THE SPANISH QUESTION.
While this negotiation was pending, Wellington arrived at Paris, where, under strong pressure from Canning,[78] he renewed his offer of mediation with Spain. It was declined. On the arrival of the reply from Verona, Wellington was informed that even if the other powers sent their despatches to Madrid, France would withhold hers. In the end, Villèle dismissed Montmorency for the independent line he had taken, and sent a milder note than the three eastern powers, but withdrew his ambassador from Madrid soon after the other ambassadors had departed. Great Britain was in consequence the only great power which still continued diplomatic relations with Spain at the end of January, 1823. In the course of the negotiations two curious suspicions had occurred to Canning and Villèle respectively. Canning imagined that France would employ the threats of her allies as a show of force to compel Spain to join her in an attack on British commerce in the West Indies, while Villèle suspected that the British defence of the political independence of Spain was to be recompensed by the cession of some Spanish colonies in America.
Meanwhile, the war party before which Villèle had had to bow, was having its own way in France. On January 28 Louis XVIII. in opening the chambers announced the withdrawal of his ambassador, and declared that 100,000 Frenchmen were ready to march to preserve the throne of Spain to a descendant of Henry IV., and to reconcile that country with Europe. The sole object of any war that might arise would be to render Ferdinand VII. free to give his people institutions which they could not hold except from him, and which, by securing their tranquillity, would dissipate the unrest in France. Canning protested against the apparent implication that no valid constitution could rest on any other basis than that of France did, as also against the apparent claim to interfere in virtue of the family relation of the dynasties of France and Spain; but he vainly endeavoured to persuade the Spanish government to come to some agreement with its king. On March 31, when war seemed imminent, Canning despatched a note to Paris defining the limits of British neutrality. The independence of Spain and integrity of its dominions were to be recognised; it was not to be permanently occupied by a military force, and France was not to attempt to gain either by conquest or by cession any of the revolted colonies of Spain in America. At the same time he disclaimed any intention of acquiring any of those colonies for Great Britain.[79]
PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL.
War between France and Spain began with the passage of the frontier by the Duke of Angoulême on April 7. On May 23 he entered Madrid. On October 1 the Spanish constitutionalists were compelled to set their king at liberty to join the French, and on November 1 the war was terminated by the surrender of Barcelona to the royalists. The restoration of Ferdinand VII. to absolute power was followed by a furious and vindictive reaction, which Angoulême strove in vain to moderate. For the next five years French troops occupied the country, but Angoulême showed his disapproval of the method of government by refusing the decorations offered him by Ferdinand. The restoration of absolutism in Spain led to events in Portugal which forced Great Britain to intervene and strengthened the difference between her policy and that of the continental powers. The new Portuguese constitution was unpopular, especially in the army, and as early as February, 1823, there was a revolt against the constitution, but order was restored in April. On May 26 another absolutist revolt broke out, and the rebels were joined next day by the king's second son, Dom Miguel, then twenty years of age; on the 29th the revolt spread to Lisbon; on the 31st the king promised a revised constitution, and on June 2 the cortes ceased to sit. The government resolved itself into an absolute monarchy, which continued till the following year, in spite of the appointment of a junta under the presidency of Palmella to draw up a new constitution. The ambassadors of Austria, Prussia, and Russia opposed the granting of a new constitution, and Dom Miguel still maintained a threatening attitude. Palmella accordingly applied to Great Britain for troops to support his government. This request created no little difficulty. It was impossible for Great Britain to allow the government of Portugal to fall into the hands of a party resting for support on the absolutists in Spain and the French army, and it was equally impossible to employ British troops to maintain the cause of the King of Portugal against his ultra-royalist subjects when Great Britain had protested so vigorously against the kings of Spain and the Two Sicilies receiving foreign assistance against their liberal subjects; there were moreover no troops that could well be spared.
