Note 17 — LORD PALMERSTON. ON THE CASE OF DON PACIFICO: HOUSE OF COMMONS, JUNE 25, 1850.

Note 17, p. 194.—In the passage omitted Lord Palmerston defends the policy of England towards Portugal. The transactions here commented on are to be regarded as the second act of co-operation which sprung from the entente cordiale established between England and France at the time of the Belgian arrangement above referred to. A summary of the Portuguese matters follows. In 1826, by the influence of Canning, the dispute about the succession to the Crown of Portugal came to a temporary settlement by the acceptance by Don Miguel of the Constitution. This Don Miguel, a younger son of John, the former King, had been opposed to the liberal tendencies of the times. At the death of his father, Pedro, the Crown Prince, was already installed as Emperor of Brazil. So it was arranged that Miguel should marry, when she came of age, his niece, Maria, then with her father in Brazil; and meanwhile should act as Regent. He soon threw off the mask. In June, 1828, he dissolved the Cortes, summoned instead the medieval “Estates,” and deliberately proclaimed himself King. Then came a brutal campaign of proscription against the Constitutional party. Such as escaped these terrors took refuge in England, and in the Azores, which still held out for the Constitutionalists. But in England, now under the Duke of Wellington’s dominance, it was no longer on the cards to encourage the growth of liberalism on the continent. Indeed, an attitude of absolute neutrality was maintained, and the former intervention of Canning was deplored. So matters wagged until the events of 1830 brought a change over the Anglo-Portuguese relations. Don Miguel, in the exercise of his despotic powers, grew insolent enough to worry even English and French subjects at Lisbon. Their governments enforced satisfaction by naval squadrons despatched to the Tagus. For England, Lord Palmerston, as Foreign Secretary of Earl Grey’s Ministry, obtained an indemnity and a public apology. For France, her admiral went so far as to appropriate the best vessels of Miguel’s navy. Shortly after, Pedro crossed from Brazil to contest the rights of his daughter to the throne. The attitude of England had so completely swerved that, on Pedro’s arrival in London (July, 1831), he was permitted to raise troops and to employ in his service various officers of the English navy. From the rendezvous of his forces at Terceira, in the Azores, he proceeded against Oporto, which at once yielded to him. On his part, Don Miguel marched against that city. After the destruction of Don Miguel’s navy by his fleet under the English Captain Napier, Pedro made decisive gains, and entered Lisbon, July 28, 1833. Don Miguel, however, was not yet beaten, for the continental governments favorable to absolutism were in the way of sending him assistance both in troops and money. At this moment the whole business was at first sight complicated, but in reality, so far as Portugal was concerned, brought to a speedy issue by the Carlist troubles of the neighboring kingdom of Spain. Don Carlos, the brother of King Ferdinand, based his claim to the throne on the theory that the Salic Law, recently repealed in favor of Isabella, child of the King’s old age, by the so-called Pragmatic Sanction, was illegally repealed, the Spanish Succession since 1713 having been faithful to that ordinance. Temporarily Don Carlos had gone into Portugal. Most naturally he had attached himself to Miguel, as a personage whose position was so comparable to his own. Meanwhile in Spain the Queen Regent, Maria Cristina, had allied herself with the Liberals; had called into office a Liberal Minister, Martinez de la Rosa; and had caused a constitution to be granted to the country (April 10, 1834). Her Government also opened negotiations not only with Portugal, but with England and France, as the next parties interested, with the view of an alliance which should rid, once and for all, the Peninsula of insurrections and leaders of insurrections. Thus on April 22, 1834, the above Powers signed, at London, a Quadruple Treaty, according to which Spain was to send an army into Portugal against Don Miguel; Portugal, if she could, to drive Don Carlos from her territory; England to aid with a fleet; and France to co-operate, if further co-operation were necessary, by any means agreeable to all concerned. And, with regard to Portugal, this programme was executed with precision. No later than May 22, 1834, Don Miguel threw up the game, accepted, instead of the Crown, a large pension, and promised to relieve the Peninsula forever of his presence. Not so with Don Carlos. He refused the conditions. At the time, however, he could do nothing but take a proffered passage to London, whither he conveyed his plottings and still undiscouraged dreams of the Spanish Crown. Of which, more hereafter. As for Portugal, there was another outbreak in 1847, concerning which Lord Palmerston found it necessary this time neither to support the Liberal faction nor to acquiesce in the Ministry of the Opposition leader, Señor Cabral, but to keep a balance between both. This apparent inconsistency the speaker explains by the statement that it was only by such conduct that England could preserve at all a Portuguese Liberal party.