The Story of the Nations: Portugal

by H. Morse Stephens

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 The Charter of 1826 was thankfully received by the moderate parliamentary party; Clinton’s division was withdrawn; Palmella remained prime minister; and in the following year, 1827, Dom Pedro destroyed the effect of his wise measures by appointing Dom Miguel to be regent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.