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.
Even more striking than the advance of material prosperity has been the great literary revival, which has marked the era of peaceful parliamentary government. King Luis was an enlightened patron of letters, and translated some of the plays of Shakespeare into Portuguese in a manner which showed him to be well versed in the capabilities of his own language. In the country of Camoens there has been no lack of poets, though none of the modern writers would dare to class themselves with him. Foremost among these poets are Almeida-Garrett and Castilho, who alike sang the ancient glories of Portugal, but among their followers are many whose inspiration is hardly inferior to their own. Such men as José da Silva Mendes Leal, Luis Augusto Palmeirim, and João Soares de Passos, have written poems worthy to rank with the classics of Portuguese literature, and their muse has generally been fostered by a knowledge of ancient writers and of old national lyrical forms. Even more important than the poets are the historians of modern Portugal, for they are the men who have made the Portuguese so proud of their nationality that they still cling closely to their independence and oppose the advocates of “Iberianism.” The founder of the new school of scientific historians was Alexandra Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo, who, after imitating Sir Walter Scott in his historical novels, showed that he had been influenced by Niebuhr and Ranke in his famous history of Portugal, of which the first volume was published in 1848. He it was who first grasped the fact that history can only be rightly studied and correctly written after a careful and critical investigation of documents, and he manifested both energy and discernment in clearing away the cobweb of legend which had been spun about the early days of the nation. Herculano inspired his spirit into the new generation, and he has had many painstaking and able followers, among whom the ablest are Luis Augusto Rebello da Silva, Simião José da Luz Soriano, and José Maria Latino Coelho. In general literature, the modern Portuguese are equally distinguished, though their greatest strength lies in poetry and history, and it is worthy of notice, that literary fame is a sure passport to rapid advancement in political life. The high opinion held of literary endeavour is an evidence of the persistency of the national spirit, and as such may be welcomed as the brightest augury for the future development of the Portuguese nation.
Few countries of Europe will repay attentive study better than Portugal; no nation, except Spain, passed through such a trial as the reign of Maria da Gloria, and in no country have the advantages of representative institutions been better realized; socialism possesses there a reforming, not a revolutionary, force; knowledge of the history of their nation, inspired by great writers, has made the modern Portuguese ambitious to revive the glories of the past, and has united men of all shades of opinion in a common patriotism. The Camoens celebration of 1880 showed that the Brazilians are still proud of their mother country, and that the Portuguese race on both sides of the Atlantic was ready to develop new energy and perseverance, and to prove its descent from the men who under Affonso Henriques conquered the Moors; who under John I. and John IV. rejected the rule of the Spaniards; who under Affonso de Alboquerque and João de Castro made their names famous from Arabia to Japan; and who, by the labours of Prince Henry “the Navigator” and the voyage of Vasco da Gama, initiated a new era in the history of the world.
