The Sun.
London, England, 1823-01-04 00:00:00

PORTUGAL.

We have received Lisbon Papers front the
19th to the `24th ult. The papers from the 13th
to the 19th have not been forwarded by the
packet which brought the mall ; but by an
arrival from Portugal through Spain, we are
enabled to supply the only article of importance
in the journals which are missing. That article
is the report of the Committee of the Cortes on
the documents relative to the refusal of the
QUEEN to take the oath to the Constitution. It
is in the following terms :
" The Committee appointed to give its opinion on the pro.
cess instituted by the Executive Authority, on the occasion of
the Senhora Dona Carlota Joaquina having refused to swear to
the Constitution, will not take up the time of the Congress by
informing them of what has already been done in this business,
which is all clearly related in the report drawn up by the Mi-
nister for the Home Department, and in the documents by
which that report is accompanied.
" The Committee will therefore merely recommend this pro-
cess to the attention of the Cortes, as a fresh proof of the wis-
dom and virtues which adorn the person of Doi► John VI., of
his intimate and sincere union with the nation, and of his
obedience to the laws. The prudence and energy with which
this subject has been treated in the various debates of the AI i-
-nistry, after having heard the Council of State ; the previous
notifications,,both written and verbal, which the Queen has re-
ceived of the provision made by the law, and of the punish-
ment she must incur by her opposition to, it; the solemnly.
ratified refusal of that ill-advised lady, founded only on the
determination she had formed never to take an oath during her

whole life, and her perieverance 'tering to the resolution
she had thus formed c the attentions which have been shown,
towards her, in leaving her'tho cholciof h destination, and
in suspending the period of her depirture on account of the
;state Of her health, for which reasott she has been ordered to
retire for the present to the Quinu de Ramalhao--all this,
Senhores, proves to us the virtues of Don John VI., and the
prudence and firmness of his Ministers. The law has been
fulfilled without tergiversation, as it ought to be in a Consti-
tutional Government, where it is the same to all. The dic-
tates of humanity have been respected, and the dzcorurn and
attentions due to the august spouse of his Majesty have been
observed.

" In consideration, Therefore, of the law having been ful-
filled, and of its execution having been suspended only from
just considerations, the Committee are of opinion that this
affair does not belong to the jurisdiction of the Cortes, and that
it should be merely declared in the journals that they are in-
formed respecting it.
" gall of the Cortes, Dec. 9, 1822."
(The signatures follow.)

In consequence of this opinjon, the Committee undertook to
reply to the grounds on which the motion of Senhor Acursio
des Neves was founded, and justified the proceedings of the
Government in a long 'discourse.
The Cortes resolved that the whole of the documents on the
subject should be printed in the Diario do Govern°, for the in.
formation of the public, and that the decision of, this affair
should be deferred until a future siting, to be appointed by the
President."

The threatened attack on the Peninsula ap-
pears to have excited the public attention at Lis-
bon as well as at Madrid. It was probably with
the view of allaying some irritation to which the
state of sympathetic feeling between the two
capitals may have given birth, that the following
notice was on the 19th inserted in the official
paper of the Portuguese Government. It is con-
spicuously printed :--
"'We are authorized to state, that neither the Portuguese
nor the Spanish Government have received any communica-
tion either from the Congress of Verona, or from any one
Power; in consequence of any resolution which may have been
adopted in the said Congress."

Tile papers of,the 18th and 19th contain articles
on the:reports of an invasion of the Peninsula,
which they generally disgredit. The Diorio do
Govolio, in noticing the rumours, observes—
" At All events, the mere threat of a design .to compromise
our indepep4ence cannot tail to rouse. in the nations of the
Peninstili, all that ardent love of country and of freedom
which enalSeil them to win their independence ; and in their
respective Governments the prudence and energy necessary
to secure it."

At the date of the latest intelligence the idea
of an armed intervention in the affairs of Spain
was in a great measure removed, hut the journal-
ists, notwithstanding, dwell on the necessity of
measures of precaution and vigour on the part of
the Government.

The following is a brief account of some of the
proceedings of the Cortes :
The Cortes having desired on the 3d Dec. to be informed
how far the Committee assembled to draw up a Criminal Code
had proceeded In its labours, Senhor Martin Basto,in the sitting
of the 18th, read a report, in which he stated that the persons
engaged on the work had divided the code of crimes and punish-
ment into three parts, treating in the first of the principal bases
of criminal law ; in • the second of public wrongs ; in the third
of private wrongs; that the first and second were nearly con-
cluded, and that they would be able to conclude the third in
the second year of the present legislature ; and then they will
treat with all possible brevity the project of the code of criminal
procedure.
Without judging of the system adopted, the Committee, said
M. Baste, cannot but observe, that it is desirable that so import-
ant a work should be accelerated as much as possible, and
therefore propose that other Portuguese lawyers be invited to
concur in the code, In the same manner as was determined for
the civil code, by the decree of the 16th of September, °filling,
in the same %I-tanner, a premium and accessit.—Adjourned for
the second reading.

In the Sitting of the 19th, the members of the Special Tribu-
nal for the protection of the Libel ty of the Press were elected.
In the sitting of the 21st the Cortes were informed of the ar-
rival of the French brig Silence, from Havre. M. F. Maria
Cog
when h
or n, a I'e left o rtugut
Paris, ten
ese
that days
ago,
it was known that the
Congress had allowed the French Oovernment to interfere in
the affairs of Spain, but that there was reason to believe it
would not interfere with an armed force—public opinion being
adverse to such a measure.