Note (Back) — Chapter XXXIV

695. The Napoleonic Subjugation and the Constitution of 1820.—The government of Portugal at the opening of the nineteenth century was no less absolute than was that of Spain, The Cortes was extinct, and although Pombal, chief minister during the period 1750-1777, had caused all Portuguese subjects to be made eligible to public office and had introduced numerous economic and administrative reforms, nothing had been permitted to be done by which the unrestricted authority of the crown might be impaired. The country was affected but slightly by the Revolution in France. In 1807, however, it fell prey to Napoleon and the royal family was obliged to take refuge in the dependency of Brazil. With the aid of the English the power of the conqueror was broken in 1808, and through a number of years the government was administered nominally by a commission designated by the absentee regent, Dom John, though actually by a British dictatorship. In 1815 Brazil was raised to the rank of a co-ordinate kingdom, and from that year until 1822 the official designation of the state was "the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves." In 1816 the mad queen Maria I. died and the regent succeeded to the affiliated thrones as John VI. His original intention was to remain in America, but in 1820 a general revolt in Portugal culminated in the calling of a national assembly by which there was framed a constitution reproducing the essentials of the Spanish instrument of 1812, and by this turn of events the sovereign was impelled, in 1821, to set sail for the mother country, leaving as regent in Brazil his son Dom Pedro. Fidelity to the new constitution was pledged perforce, but the elements of reaction gathered strength swiftly, and before the close of 1823 the instrument was abrogated. The only tangible result of the episode was the creation of a constitutional party which thereafter was able much of the time to keep absolutism upon the defensive.[869]