The Sun.
London, England, 1830-02-19 00:00:00

gal, then Miguel was hi a better situation with respect to
the Pot togueae dependencies than he was with respect to
Portugal itself; for there he was only King de facto,
account of his actual possession ; but interfering, as we did,
for his interest With respect to Terceira, where, it wam
Clear, he was not King de facto, we acknowledged that
he WAS King de jure. The Noble Lord (Goderich) awn
observed that he thought the Marquis Palmella most
cruelly treated. He showed nothing like duplicity in any
part of his conduct, and he knew that he was a most re-
pectable person, from often baying had occasion to tee
and correspond with hint in his diplomatic capacity.
The Marquis de Palrnelfa was now reduced from a high
and affluent situation to a state of exile and poverty, and it
was cruel to add to all this the charge of duplicity and
Iteption.(tlear, hear, from Lord Holland.)—lt was said
that the Commanders of the vessels who carried cut the
Portuguese troops did net know their destination, and that
klity were not aware that they had been prohibited from
landing at Terceira. If so, the Ministers were so much
'out osute to blame, fur they ought to have been in-
teemed of it, more partirulaily when the order of the Ad-
miralty was issued, commanding our ships of war
to burn, sink, destroy (for such the order was in e-
ke), any vessels that should attempt to land at Terceira.
The consequence of this neglect to warn them might have
been, that the men and the vessels of this country would
be dastroyed by the fire of our own ships of war. If that
warning had been given, probably the ships never would
have sailed, and the attempt never would have been made.
If, in spite of the warning, the parties had persetcred, it
might hare been possible to have prevented it, by an act
of authority. He might be told that Government could
Out have presented it, inasmuch as the act was no viola-
tion of the municipal law; and perhaps, therefore, an
tett of authority might have been required; but he (Lord
iGoderich)A,3uld be glad to hear what right was given by
the in4atqcipil law to treat the King's subjects in a manner
kitot t-arrantell by the law of the land. The Noble Earl
(Aberdeen) had talked of the rashness of Count Saldanha

