The Story of the Nations: Portugal

by H. Morse Stephens

France, it is well known, was torn by religious wars during the sixteenth century, and it was one of the Huguenot leaders, Nicolas Durant, Sieur de Villegagnon and Vice-Admiral of Brittany, who first conceived the idea of expatriating himself and founding a colony with his co-religionists in the fertile country of Brazil. The Admiral de Coligny warmly supported this scheme, and obtained leave from Henry II. to put it into execution. Three large vessels were accordingly chartered, and a number of intending colonists set sail from Havre for Brazil in May, 1555, under the command of Villegagnon. They reached South America in November, and, without even attempting to obtain the consent of either of the King of Portugal or of the authorities of the captainship in which they landed, deliberately settled in an eligible spot, and for protection alike against the natives and the Portuguese, they built Fort Coligny. Villegagnon immediately reported his success to the admiral, who sent on his letter to Calvin at Geneva. Calvin expressed his satisfaction at the notion of a Protestant colony in that quarter of the New World, and with his approbation a Genevese named Dupont, and two ministers, Richer and Chartier, collected together three hundred more French Huguenots and joined the original settlers in 1557 at Fort Coligny. Violent religious quarrels soon broke out between Villegagnon and Richer, and the newly-arrived colonists first removed to the banks of the Rio de Janeiro, and then returned to France, where they vehemently reviled Villegagnon. He returned to France to meet their accusations, and the Portuguese, under their governor, Emmanuel de Sá, took advantage of his withdrawal to demolish Fort Coligny and expel the French settlers. Thus ended the first attempt of the French to settle in Brazil.

The Portuguese possession of Brazil was to be far more dangerously disputed by the Dutch in the following century, and the only reason why they did not lose their American, as they did their Asiatic dominion is to be found in the method by which the colony had been settled. What was best in old Portugal, not necessarily what was bravest, but what was best and most industrious had gone to Brazil; the colonists there had been most wisely and prudently governed; they had been allowed to develop free from all restrictions by the wise policy of prudent governors; and the result of this free development was that the Brazilians remained Portuguese at heart. They repulsed the attempts of the Dutch, and even, when able to stand alone, they preferred to cling to the mother country. Therefore it was that when in the eighteenth century the Portuguese possessions in Asia were only a drain on the exchequer of the kingdom, Brazil became the main source of the wealth of the Portuguese Crown. Little did Cabral, or King Emmanuel, think that Brazil would be a far more valuable possession to Portugal than Cochin, or Goa, or Malacca, and that it was so was due to the manner in which it was settled; for colonies, whose prosperity rests on stout hearts and industrious hands, are of a lasting value to their mother country, while possessions, won and held by force of arms, are only of fictitious advantage and of transient value to the conquering race.

XI.
THE LAST KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF AVIZ—DOM SEBASTIAN AND THE CARDINAL HENRY.

THE germs of the rapid decline of Portugal have been already noticed in discussing the reigns of Emmanuel and John III.; the country, exhausted by its efforts to conquer Asia and colonize Brazil, and deprived of liberty of thought by the deadly influence of the Inquisition, was fast losing its old vitality; and what Portuguese were left in Portugal were either enervated by luxury in the upper classes and slaves to the Court, or in the lower beggars upon the charity of the King and the Church. The Portuguese of the upper classes, who preserved the old Portuguese spirit of daring were in Asia; the sturdiest peasantry of the lower classes had found their way to Madeira or Brazil. Cultivated mainly by slaves, subject to an absolutist and bigoted court, and chiefly inhabited by slaves, priests, and beggars, it was no wonder that keen observers, like the Dutchman Cleynaerts, perceived that beneath its appearance of seeming prosperity, the Portuguese kingdom was rotten to the core. Lisbon was indeed the centre of the trade of the East; it was from the Tagus that the ships from the rest of Europe came to fetch the muslins of Bengal, the brocades of Gujarāt, the “calicos” of Calicut, the spices of the “Spice Islands,” the pepper of the Malabar coast, and the teas and silks of China. Lisbon was the commercial capital of the world; the King of Portugal was the richest sovereign in Europe. But in spite of wealth and luxury and universal consideration Portugal was a decaying power, and a single shock was sufficient to strike the country from its place, as the leading nation of Europe, the nation of heroes, and leave it defenceless against foreign foes.

This shock was supplied by the African expedition of Dom Sebastian and its disastrous result, and Portugal was then an easy prey to the ambition of Philip II. of Spain. The reign of Dom Sebastian has therefore a pathetic interest to posterity: the romantic character of the young king; his gallantry, and his death on the field of battle; and the sudden end of the house of Aviz, which had seemed so powerful, have contributed to make this reign one of the best known to students of general history in the whole annals of Portugal. To contemporaries this sudden collapse of the kingdom, which a few years before had seemed so great, appeared nothing short of marvellous, and political philosophers were never weary of dwelling on this extinction and finding reasons for it. Rabid Protestants argued that it was all due to the Inquisition; humanitarians agreed that it was a punishment for the high-handed conduct of the Portuguese “conquistadores” in the East; shortsighted historians attributed it entirely to the defeat of Dom Sebastian in Africa. But more careful inquiry has shown that the seeds of decline had long been planted, and that the fall of Portugal from her high estate was due to the exhaustion of her vital energies and to the rapid depopulation of her territory in Europe. No country can continue to exist and be a power, which sends forth all its best energies to foreign lands and foreign continents, and becomes exhausted at home; it might as well be expected that a man should be vigorous when his heart is hopelessly diseased.

Portugal was thus already rapidly decaying, when an infant of three years old became its monarch. Three times before in its history minors had succeeded to the throne, but in each case wise regents had governed the country, and the minorities had been marked by advance not retrogression. The first King of Portugal, Affonso Henriques, was but three years old, when he succeeded to his country; but the wisdom of his mother, Donna Theresa, during his minority paved the way for his subsequent success. Sancho II. was but a boy when he became king; but the great Bishop of Lisbon, by his self-abnegation, made his minority a triumph. Affonso V. had also been a child sovereign; but his uncle, the great Duke of Coimbra, ruled so wisely, that the king’s coming of age proved to be a disaster, not an advantage, to the country. But there were no such regents for the minority of Dom Sebastian: his grandmother was Spanish to the core, and loved Spain more than Portugal; his heir-presumptive was his great-uncle Dom Henry, Cardinal and Grand Inquisitor of the kingdom.