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throne of his brother; he had laughed at promises made, and oaths sworn in the face of Europe. As if all that might still expose him to the degrading suspicion of being capable of a virtuous or kindly sentiment, he had now attempted to assassinate his sister.

If a system directed to gratify the passions of such a man were susceptible of any aggravation, it was found in the interference of the queen mother. Atrocious as were the proceedings of the government, that worst of women and of wives was still unsatisfied, unless she could place them under the direction of her own creatures, for whose abhorrence of every thing like mercy and justice she might have the security of her own personal knowledge. The confinement of Miguel, in consequence of an accident which had happened to him in the end of the preceding year, gave her room for intriguing.* She succeeded in displacing the

In the beginning of the year the following treasonable proclamation was openly circulated by the queen's adherents "Royalists! To preserve the throne and the altar is and always has been the object of our endeavours, and the thought nearest and dearest to our hearts. But the throne and the altar are now tottering on the brink of ruin. The king, from his severe illness, and the constant restraint under which he has been kept, has been compelled, by his fears, to temporize with that impious masonic faction, which, for a length of time, has surrounded and still surrounds his royal person. With pain and indignation we see the faithful vassals of the king, who sacrificed their lives, their honours, and their properties, who left their country, and have suffered a painful emigration, still suffered to exist, and pine in want, in misery, and in oblivion, whilst the infernal free-masons still hold the most honourable and lucrative places. The prisons are converted into so many masonic lodges, where, without danger,

foreign minister, Rio Pardo, and procuring the appointment of count St. Lourenco, a minion of her own.

To infuse her spirit into the police was a still more desirable object. The department of Justice (for so it was still named) under Furtado Rio, and the ministry of the Interior, under the count de Bastos, were already as bad as even she could have wished. Barata was at the head of the police, under which Portugal was enjoying the present reign of lawless bloodshed and plunder; but the queen carried the appointment of the dezembargador Belfort, who had shewn himself, in the proceedings of the preparatory judicial commission at Oporto, of which he was a member, an officer after her own heart. She went further, and placed the

they conspire against the throne and the altar, and against us individually.

"Now, royalists! let us not sheathe our swords till our country is saved from the worst of enemies! Let us, for the present, withdraw the reins of government from the hands of our hero, the king, Don Miguel, which, though at other times powerful, are now become feeble from his infirmities, and from the machinations of the vile set now surrounding him and let us call her majesty, the beloved queen-mother, to govern in his royal name; for which act we have laws and precedents. We can re-assume the royal power, and confer it upon whom we please, and whom we consider best qualified to govern and preserve the kingdom, as our ancestors declared on the assemblage of the Cortes in 1641. And on what better occasion than the present can we exercise this most sacred right? Let, then, the queen Donna Carlotta de Bourbon govern! and death at one blow to the republican monster of free-masonry; the gallows and the triangles must work conjointly, and with energy; and fires must be kindled in every quarter of Portugal to reduce to ashes the bodies and properties of these vile monsters!-then, and then only, may we raise our voices safely and triumphantly-"

intendant himself under the intendancy of a certain Luzuriaga, whom she had selected as a new confidential agent; and this Luzuriaga was an exiled Spanish thief. He had originally made his name known by certain atrocious achievements in the Spanish army of the Faith. He had then turned robber, and been condemned to the gallies. He made his escape; and, in consideration of his former services, was recommended to the protection of the queen mother of Portugal by the apostolics of Madrid. He was now her prime minister, and took the intendants of the police under his own especial charge. He set himself to intrigue against Camposano the Spanish ambassador at Lisbon. By the influence of the queen over her royal relations in Spain, he succeeded in having Camposano recalled; but the same messenger, who brought to the latter Ferdinand's order for his return, brought also an order from the Spanish foreign minister to claim the run-away galley-slave. Luzariaga, however, safe in the protection of his mistress, and of the ministers of whom he was the worthy colleague, laughed the de

mand to scorn.

