
Pontes, Marquis of Barbacena, that they took her to France in 1829. She
was there granted the Château of Meudon for a residence, and was
educated by her stepmother, and two accomplished ladies, Eugenia Telles
da Gama, Countess of Palmella, and Leonor da Camara, Marchioness of
Ponte Delgada, while civil war was raging in Portugal in her name.
Meanwhile the reign of Dom Miguel had become a Reign of Terror; arrests
and executions were frequent; thousands were deported to Africa, and in
1830 it was estimated that forty thousand persons were in prison for
political offences. He ruled in absolute contempt of all law, and at
different times English, French, and American fleets entered the Tagus
to demand reparation for damage done to commerce, or for the illegal
arrest of foreigners. The result of this conduct was that the country
was hopelessly ruined, and the chartist and radical parties, who
respectively advocated the Charter of 1826 and the Constitution of 1822,
agreed to sink their differences, and to oppose the bigoted tyrant. The
island of Terceira in the Azores had never recognized Dom Miguel, and it
was there in 1829 that Palmella, Villa Flor, José Antonio Guerreiro and
Quevedo Pizarro declared themselves a council of regency for Queen Maria
da Gloria. On the 11th of August, 1830, they defeated a fleet sent
against them by Dom Miguel in Praia Bay, and at this news all the
chartists who could escape from Portugal, and the numerous Portuguese
exiles in England and France, hastened to the Azores. Dom Pedro, who had
devoted his life to the cause of parliamentary government, resigned his
crown in 1831 to his infant son, and left Brazil to head the movement
for his daughter’s cause. He first went to London, where he met with a
good reception from the Liberal Cabinet of Lord Grey, and he there
negotiated a large loan in his daughter’s name. He then hastened to the
Azores with as many men as he could raise, most of whom were English
soldiers, tired of peace, or adventurers of other nations, and on his
arrival he appointed the Count of Villa Flor, commander-in-chief of the
army, and Captain Sartorius, of the English navy, admiral of the fleet,
of Queen Maria da Gloria.
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.