They had entered Portugal with so little baggage, that even the generals borrowed, or rather demanded, linen from those upon whom they were quartered. Soon, however, without having received any supplies from home, they were not only splendidly furnished with ornamental apparel, but sent to France large remittances in bills, money, and effects, especially in cotton, which the chief officers bought up so greedily that the price was trebled by their competition. The emigration had been determined on so late that many rich prizes fell into their hands. Fourteen cart-loads of plate from the patriarchal church reached the quay at Belem too late to be received on board. This treasure was conveyed back to the church, but the packing-cases bore witness of its intent to emigrate; and when the French seized it they added to their booty a splendid service for the altar of the sacrament, which had been wrought by the most celebrated artist in France. ♦1808. March.♦ ♦Neves, i. 247.♦ Junot fitted himself out with the spoils of Queluz, and Loison had shirts made of the cambric sheets belonging to the royal family which were found at Mafra. These palaces afforded precious plunder, which there had been no time to secure. The plate was soon melted into ingots, the gold and jewels divided among the generals, and the rich cloths of gold burnt for the metal, which constituted the smallest part of their value. ♦Neves, i. 229.♦ The soldiers had not the same opportunities of pillage and peculation, but they suffered no opportunity to escape: ♦Neves, i. 240–1.♦ those who were quartered in the great convent of St. Domingos pulled down the doors and window-frames, and put up the wood and iron work to auction. Yet their insolence was more intolerable than their rapacity, and their licentious habits worse than both. The Revolution had found the French a vicious people, and it had completed their corruption. It had removed all restraints of religion, all sense of honour, all regard for family or individual character; the sole object of their government was to make them soldiers, and for the purposes of such a government the wickedest men were the best. Junot himself set an example of profligacy: he introduced the fashion of lascivious dances, imported perhaps from Egypt ... one of them bears his name; and the Portugueze say that no man who regards the honour of his female relatives would suffer them to practise it. The Moors have left in the peninsula relics of this kind which are sufficiently objectionable: that, therefore, which could call forth this reprehension must be bad indeed. The decency of private families was insulted: the officers scrupled not to introduce prostitutes, without any attempt at disguising them, into the houses where they were quartered; and happy were the husbands and the parents who could preserve their wives and daughters from the attempts of these polluted guests.
♦State of Lisbon.♦
The situation of Lisbon, at this time, is one to which history affords no parallel: it suffered neither war, nor pestilence, nor famine, yet these visitations could scarcely have produced a greater degree of misery; and the calamity did not admit of hope, for whither at this time could Portugal look for deliverance? As the government was now effectually converted into a military usurpation, it became easy to simplify its operations; and most of the persons formerly employed in civil departments were dismissed from office. Some were at once turned off; others had documents given them, entitling them to be reinstated upon vacancies; a few had some trifling pension promised. All who had depended for employment and subsistence upon foreign trade were now destitute. Whole families were thus suddenly reduced to poverty and actual want. Their trinkets went first; whatever was saleable followed: things offered for sale at such a time were sold at half their value, while the price of food was daily augmenting. It was a dismal thing to see the Mint beset with persons who carried thither the few articles of plate with which they had formerly set forth a comfortable board, and the ornaments which they had worn in happier days. It was a dismal thing to see men pale with anxiety pressing through crowds who were on the same miserable errand, and women weeping as they offered their little treasure to the scales. Persons who had lived in plenty and respectability were seen publicly asking alms ... for thousands were at once reduced to the alternative of begging or stealing; and women, of unblemished virtue till this fatal season, walked the streets, offering themselves to prostitution, that the mother might obtain bread for her hungry children, ... the daughter for her starving parents. Such was the state to which one of the most flourishing cities in Europe was reduced!