The scenes of bloodshed and confiscation at Lisbon were not more extensive or ruinous than those which were exhibited at Oporto. A special commission had been sent to that city from the capital, to take proceedings against the persons who had been involved, or were suspected of having been involved, in the fruitless enterprise of the constitutional party in 1828. It first proceeded against those who, knowing the temper of the government, had fled from the country. On the 23rd of December, twenty-two of these individuals

were cited to appear before the commission at the end of two months, to take their trial for rebellion. The greater number of them were officers of rank in the army; but the list included likewise several judges, and some merchants of Oporto. As none of them appeared, they were declared guilty of treason in the highest degree, and their estates were confiscated. In the mean time, the preparatory inquiries, necessary for the trial of the constitutionalists who were in custody,had been going on. Twentythree of them were brought before the commission; of these, eleven were sent, for different periods, to different places of banishment; the remaining twelve were condemned to death. The sentence was immediately ratified, but its execution was delayed some weeks, till arrangements should be made for carrying it into effect with security. The number, too, and the respectability of the victims, produced much intercession, and obtained some respite. Only two of the number, however, were saved; the one, formerly a corregidor, whose sentence was commuted into one of hard labour for life, and the other, a clerk in a mercantile house, who, after being flogged, was to be sent for life to the gallies of Angola. It was made part of the commuted sentence of the corregidor, that he should perform, when required, the duties of a public executioner. The other ten were executed on the 9th of May.*

The following were the persons who suffered.

"Francisco Manoel Gravito da Veiga

e Lima, ex Dezembargador of Appeals in the Court of Supplication.

"Victorio Telles de Medeiros e Vasconcellos, ex-lieut.-colonel of the regi ment of Militia of Louzan.

"Francisco Silveiro de Carvalho,

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The inhabitants of Oporto manifested their sentiments, on the day of execution, by shutting the shops, and abandoning the streets and public places, as if the city had been in mourning. The authorities, offended at the expressive silence which reigned throughout the town, sent patroles of cavalry through the streets, and compelled the citizens to open their shops. The apprehensions of some public commotion had been so strong, that the intelligence of the execution having been carried tranquilly into effect, was thought worthy of being communicated to the capital by telegraph; and in Lisbon the creatures of the court were publicly congratulating each other on the event, as on the occurrence of some national triumph. Among the prisoners at Oporto, was a British merchant, accused of having encouraged the military of Oporto who began the insurrection on the 16th of May. As the privilege of British residents required, he was tried before a particular judge, the Judge Conservator of the British nation, to

Fiscal of the Tobacco Contract in the city of Aveiro.

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Jose Antonio de Oliveira Silva

Barros, First Book-keeper of the Royal

Snuff and Soap Contract.

"Manoel Luiz Nogueira, Barristerat-law, and Registered Advocate of the city of Oporto.

"Antonio Bernardo de Brito e Cunha, Comptroller of Finances.

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Clemente da Silva Mello Soares de Freitas, ex-Juiz de Fora (Magistrate) of Villa da Feira.

"Bernardo Francisco Pinheiro, exCaptain of Ordinanças (Local Militia) of the district of Villa da Feira.

"Joaquim Manuel da Fonseca Lobo, ex-lieut.-colonel of the 11th Battalion of Riflemen.

"Jose Maria Martiniano da Fonseca, Barrister-at-law, from and domiciliated in, the island of Madeira."

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whose jurisdiction alone our countrymen are subject. By that tribunal he was acquitted; but the government immediately cancelled this sentence, and ordained him to be removed from Portugal and its dominions. The British consul, however, immediately interfered to assert the rights of his countrymen, secured by treaty and long possession; the sentence was recalled; the condemned was readmitted to Portugal, and re-instated in his property.

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The rage of the usurper was well backed by the bigotry of the priesthood. In their sermons and publications they applauded the work of death and devastation, as an acceptable offering on the part of a pure and pious government. Jose Agostinho, a monk, who was a court preacher, and the confessor of Cadoval, the prime minister, published, in the beginning of May, a pamphlet, called "The Beast Flayed," for the express purpose of urging the necessity of multiplying sacrifices. "The Constitutionalists," said he, must be hung up by the feet.. May God send that the executions begin in these long days of May, which give full time for them. As this year threatens scarcity, let the people be joyfully treated daily with fresh meat from the gallows." To follow out these infernal advices, a new commission was named to try, that is, to condemn, between forty and fifty new prisoners; but a partial respite was obtained, in consequence of Furtado Rio ceasing to be minister of Justice. His removal was said to have been effected partly by the influence of the foreign consuls, partly by that of the Spanish ambassador.

