The Sun.
London, England, 1846-11-27 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1846.

Although the affairs of Portugal have undergone
many remarkable changes since we last commented
upon the civil dissensions of that country, there is still
nothing propitious in its condition. The peasantry
and civilians are kept in continual trepidation in con-
sequence of the harassing uncertainty of the events
which are daily transpiring in their neighbourhood.
Business is of course temporarily suspended ; the
wine trade especially is suffering from a most ruinous
interruption ; the lives and properties of the tranquil
inhabitants are deplorably jeopardized; a panic has
spread throughout the whole of that portion of the
Peninsula. When we consider these calamitous facts,
and remember that they have all originated in the ob-
stinacy and the unconstitutional interference of Court
intriguers in the affairs of the Government, we cannot
regard those intriguers without the utmost abhor-
rence, and yearn for the peaceful satisfaction of an
outraged populace. It is preposterous for the Exe-
cutive to issue indignant proclamations against the
insurgents as lawless disturbers of public tran-
quillity. If they are lawless disturbers, they
have been rendered such by the despotic
proceedings: of an unpopular Administration.
If public tranquillity is destroyed by their insurrec-
tionary movements, such is but the natural conse-
quence of the military coup d' itat by which the
Liberal Ministry was recently ousted. When the
political and social rights of a population are trifled
with, as they have been in Portugal, it is but reason-
able that the multitude should at length release itself
from the painful suppression of its wrath by affording
it some ebulition ; it is but reasonable that the per-
tinacious denial of a lenient Legislature should ulti-
mately arouse the indignation of the Portuguese; it is
but reasonable that the latter should endeavour to
wreak their vengeance upon those who have treated
the nation so contumeliously for such a protracted
period. Such must ever be the result of encroach-
ments of a like character in these days of enlighten •
went and civilisation. L.l the blindness evinced by
those who would engraft oppressive principles upon
liberal institutions, like the constitutional monarchies
of southern and western Europe, an ignorance is dis-
cernable which almost amounts to idiotcy.
Governments actuated by such sentiments are fa-
bricated of brittle and perishable materials. In-
stead of building up their power upon the broad and
enduring basis of popular affection, they reverse the
pyramid ; they base their influence upon an unit,
not upon the million, and the structure thus erected
is incessantly trembling upon a precarious balance.
The existing Government is precisely of this un-
stable character, and it is this odious characteristic
which has caused the present insubordination.
From the very commencement of these outbreaks
we have discerned the moderation of the wishes of the
insurgents ; we have insisted upon the unrevo-
lutionary disposition of the popular chieftains ; we
have endeavoured to demonstrate what has been so
generally misapprehended, that DAS ANTAS and his
colleagues are not striving to impair the authority of
their Sovereign, that they are not desirous of transform-
ing the throne of MARIA DA GLORIA into a presidential
chair, or of even transferring her diadem to another
brow. We have maintained that their object is
entirely compatible with the principles of right
government and the necessity for municipal obedience,
that they are solicitous to release themselves from an
irksome domination by expelling an Administration
which has been odiously forced upon them by
midnight machinations, by military interpositions,
and by Gallic intrigues. That such is actually the
disposition in which these disturbances have been
germinated is demonstrated by every successive indi-
cation of the views of the insurgent leaders. By the
latest intelligence that impression is corroborated in
a signal and decisive manner. According to very cre-
dible informers, we learn that DAS ANTAS, in his
communications with the English officer who has
been dispatched to negotiate, if possible, a reconcilia-
tion between the belligerents, had entirely satisfied--
Colonel WYLDE that their object was solely to bring
about a change of Ministers and measures, and not,
as was erroneously reported in several quarters, to
annul the fundamental doctrines upon which the
Portuguese constitution has been erected.
Circumstances, however, have recently altered very
materially the position of the insurgents, and the
probability of their ultimate success. CAZAL and SA
DA BANDEIRA have encountered each other at a
place called Murca, in the vicinity of Chaves, on the
16th inst. It would appear that the forces being un-
equally matched in the first instance, and the
cowardly desertion of the 3d and 15th troops, under
the latter captain, to his opponent at the opening
of the battle having materially increased that
disproportion, the consequence was a sanguinary
struggle, the utter destruction of the army which had
marched from Oporto on the 31st of October, under
the banners of SA DA BANDEIRA, with the avowed
determination to annihilate the QUEEN'S soldiers, and
the almost solitary escape of the discomfited General
himself. On the 20th SA DA BANDEIRA is re-
ported to have re-entered Oporto in a boat from
Regoa, accompanied by a few dejected attendants,
and betraying in his travel-stained dress and hag-
gard appearance the extremity of his defeat and aban-
donment. SA D. 4. BANDIERA is no XERXES even in
miniature, but his recent overthrow in the meadows
of Portugal is an instructive example of the un-
certainty of military as well as of all mundane
affairs, even under the most propitious circum.
stances. With the dispersion and massacres of his
forces, a fourth of the insurgent army is destroyed,
the division of 2,000 under Conde DE BOMFIM,
CELESTINO, and the Conde DE MELLO ; and the
division of 4,000 under the Conde DAS ANTAS,
Dom JAIME, JOSE ESTEVAO, and the Conde DA
Taira, alone remaining to obstruct the movements
of the army commanded by SALDANHA and his
subordinate generals. From these considerations it
must be manifest that further demonstration is neces-
sary on the part of the citizens and peasantry, or the
revolution must be prematurely closed. In the
desertion, moreover, of the two regiments at Ikluivt
we may recognise the impossibility of placing any
reliance whatever upon the faith of the Portuguese
soldiers.

Those who can sympathise with an innocent people
in their hours of unwilling tumult and desolation will
sympathise with the inhabitants of Portugal in their
present distress. They will discover in these insur-
rections the love of a nation for social discipline
and liberal institutions, and not, as the Marquis
DE SALDANHA has said, " the most unfounded and
unheard-of rebellion which ever has existed." They
will look with intense anxiety for the realisation of
the best wishes of DAs ANTAS, namely, for the re-
establishment of order, and happiness, and freedom,
and prosperity in a country so well calculated to be
the scene of so many blessings. Queen MARIA
might readily accomplish all these things by a
generous concession to the demands of her loyal but
abused people, by banishing a Ministry which has
been introduced to the official apartments at Lisbon,
from the effect of an illegal surprise, and the permission
of a foreign fraud. The blood of her subjects would
not then ensanguine that scroll of history upon which
the events of her reign will be inscribed in per-
petuity.

In the magnificent Casino of Cadiz RICIIARD
COBDEN has again received the homage of the admi-
ration and respect of the enlightened Spaniards.
We are especially rejoiced at these repeated indi-
ttions of the esteem with which the illustrious
nglishman is regarded in the Peninsula. It is