♦April.♦
As the general distress increased, tyranny became more rigorous, and rapine more impatient. Many of the convents could not pay the sum at which they had been assessed, their resources having suffered in the common calamity; their rents were consequently sequestered, and the intrusive government began to take measures for selling off their lands to discharge the contribution. The rents of inhabited houses were sequestered, to answer for the assessment upon untenanted ones belonging to the same owner. At the beginning of April a prorogation of two months, for the payment of the last third of the impost, was promised to those who should have paid the first by the end of the month; ♦Observador Portuguez, p. 123.♦ on the 28th eight days grace was proclaimed for the payment of the first third; after which rigorous distress was to be levied upon the defaulters, not for the first payment alone, but for the whole contribution; ♦Ibid. p. 174.♦ and this threat was enforced. Suicide, which had scarcely ever been heard of in Portugal, became now almost a daily act. There is no inhumanity like that of avarice. The Royal Hospital at Lisbon was one of the noblest institutions in the world. Under the house of Braganza it was the admiration of all who knew how munificently it was supported, and how admirably conducted: under the usurpation of the French more than a third part of the patients who died there perished for want of food. Meantime the French government, affecting to compassionate the misery which it had created, made an ostentatious display of relieving the poor, and issued billets of two francs each, ♦Ibid. p. 200.♦ in Portugueze money 320 reis; four hundred of which were distributed weekly among forty parishes, and five more added afterwards for a parish which had been overlooked. This measure was none of that charity which vaunteth not itself. The billets were given only at one place; crowds flocked thither in expectation; and the amount of this eleemosynary expense was loudly boasted and exaggerated by the French and their partizans, ... the whole sum thus expended scarcely exceeding 40l. per week. After a few weeks the billets were not regularly paid, and at length they became worthless: and this was the extent of the liberality of this execrable government in a city where they reckoned their plunder by millions! ♦Neves, ii 157.♦ To complete the miseries of this devoted country anarchy alone was wanting; and it soon necessarily resulted from the barbarous system of the French wherever the immediate pressure of their authority was not felt. ♦Evora no seu Abatimento gloriosamente Exaltada, p. 5.♦ After the disbandment of the Portugueze army, troops of banditti were formed, who robbed in companies with perfect impunity. The edict which prohibited all persons from carrying arms left the traveller entirely at their mercy; and not content with being masters of the roads, they levied contributions upon the smaller towns and villages.
♦Increase of the Sebastianists.♦
The French, in the pride of their strength, and their ignorance of the national character, despised this poor oppressed people too much to be in any fear of what despair might impel them to; and one remarkable effect of the general misery tended at once to increase their contempt and their security. There exists in Portugal a strange superstition concerning King Sebastian, whose re-appearance is as confidently expected by many of the Portugueze as the coming of the Messiah by the Jews. The rise and progress of this belief forms a curious part of their history: it began in hope, when the return of that unhappy prince was not only possible, but might have been considered likely; it was fostered by the policy of the Braganzan party after all reasonable hope had ceased; and length of time served only to ripen it into a confirmed and rooted superstition, which even the intolerance of the Inquisition spared, for the sake of the loyal and patriotic feelings in which it had its birth. The Holy Office never interfered farther with the sect than to prohibit the publication of its numerous prophecies, which were suffered to circulate in private. For many years the persons who held this strange opinion had been content to enjoy their dream in private, shrinking from observation and from ridicule; but, as the belief had begun in a time of deep calamity, so now, when a heavier evil had overwhelmed the kingdom, it spread beyond all former example. Their prophecies were triumphantly brought to light, for only in the promises which were there held out could the Portugueze find consolation; and proselytes increased so rapidly that half Lisbon became Sebastianists. The delusion was not confined to the lower orders ... it reached the educated classes; and men who had graduated in theology became professors of a faith which announced that Portugal was soon to be the head of the Fifth and Universal Monarchy. Sebastian was speedily to come from the Secret Island; the Queen would resign the sceptre into his hands; he would give Buonaparte battle near Evora on the field of Sertorius, slay the tyrant, and become monarch of the world. These events had long been predicted; and it had long since been shown that the very year in which they must occur was mystically prefigured in the arms of Portugal. Those arms had been miraculously given to the founder of the Portugueze monarchy; and the five wounds were represented in the shield by as many round marks or ciphers, two on each side, and one in the middle. Bandarra the shoemaker, who was one of the greatest of their old prophets, had taught them the mystery therein. Place two O’s one upon the other, said he, place another on the right hand, then make a second figure like the first, and you have the date[22] given. The year being thus clearly designated, the time of his appearance was fixed for the holy week: on Holy Thursday they affirmed the storm would gather, and from that time till the Sunday there would be the most tremendous din of battle that had ever been heard in the world; ... for this April was the month of Lightning which Bandarra had foretold. In pledge of all this, some of the bolder believers declared that there would be a full moon on the 19th of March, ... when she was in the wane! It was a prevalent opinion that the Encoberto, or the Hidden One, as they called Sebastian, was actually on board the Russian squadron!
