Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/573

Rh HISTORY.] PORTUGAL 551 was obeyed both from fear of France and from a dislike of England owing to her high-handed naval policy. Even this humble submission of the regent did not satisfy Napoleon, and in 1804 he replaced Lannes by Junot, whom he ordered to insist upon Portugal s declaring war against England. Then for a time he desisted from executing his plans against the country owing to his great campaigns in Europe, and made a treaty of neutrality with the Portu guese Government. At length in 1807, having beaten Austria, Prussia, and Russia, Napoleon again turned his thoughts to his project for the annihilation of Portugal, which had become more than ever a thorn in his side, since it refused to co-operate in his Continental schemes 1 Pen- for ruining England. He resolved at first to act with I iar Spain and Godoy, as Perignon had done in 1797, and on 29th October 1807 signed the treaty of Fontainebleau, by which it was arranged that Portugal should be conquered and divided into three parts : the northern portion should be given to the- king of Etruria in the place of his Italian kingdom, which Napoleon desired to annex, while the southern portion was to be formed into an independent kingdom for Godoy, and the central provinces were to be held by France until a general peace. The signature of the treaty was followed by immediate action : Junot moved with an army rapidly across Spain, and, together with a Spanish force under General Caraffa, entered Portugal from the centre, while General Taranco and General Solano with two other Spanish armies occupied the Minho and Alemtejo. With amazing rapidity Junot accomplished the march, and the Portuguese hardly knew that war was imminent until on 27th November Colonel Lecor rushed into Lisbon with the news that the French were in posses sion of Abrantes. This alarming intelligence unnerved the regent, who listened to the strongly -worded advice of Sir Sidney Smith, commander of the English ships in the Tagus, to abandon his kingdom for the Brazils, and leave the English to defend Portugal ; and on 27th November Dom John, after naming a council of regency, went on board the English fleet with his whole family, including the queen Maria I. The English ships had hardly left the Tagus when a small force of wearied French soldiers, who were all that remained from the terrible fatigues of the march, entered Lisbon on 30th November. Nothing proves more certainly the widely-spread exist ence of what were called French principles that is to say, democratic ideas in Portugal than the hearty reception which Junot met with from the first. At Santarem a deputation of the freemasons of Portugal, who were there, as in other Continental countries, a secret society for the propagation of democratic principles, welcomed him ; the marquis of Alorna with the army instantly submitted to him ; and the council of regency, knowing the temper of the citizens, made no attempt to hold Lisbon against him. But Junot showed no desire to grant the Portuguese a constitution, and after seizing all the money in the royal treasury he divided the country into military governments under his generals, issuing on 1st February a proclamation that the house of Braganza had ceased to reign. He then began to hope that he himself might succeed the Braganzas, and for this purpose sought to conciliate the Portuguese by reducing the requisition demanded by Napoleon from forty millions of francs to twenty millions, and commenced a negotiation with the radical or French party in Portugal through Luca de Scabra da Silva to induce them to send a petition or deputation to the emperor, asking for Junot to be their king. But his attempts at conciliation were of no avail ; and, when the Spanish general Bellesta, who had succeeded Taranco at Oporto, seized the French governor, General Quesnel, declared for the regent, and marched into Galicia, Junot departed from Lisbon, leaving the city in the hands of a regency, headed by the bishop of Oporto. The bishop at once sent to England for help, and encouraged fresh revolts all over the kingdom, till nearly every city in Portugal rose against the French and established its own junta of government. Meanwhile the English Government had willingly listened to the request of the bishop of Oporto, and ordered the small army which had been collected at Cork, under the command of Lieu tenant-General Sir Arthur Wellesley, for an expedition to South America, to proceed to Portugal. Sir Arthur landed at the mouth of the Mondego river, advanced towards Lis bon, and, after defeating Laborde s division at Roliga on 17th August 1808, routed Junot himself at Vimieiro on 21st August. These victories were followed by the con vention of Cintra, by which Junot agreed to vacate Portugal and give up all the fortresses in his possession ; this con vention, however disappointing from a military point of view, was eminently satisfactory to the Portuguese people, who saw themselves as speedily delivered from the French as they had been conquered by them. The regency was again established, and at once despatched Domingos Antonio de Sousa Coutinho, a brother of the count of Lin- hares, to London, to ask that an English minister with full powers should be sent to Lisbon, and that Sir Arthur Wellesley might be appointed to reorganize their army. Their requests were complied with : the Right Honourable J. C. Villiers was sent to Lisbon, and, as Sir Arthur Welles- ley could not be spared, Major-General Beresford, who had learned Portuguese when governor of Madeira, which he had occupied in the preceding year, was sent to command their army. Portugal, however, was not yet safe from the French ; Sir John Moore s advance to Salamanca and his retreat to Corunna had left the country but slightly gar risoned, and, in spite of the braggadocio of the bishop, Oporto quickly fell into the hands of Marshal Soult. Fortunately Soult, like Junot, was led away by the idea of becoming king of Portugal, and did not advance on Lisbon, thus giving time for Sir Arthur Wellesley again to arrive in the country with a powerful army. In the interval the Portuguese, in spite of some spirited fights by General Silveira, had shown how little they could do in their disorganized state, and the English Government determined to send out English officers to organize them and to take 10,000 Portuguese into English pay. Mean while Sir Arthur Wellesley had driven Soult from Oporto, had advanced into Spain, and won the battle of Talavera. From these successes of the English general it is pitiable to turn to the Portuguese regency. With the departure of the king all the able men of the royal party seemed to have left the country ; the leaders of the radical party were either in disgrace or had fled to France ; and none were left to compose the regency save a set of intriguers, whose chief idea was to get as much money from England as possible. The best part of the nation had entered the army, hence Marshal Beresford, aided by the adjutant- general Manuel de Brito Mousinho, soon organized a force which at Busaco proved itself worthy to fight beside the English soldiery. The regency got from bad to worse, till neither Beresford nor Wellington could work with it, and the English cabinet had to demand that Sir Charles Stuart (son of General Sir Charles Stuart), _ their ambas sador at Lisbon, should receive a place upon it. His great ability and tact soon made him master, and a certain portion of the money sent by England to pay the Portuguese^troops did then find its way to its proper destination. Yet the regency, even when thus strengthened, failed to make itself popular ; and that there was a large radical party in Lisbon is sufficiently proved by the deputation of eighteen journal ists to the Azores in September 1810. The troubles of Portugal were not yet over ; the most formidable invasion