and the loss of one life in consequence of it. Whether
' his courage ought to be praised, or whether he ought to
be blamed for his mime'', and obstinacy, was a matter of
no consequence—one shot had destroyed one life ; but it
was to be recollected that instead of a single shot a whole
broadside might have been discharged, and not only the 600
Portuguese but the British crew and the ship might have
been sent to the bottom. Providentially that issue had
not followed, but the principle wes the same, and such
etiiyht have been the melancholy result of the order of the
Admiralty. He was sure that his Noble Friends would
have had their minds wrung with the bitterest affliction if
anything of the kind had happened, and then they would
have had to exclaim, " Good God ! that we had but
thought of warning these people before they went on this
i'atal expedition!" He had thought himself compelled to
snake three observations, but he would ten thousand times
rata tee have had his judgment convinced by what had
t*dien from the Noble Earl, which would have prevented
his arriving at a conclusion so painful. He wished to God
the record of the transaction to which he hail alluded,
tesehl lee blotted from our annals.—(Hear.)
Lord WHAIINCLIFFE could neither concur with the
tell r_ Mover, nor with the Noble Viscount who had just
taken his seat. The House ought to remember the state-
ment of Mr. Canning, when he proposed that troops
should be sent to Portugal. In terms stronger than any
ather men could use, he_expressly asserted that they were
not to act either for or against the Constitution—thev
were only to defend the country against invasion by the
troops of Spain. What reason, then, could the Portu-
guese have for thinking that this country had taken what
the Noble Viscount was pleased to call the British-Portu-
guese Coustitution under its special protection ? The
simple queetien was this :—When Don Miguel reached
Pertugal, and a party, which seemed the strongest, made
its appearance adverse to the Constitution, was Great
Britain called upon to interfere, and to force it upon the
people? He denied that site was so called upon, and he
denied that if any British Minister had attempted to force
it on the Portuguese he would have been supported by the
British nation. This country was bound to remain
strictly neutral ; she had remained so, and if the Portu-
guese were deceived in their expectations, they were
alone to blame. He agreed that there was something
painful to the feelings in what had occurred at Terceira;
but bow was this Government in fault ? That, and that
only was the real point in issue. He denied again that
Mr. Canning had ever upheld such a notion as that we
were bound to assist any foreign nation in maintaining or
destroying its Constitution. His liberal mind was naturally
inclined to the extension of liberal principles ; but he
always maintained that Great Britain could not interfere
to promote that extension. On three grounds he should
vote against the motion.
The Earl of CARNARVON well understood the doc-
trine of non-interference ; and in nine instances out of
ten he should approve it; but he could not understand, in
the condition of the relations between this kingdom and
Pertitgal—a powerful and a weakened State, with the
capital of the latter occupied by the armies of the former;
how, after the danger of invasion, for which those armies
were sent oat, was at an end, we could allow our troops,
like ambassadors, to remain mere calm spectators of the
transactions before their eyes, Sir C. Stuart bad acted,
first, the part of a witness, cud afterwards that of a letter-
carrier; at one moment he wag a Brazilian, and at ano-
ther a Purtugueee Plenipotentiary. That was a matter
of comparatively slight importance; but there was ano-
ther circumstance too mach withheld from view in the
coarse of this night's debate; he alluded to the fact
that Great Britain had acknowledged the Queen of
Portugal—and in what relation did this country stand,
therefore, with regard to the dynasty of Bragansa ?
It bad been said that we ought not to interfere
in the affairs of Portugal. Nut interfere with the
affairs of Portugal! Whet had been our conduct towards
that State ? Let Don Miguel answer the question. As
a rebel to his father, we conveyed him a prisoner to
France, and from France he was eent to Vienna. After
en involuntary residence there, after being affianced to the
Queen of Portugal, and after the most solemn protesta-
tions, he had been allowed to return to his native coun-
try, by the agency and interposition of Great Britain;
ansl yet, with these feels before our eyes, we were to re-
main tame witnesses of the overthrow of that very system
we had been endeavouring to support. A great deal had
been said of "a civil war raging in Terceira," but nobody
had instanced a single battle ; it might have " raged" in
the correspondence of the Noble Duke and the Marquis
Pahnells, but assuredly it had existed, much less "raged,"
nowhere else. Of this he war quite certain, that all Eng-
land, that was out of office, had rejoiced in the glorious
victory of Count Villaftor over the expedition sent out by
Don Miguel, and it was unalloyed by any necessity, on
the part of the eonquerer. to turn his arms against a
single inhabitant of Terceira. When the Portuguese, who
had been so inhospitably treated in England, were landed
in France, they were allowed to proceed without moles-
tation to Terceira, and Don Miguel himself hail
never dreamt of complaining of a violation of the law
of nations. Although many parts of the speech of the
Noble Foreign Secretary had gives him (Lord Carnarvon)
much pain, ens portion of it had excited in his mind un-
mixed satisfaction. The Noble Earl had distinctly stated
that Great Britain would never recognise the Usurper of
Portugal, even as King de facto, until he had done full
justice and made complete reparation to the unhappy vic-
tims of his tyranny. Englishmen knew little of the de•
gree of suffering to which these victims had been exposed :
they were not merely detained for safe custody, but were
immured in the most loathsome dungeons, and if restored
to freedom, many of them could never be restored to health.
Of Don Miguel himself he would not attempt to speak;
he should fail in expressing his sense of disgust and hatred,.
and after the terms employed by the Noble Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, ail he (Lord Carnarvon) could say would
appear like apology, if not panegyric. Although the
Usurper had now rained footing, there was a time when
Great Britain might have had the whole army of Portugal
on her side, while Mignel would have been left with only
kis priests, panders, and parasites. He was aware that
the motion of his Icoble Friend would require some mo-
difieation ; but, in the general statement, that further in-
formation was required to vindicate the character and }te-
rmer of this country, he heartily concurred.

The Marquis of LANSDOWNE trusted the time would
never come when Ministers would advise the King to gua-
rantee a Constitution of any kind for any Foreign State.
lie would also rather oppose the motion of his Noble Friend
than that his vote in its favour should lead to the slightest
implication, that under the circumstances it was fit to re-
cognise the authority of Don Miguel. The rule of that
tyrannical usurper was repugnant to the feelings of the
whole kingdom, and it was needless for him to add a single
touch to the picture drawn by the Noble Secretary of State.
Wbat he understood to be sought by the motion was this:—
that without interrupting negociations, for none were pend-
ing—without committing Great Britain to any future
course of conduct, for no such course had been pointed
out—the House and the country ought at least to be fur-
nished with the fullest information before a step was
taken that could not be adopted without pain and regret.
What, he would ask, had been dose to meet this great
evil? During the last two years our foreign relations had
undergone an alarming change; at one end of Europe a
mighty State, the maintenance of which was once consi-
dered essential to the balance of power, had been reduced
to a state of dependence and vassalage ; while at the other
ad those frientlly stlations, the preservation Of which our