Canning accordingly contented himself with despatching a naval squadron to the Tagus to act as a moral support to the king. As the event proved, this squadron was sufficient to determine the course of events. At the same time Canning refused to guarantee any constitution, though when France joined the eastern powers in threatening the proposed constitution, he intimated his readiness to resist by force of arms any foreign intervention in Portugal. On April 30, 1824, Dom Miguel attempted another coup d'état, and was for nine days in possession of Lisbon, where he made wholesale arrests of his political opponents. John VI. was, however, supported by all the foreign ambassadors, and on March 9, by their advice, he went on board the British ship of war, Windsor Castle, where he summoned his son to appear before him. Dom Miguel thought it wisest to obey; the king sent him abroad, and the attempt at a revolution was over for the present. The junta appointed in the previous year to frame a constitution now reported in favour of a revival of the ancient cortes, and this proposal was accepted by the king. The cortes were not, however, actually assembled; still, the mere fact of Dom Miguel's absence left the government a little stronger.
Meanwhile, the relations between Portugal and Brazil occasioned difficulties between the former country and Great Britain. On leaving Brazil, King John VI. had entrusted the government to his elder son, Peter, to whom he had given secret instructions to proclaim himself Emperor of Brazil in case he found it impossible to maintain the union between Brazil and the mother country. Acting on these instructions, Peter had proclaimed the independence of Brazil on October 12, 1822, adopting for himself the style of constitutional emperor. Next month Lord Cochrane, who had been in the service of Chile, quitted it for that of Brazil. Neither party in Portugal was prepared for the separation of Brazil, and it was therefore opposed, but without much effect, by the home government. By the end of 1823 Cochrane had captured all the Portuguese posts in Brazil, and in August, 1824, he suppressed a republican movement in the north of that country. On July 23 of the same year Great Britain signed a commercial treaty with the new empire. This irritated the Portuguese government. Meanwhile, Beresford, who had returned to Portugal in a private capacity, had been requested to resume the command of the Portuguese army. This he refused to do so long as the Count of Subsérra, a French partisan, held office at home. There was a difficulty in forming a ministry without him, and eventually Subsérra became virtual prime minister, and Beresford was excluded from office. In order to obtain an excuse for the introduction of French troops into Portugal, Subsérra sent a request to Great Britain for a force of four or five thousand, knowing it would be refused. Great Britain's refusal had not, however, the expected consequence, because the influence of the other powers at Lisbon was weakened by their anti-constitutional policy. In July, 1825, the representatives of Austria, Brazil, Great Britain, and Portugal assembled at London to consider the relations of Portugal and Brazil. While the conference was sitting it was discovered that Subsérra was carrying on separate negotiations with Brazil. Canning was now able to obtain his dismissal, which was followed by the recall of the French ambassador, De Neuville, who had been the principal opponent of British influence at Lisbon. As a result of this conference the Portuguese government on August 29 recognised the independence of Brazil.[80]
The restoration of absolute government in Spain revived the question of Spanish America. Ferdinand VII., on recovering his authority, proposed a congress at Paris for the consideration of South American affairs. Canning, however, declined his invitation, and it was thought useless to hold a congress without the participation of Great Britain. The position in which Great Britain had been placed by the negotiations of Verona, as diplomatic champion of Spain, had caused her to suspend her complaints about the treatment of her merchant vessels trading with the revolted colonies; but disorder continued, and on one occasion the British admiral was authorised to land in Cuba to extirpate the pirates using the Spanish flag. Canning was determined that French force should not be employed to reduce the revolted colonies, and in October, 1823, he informed the French ambassador, Polignac, that he would acknowledge the independence of those colonies if France assisted Spain in her attempts to reduce them[81]—a somewhat empty threat, as the commercial interests of Great Britain would have compelled him to acknowledge them in any case as soon as there should be settled governments in existence with which he could treat. Diplomatic agents were in fact appointed in most of the revolted colonies before the end of this year.
THE MONROE DOCTRINE.
What, however, rendered French interference hopeless was the attitude of the United States, as expressed in President Monroe's historic message to congress on December 2, 1823. In this message occur the words, since known as the Monroe doctrine: "With the governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration, and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States." After this the recognition of the independence of the Spanish colonies was only a matter of time.[82] Great Britain recognised the independence of Buenos Ayres, Colombia, and Mexico, in 1824, and the rest soon after. In spite of the temporary successes of Canterac, Peru, the last of the mainland provinces, was lost to Spain in 1825, and the other European powers did not now delay their recognition of the American republics. In April of that year France recognised the virtual independence of her own revolted colony of Hayti.