Page:The Ifs of History (1907).pdf/84

 happened was when Don John VI, King of Portugal, removed his royal throne and all the paraphernalia of government from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, in 1807 (being impelled thereto by an intrusive movement on the part of one Napoleon Bonaparte), and turned Portugal (after the withdrawal of the French) into an actual dependency of Brazil. This it remained until King John recrossed the Atlantic in 1820. Throughout that period the scepter bore sway from west to east, from America Europe-ward.

Very much the same thing would have occurred further north in the contingency to which I have referred; and if it had, a royalist or monarchist influence might have been laid upon the English colonies in America which would have colored their history and institutions in a marked degree, even if their destiny had not been permanently affected.

When Charles I, King of England,