Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/761

 PORTUGAL PORTUGAL (LANGUAGE, &o.) 741 her uncle and husband Pedro III. till his death in 1786. In 1792 she showed symptoms of insanity, and her son John, prince of Brazil, governed in her name, assuming the title of regent in 1799. In 1793 he was induced by England to declare war against the French republic, but the dreadful commercial distress and general bankruptcy caused by this step led to a peace in 1797. In 1799 the regent was persuaded by England to join her and Rus- sia in a second war against France, which im- poverished and weakened Portugal still more. Spain united her arms with those of France in 1801, and by the subsequent treaty of Badajoz Portugal was forced to cede Olivenca to Spain, besides paying a considerable sum of money. From that moment Portugal became almost entirely dependent on England. She was in- vaded by the French under Marshal Junot in November, 1807, the regent with the royal fam- ily embarking for Brazil just as Junot appeared before Lisbon, where he declared in his mas- ter's name that the house of Braganca had ceased to reign. In the beginning of 1808 the Portuguese rose against the invaders, and, though several times defeated, kept the field till the arrival of the English under Sir Ar- thur Wellesley (afterward duke of Wellington), and with them gained the victory of Vimeiro, Aug. 21, followed by the convention of Cintra, Aug. 30, and the evacuation of Portugal by the French. The country, unaccustomed to self-reliance, was utterly helpless when over- run again by the French in 1809, and again protected by the English arms till 1812. The Portuguese court and government were mean- time established in Rio de Janeiro. In 1815 Brazil was raised to the rank of a kingdom, and in 1816 Maria died and the regent be- came John VI., king of Portugal and Brazil. In 1820 the dissatisfaction of the Portuguese at the absence of the court, and a general feel- ing that fundamental changes were required in the constitution, led to a revolution unat- tended by violence or bloodshed, the army and the people acting in concert. A liberal con- stitution was adopted, and in 1821, at the re- quest of the nation, John VI. returned from Brazil, leaving his eldest son Dom Pedro there as regent. John was forced, before being al- lowed to land at Lisbon, to accede to certain restrictions of the royal prerogative, and to swear fidelity to the new constitution. This secured freedom of person and property, lib-, erty of the press, equality of all citizens before the" law, the abolition of privileges, the eligi- bility of all Portuguese to offices, and the sovereignty of the nation. In the following year Dom Pedro was proclaimed emperor of Brazil, and the two countries were finally sep- arated. John VI. died in 1826, and Dom Pe- dro of Brazil, his successor, surrendered Por- tugal to his daughter Maria da Gloria, and estab- lished a new and tolerably liberal constitution for the kingdom. Before Maria arrived in Portugal, however, her uncle Dom Miguel, Pe- dro's younger brother, who had been appointed regent, usurped the throne, and began to rule without regard to the constitution. His fierce despotism provoked a civil war, which raged for several years, the constitutional troops be- ing led by Dom Pedro, who recruited an army and organized a fleet in support of his daugh- ter's claims. He took Oporto on July 8, 1832, entered Lisbon in July, 1833, and received his brother's submission May 29, 1834. Maria II. was declared of age on Sept. 15, and on the 24th Dom Pedro died, his memory being still cherished under the name of the "soldier king." Several revolutions and counter revo- lutions have since taken place, the principal result of which has been the substitution of one faction for another in the control of the ministry. The most serious of these outbreaks, that of 1846-'7, was provoked by the unpopu- larity of the ministry of Costa Cabral, count of Thomar, and but for British, French, and Spanish intervention would have overthrown the government. Maria II. died in 1853, and was succeeded by her son Pedro V., under the regency of Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, his father. The regent wisely allowed the Portuguese to govern themselves through their constitutional representatives, inspired his son with a sincere love of free institutions, and retired into the obscurity of private life when the latter attained his majority (Sept. 16, 1855). Pedro V. applied himself to remedy the finan- cial disorders caused by previous revolutions and wars, to lighten the public burdens, and to promote all the arts of peace. At the break- ing out of the yellow fever in 1861, the young king exposed himself in assisting the plague- stricken, and was one of the victims (Nov. 11). His brother and successor, Louis (Luiz) I., born Oct. 31, 1838, continued the same pol- icy, multiplied railway and telegraph lines, abolished slavery in the colonies in 1868, held industrial exhibitions at Oporto in 1866 and 1872, and consolidated the floating debt in 1873. PORTUGAL, Language and Literature of. The Portuguese, like the Spanish, to which it bears a strong resemblance, is one of the modern forms of the Romance language, which in the middle ages imperceptibly took the place of the Latin. It may be traced as far back as the llth century, in which began likewise the existence of Portugal as an independent state ; but the first attempts to cultivate and refine il were not made until the 13th century ; and it was only in the 16th, the golden age of Por- tuguese literature, that it was permanently fixed in its present form. During the domina- tion of the Moors the language of that people prevailed throughout the country, and was generally spoken by the higher classes ; and the words borrowed from the Arabic and other eastern sources, and still in use, are probably not less numerous in the Portuguese than in the Spanish. The Portuguese bears a strong affinity to the Galician, and is readily understood by the Gallegos ; and it is softer, sweeter, and more