Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/575

Rh HISTORY.] PORTUGAL 553 by the citizens ; Dom Miguel instantly laid siege to the city. The siege was a terrible one ; want within the walls and cholera among the besiegers decimated the armies, and the only real success gained was the victory of Sartorius over the fleet of Dom Miguel on llth October. In 1833 more vigorous action began ; Major-General Joao Carlos Salclanha de Oliveira e Daun, count of Saldanha, an old officer of Beresford s and a member of the Palmella Govern ment in 1825, took the command in Oporto and beat off the French general Bourmont, who had been engaged by ] )om Miguel to command his forces ; the count of Villa Flor sailed from Oporto to Algarves, defeated General Telles Jordao, and after a triumphal march northwards occupied Lisbon ; and Captain Charles Napier, who had succeeded Sartorius, destroyed Dom Miguel s fleet off Cape St Vincent in 1833. In this year Queen Maria came to Lisbon and was received with transports of delight, while Dom Pedro as regent again proclaimed the charter of 1826. The year 1834 was one of unbroken success for the chartists; England and France recognized the queen, and the Spanish ministry of Queen Isabella, knowing Dom Miguel to be a Carlist, sent two corps under Generals Rodil and Serrano to the help of Dom Pedro. Saldanha defeated the forces of the usurper at Torres Novas and Alamoster ; Napier reduced Beira ; Villa Flor, who had been made duke of Terceira, reduced Tras-os-Montes and won a victory at Asseiceira ; Sa de Bandeira reduced Alemtejo ; the com bined Spanish and Portuguese armies surrounded the rest of Dom Miguel s adherents at Evora Monte ; and Dom Miguel himself capitulated on 26th May. By the con vention of Evora Monte the usurper, on condition of re ceiving a pension, promised to leave Portugal for ever ; and the cortes at Lisbon not only declared him and his heirs ineligible for the throne but forbade them to return to Portugal under penalty of death. This same cortes attempted to arrange the finances, and abolished the orders of the friars, who had hitherto kept alive the party of rebellion in the villages, and finally, at Dom Pedro s request for he felt his health failing declared the queen of age on 18th September 1834. Dom Pedro, who had through out been the heart and soul of his daughter s party, retired to Queluz (near Lisbon), where he died six days after wards from the effects of his great labours and fatigues. Mia II. The death of Dom Pedro deprived Queen Maria II., who was now only fifteen, of her greatest support, but a very strong ministry was formed, with the duke of Palmella as president and the duke of Terceira at the war office. Such a ministry might have lasted for a long time, but neither the queen, the nobility, nor the people understood the prin ciples of real constitutional government, and the army was a constant source of danger. Members of different parties, while not conceiving that all alike loved Portugal, believed sincerely in their own opinions : the party in power pro scribed and exiled its opponents, while the party in opposi tion invariably appealed to arms instead of seeking to obtain office by legitimate parliamentary means. In addi tion, the country was ravaged by bands of brigands, who called themselves &quot; Migu elites,&quot; and who perpetually escaped into Spain when attacked in force ; and, as each Government refused to recognize or pay interest upon the loans raised by its predecessors, the financial credit of Portugal soon fell to a very low ebb in the money markets of Europe. It is unprofitable to examine here the prin ciples of the chief statesmen of the time as new Govern ments quickly succeeded each other ; it will be sufficient to notice only the chief pronunciamentos and appeals to arms, and to remark the gradual approach to real parlia mentary government. Queen Maria da Gloria s reign is one of violent party struggles, for they can hardly be called civil wars, so little did they involve, and that of King Luis the reign of definite and peaceable parliamentary government. In her earlier years the queen was chiefly under the influence of her stepmother, the second wife of Dom Pedro, Amelia of Bavaria, and in 1835 she married the queen -dowager s brother, Augustus Charles Eugene Napoleon, duke of Leuchtenberg, second son of Eugene Beauharnais by the princess Augusta of Bavaria, who died two months after his marriage, in March 1835. In the following January Maria married Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, nephew of Leopold, the first king of the Belgians ; and it was his nomination to the post of commander-in-chief that brought about the first appeal to arms. In September 1836 Fernando Scares da Caldeira headed a pronunciamento in Lisbon for the re-establish ment of the constitution of 1822, which was completely successful, and resulted in the drawing up of a new con stitution. The constitution of 1838, which was really that of 1822 slightly modified, managed to work till 1842, when one of the radical ministers, Antonio Bermudo de Costa Cabral, suddenly declared the charter of 1826 at Oporto. The duke of Terceira headed a successful pro nunciamento in favour of the charter, and came into office with Costa Cabral as home secretary and virtual prime minister. Costa Cabral, who in 1845 was created count of Thomar, made himself very acceptable to the queen, and, interpreting the charter in the most royalist sense, even attempted to check the freedom of the press. It was now the turn of the radicals or Septembrists to have recourse to arms : after an attempt to place Saldanha in office, the opposition broke out into open insurrection under the viscount of Sa de Bandeira, the count of Bomfim, and the count das Antas. This new insurrection is known as the War of Maria da Fonte or &quot;patuleia,&quot; and was not su}&amp;gt;- pressed until the conclusion of the convention of Granada on 29th June 1847, when a general amnesty was declared, Saldanha being continued in power. Queen Maria da Gloria died on 15th November 1853, and her husband, the king-consort, Dom Ferdinand II., assumed the regency until his eldest son Dom Pedro V. came of age. The era of peaceful parliamentary government which succeeded the stormy reign of Queen Maria II. has been one of prosperity for Portugal, and much of that peace and prosperity is due to the great literary and historical revival which is signalized by the names of Joao Baptista de Almeida Garrett and Antonio Feliciano de Castilho, of Alexandre Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo and Luis Augusto Rebello da Silva. Men were not wanting in the early part of the 19th century to advocate the formation of an Iberian republic or kingdom, comprising the whole of the Peninsula; but the revival of national pride in recall ing the glorious past of Portuguese history, which has been the work alike of Herculano and Almeida Garrett in dif- erent lines, has breathed afresh the spirit of patriotism into a people who had been almost wearied out by continual pronunciamentos. The only political event of any import ance during the reign of Dom Pedro V., who came of age Pedro V, and assumed the government in 1855, and who in 1857 married the princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern, was the affair of the &quot;Charles et Georges.&quot; This French ship was engaged in what was undoubtedly the slave-trade, though slightly disguised, off the coast of Africa, when it was seized by the authorities of Mozambique, and, in accord ance with the laws and treaties against the slave-trade, its captain, Roussel, was condemned to two years imprison ment. The emperor Napoleon III., glad to have a chance of posing before the French people, and counting on his close alliance with England, instantly sent a large fleet to the Tagus under Admiral Lavaud, and demanded compen sation, which, as England showed no signs of assistance, Portugal was compelled to pay. The whole country, especi- XIX. 70