Those parts of the old prophecies which clearly pointed to the year 1640, when the event for which they were intended was accomplished, were omitted in the copies which were now circulated and sought with equal avidity. Other parts were easily fitted to the present circumstances. A rhyme, importing that he of Braganza would go out and he of France would come in, which was written concerning the war of the Succession, was now interpreted to point to the prince of Brazil and Buonaparte; and the imperial eagle which was preserved in the Spanish banners after Charles the Fifth, and against which so many denunciations had been poured out, was the device of this new tyrant. The Secret Island had lately been seen from the coast of Algarve, and the quay distinguished from which Sebastian was to embark, and the fleet in which he was to sail. The tongues of the dumb had been loosed, and an infant of three months had distinctly spoken in Lisbon to announce his coming. One believer read prophecies in the lines of those sea-shells upon which a resemblance to musical characters may be fancied. The effect of this infatuation was that in whatever happened the Sebastianists found something to confirm their faith, and every fresh calamity was hailed by them as a fulfilment of what had been foretold. The emigration of the Prince and the entrance of the French were both in the prophecies, and both therefore were regarded with complacency by the believers. When the French flag was hoisted they cried Bravo! these are the eagles at the sight of which Bandarra, one of the greatest prophets that ever existed, shed tears! During the tumult in Lisbon their cry was, Let them fire! let them kill! all this is in the prophecies. This folly gave occasion to many impositions, which served less to expose the credulity of individuals, than to increase the prevalent delusion. One Sebastianist found a letter from King Sebastian in the belly of a fish, appointing him to meet him at night on a certain part of the shore. A more skilful trick was practised upon another with perfect success. An egg was produced with the letters V. D. S. R. P. distinctly traced upon the shell; the owner of the hen in whose nest it was deposited fully believed that it had been laid in this state, and the letters were immediately interpreted to mean Vive Dom Sebastiam Rei de Portugal. The tidings spread over the city, and crowds flocked to the house. The egg was sent round in a silver salver to the higher order of believers. ♦Neves, ii. 142.♦ After it had been the great topic of conversation for three days, it was carried to Junot, by whom it was detained as worthy of being placed in the National Museum at Paris. These things naturally excited the contempt and ridicule of the French; nevertheless, when Junot, as if to put out of remembrance the very names of the Royal Family, ordered the ships that were called after the Prince and the Queen ♦Obs. Port. p. 275.♦ to be called the Portugueze and the City of Lisbon, he altered the name of the St. Sebastian also.
♦Edicts to prevent emigration.♦
The Comte de Novion was succeeded in the police department by Lagarde, the fame of whose rapacities in Venice and other parts of Italy prepared the people to expect in him what they found. ♦April 7.♦ The first edict of this new minister commanded the Corregedores and Juizes do Crime, or Criminal Judges, to make out in the course of the ensuing fortnight a list of all the persons who had emigrated from their respective jurisdictions, specifying in every instance the place of abode both in town and country, the parish and street, the number and the floor of the house. Sequestration of the emigrant’s property was to follow as soon as possible; and any person, though father or child, or in their default the nearest heir, who should attempt to conceal or cover any part of the property, was to be treated as having criminally taken possession of that to which he had no right. If any person fled after the publication of this decree, his name, with all particulars concerning him and his disappearance, must be sent to the Corregedor, or Criminal Judge, within eight-and-forty hours, by the owner of the house which he had inhabited; or its chief tenant, if it were divided among many; or all its inhabitants, if the person dwelt in one of his own, and by those persons also to whom he should have left the keys and intrusted the care thereof. If any of these persons failed in informing in due time, they themselves would be considered as having intended to subtract property destined to sequestration. ♦April 5.♦ It had already been ordered that all flags of truce from the British squadron should be fired upon: that any person caught in attempting to reach the fleet should be punished with imprisonment for not less than six months, or with death, according to the circumstances; and that the master of the boat, and all other persons convicted of having consented to assist in the escape, should suffer capital punishment. It was now enacted, that every one having newspapers, letters, or any communication of any kind from the British ships, should instantly deposit them, or give account thereof, at the Intendant General’s office, on pain of being treated as an agent of the English; and the same penalty was decreed against every one who should spread news from the fleet, unless he specified his authority and named the person from whom his intelligence came. Notice was also given that an office was opened to receive information against those who were seeking to emigrate, against the boatmen who would facilitate the escape of such persons, and against all agents of the English; and it was added, that on proof of the accusation, Junot would determine what reward should be given to the informer. ♦Obs. Port, p. 224.♦ Lagarde had taken possession of the Inquisition; the old establishment of that devilish tribunal gave place only to one for political persecution, as if the edifice itself were polluted, and destined always to deserve the execrations of mankind.