He was succeeded by Mattos, who seemed inclined to be less san

an

guinary, and, at all events, less indiscriminating, in his punishments. One of his first acts was to free the police from the queen mother's agent Luzuriaga; he gave up the felon to the Spanish authorities. The trials of the prisoners, who had been intended to supply "fresh meat" to the people, was postponed. A proclamation was issued, censuring the course which had hitherto been pursued, in imprisoning and punishing every person against whom even anonymous charge had been made, and expressing his majesty's great anxiety that the innocent should not be confounded with the guilty. Barata, the intendant of police, was dismissed, and was succeeded by a M. da Veiga. But the slight efforts of these men to mitigate, in some measure, the horrors of the reign of terror were neutralized by the influence of the queen. While the new intendant was setting at liberty many innocent prisoners, who ought never to have been incarcerated, the queen issued instructions to the Royal Volunteers to oppose the execution of his orders; and these instructions were obeyed. Veiga prepared an ordinance, directing that all, who counteracted the measures of his department, should be immediately imprisoned. Miguel, before signing it, communicated it to his mother, who immediately wrote to the intendant in the following terms: "In formed that, by an ordinance which is to appear, power is given to the enemies of the altar to imprison those who in their opinion may insult them, I let you know that whatever you'll attempt against the character of those who are the only true royalists, will bring upon you my indignation, and that you must dread my resentment."

This letter being shown to Miguel, he said, "Well, we must not oppose the wishes of our beloved mother;" and Mr. Veiga ceased, and caused the judicial commission to cease, from acquitting and liberating prisoners, as they were much safer in prison, than when exposed to the anarchical persecutions of the Royal Volunteers. What was gained, therefore, by this change of officers was only a very limited mitigation; but even the smallest relaxation was treated as a blessing. Prosecutions, unjust and oppressive prosecutions, continued; but they did not end in blood. To relieve the prisons, and make room for a new succession of miserable inmates, the most respectable political convicts, of all ages and classes, were shipped off to Africa; and, that its pestilential climate might do surely the work of the executioner, neither unconfirmed youth, nor feeble old age, nor the infirmities of disease, nor the disabled trunk, maimed in the service of the country, could excite compassion in this crowned monster, and his atrocious satellites. On the 10th of July, sixteen prisoners were sent from Lisbon to Oporto to take their trial. Among them was a widow lady, who had the misfortune to be one of the wealthiest persons in the kingdom. To get possession of her fortune, she was accused of having abetted, by her wealth and credit, every revolution that had taken place in Portugal since 1820. The criminal tribunal of Oporto claimed her, after she had suffered for a year all the misery and disease which the dungeons of the Limoeiro could inflict. The physicians of Lisbon certified, that she could not be removed without extreme danger to her life.

But as

there was no anxiety that such danger should be avoided, she was immediately shipped off, in the company of the other prisoners, with no more regard to her station and her sex, than would have been paid to the meanest ruffian.

About the same time, the Commission of Oporto having condemned two more of the constitutionalists, the one to death, and the other to banishment for life, the former was pardoned, that he might accompany the latter to Africa. Mercy was so new, that the intelligence of this act of grace excited loud rejoicings in Oporto. These expressions of pleasure were treated as proofs of a factious concern in the welfare of men who were enemies to the state; and thirty of the inhabitants of Oporto were imprisoned, because they had dared to rejoice that Miguel could pardon. Their satisfaction.

was

not long-lived; for, in a short time, two other military persons were executed at Oporto for their political offences, one of them holding no higher grade than that of serjeant, a rank seldom included in prosecutions for crimes of that description. He was believed to have fallen innocently, a victim of certain underlings of office, who owed him debts which they took this method to discharge. Four more were condemned at the same time; but their sentence was com→ muted into transportation for life to Africa, after they had been compelled to witness the execution of their comrades. Sentence was likewise pronounced, in the month of August, against the marquis Palmella, count Villa Flor, count Sampayo, general Saldanha, and the other officers, twenty-one in number, who had gone from England in the preceding year to lead,

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or assist in, the bootless enterprise of Oporto. Fortunately they had all escaped. In their absence they were condemned "to be degraded from their rank, to be executed on the Praça Nova, and afterwards their heads to be cut off, the bodies of some of them to be burned, and the ashes cast into the sea: their heads exposed on the road from Malezurhos to the sea-coast where they landed, and there remain till they decayed with time: the property of all of them to be confiscated to the royal treasury."

Miguel, while he thus proceeded against the avowed or suspected enemies of his usurpation, naturally provided for the safety of those who had been the enemies of the constitution which he overturned. Many persons had been put in a state of accusation on account of their participation in the rebellious movements of 1826 and 1827. There was no reason to apprehend that, under Miguel, the investigations against them would be continued; but he thought it right to secure them by a decree, putting a stop to all proceedings against "individuals accused of opposing the extinct and proscribed form of constitutional government, an opposition which ought now to be considered as proving the loyalty with which his majesty's faithful subjects detested such a monstrous innovation on the fundamental laws of this monarchy."

The natural result of such a state of political society, presenting only oppression on the one side, and distrust on the other, was the total interruption of commercial business, and the cessation of manufacturing industry. The lower classes of the people wanted food and employinent; the rents of the landed proprietors remained unpaid; the

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