The Sun.
London, England, 1833-06-03 00:00:00

PORTUGAL.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sta,—And so the Tory Parliamentary campaign in
aid of Don Miguel and absolutism is to open on Monday,
with a motion by the Duke of Wellington, for tin address
to his Majesty, " that a strict neutrality may be observed
by England in the contest now going on in Portugal."
By England, it is to be presumed, meaning the Govern-
ment ; and by strict neutrality, that no act be done, or
orders given by it, through which assistance, direct or
indirect, be rendered to either of the contending parties,
absolutists or constitutionalists ; but that the Portuguese
be left to settle their own form of Government according
to their own free will. May I be allowed shortly to ex l-
amine bow far those Lords, who regard only fair and equal
dealing, without reference to party rpirit, can support
complaints to be urged by the Noble Duke, or by his fides
Achates, Lord Aberdeen, on the above matter ; it being a
general rule that a party complaining should, at least,
come into Court " with clean bands."
A sount maxim, certainly, Sir, this, of non-interference by
one State in the internal government of another, but worth
nothing in the mouths of despots and their favourers, who
never have been, nor ever will be, bound by it themselves.
It seems, indeed, to requite all the wonted hardihood of the
Holy Alliance, and of its agents, all their contempt for
uetional rights and for public opinion, that they should
venture to appeal to any such principle,in the face of those
dark transactions of the last fourteen years, wherein them-
selves have been the prominent and unapplauded actors.
Non-interference in the internal affairs of another country
invoked by Nicholas, of Polish celebrity !—by Frederick
William, Francis, Metternich, and the Duke of W-lling-
son ! Truly, this is a fares, at which none, perhaps,
laugh more heartily than the perfermers themselves.
Have they forgotten, or do they think Europe has yet for-
gotten, the Congress of Laybach, the invasten of Naples
and overthrow of the constitutional form of Government,
which the Neapolitans bad chosen of their own free will,
Intl the re-establishment of an absolute form of Govern-
ment, against their will, by a Huly Alliance Austrian
army ? or the invasion or Piedmont, for a similar purpose,
and with the same iniquitous result, also by a foreign
Holy Alliance army ? Have they likewise forgotten
the Congress of foreign Sovereigns, who came together
at Verona to take counsel as Holy Allies, how they, being
despots possessed •f absolute power in their own states,
should interfere in the affairs of unoffetading and constitu-
tional Saain ; the invasion of that country and overthrow
of tier lib-rises, and re-establishment of the most cruel
and faithless of al despots in the plenitude of aboo rate
power by a Holy Alliance Bourbon army ? But Inure to
the present purpose; has the Duke of Wellington for-
gotten his own interferences at an earlier period of the
present Portuguese struggle—his expulsion of the Portu-
guese Coestitutioualitos from the soil of England, and de
spech of an English frigate on the glarious errand of
tiring English cannon upon these poor wanderers, to drive
them away from Terceira, where the authority or their
Lewitt! Queen was established ? If lie has for-
gotten this, it miy be hoped my Lurd Holland has
nut, and that be insy be able to recall this
creditable transaction to the recollection of the Noble
Duke and of the country, with more eff.ct now than when
tie made iiis former eloquent and indignant, but useless
appeal upon it, in the House of Lords. This was, in -
n,ed, an act of direct and of most cruel and unjustifiable
interference, in support of the absolute Government of
Miguel, by the English Government, with the Doke or
Wellington at its head. Can any similar act be (-barged
upon the present Government, which has rather creed on
the side of timidity and forbearance, in not openly
espousing the cause of the lawful and acknowledged
Queen,especially with such flagrant examples as have been
afforded by the Noble Duke himself, to justify them in that
better and more English course of policy ? I say exam-
ples ; for not only did the Duke of Wellington, as Minister,
afford to Don Miguel and the absolute party direct aaais-
tance, as before stated, but by other indirect means, pre-
viously rendered, he had actually enabled him to overturn
the Constitutional throne of his niece, and convert it into
an absolute throne for himself ; for it is now well known
that the principal members of the Portuguese Consti-
tutional Government, seeing to what all Miguel's regency
acts were tending, came to the resolution of sending him
out of the country, as the only means of preventing the
accomplishment of his schemes, but they were forbidden
to do this by an intimation from Sir William Clinton, the
commander of the British forces then unfortunately at
Lisbon, that " his orders from home (i. e. from the Duke
of Wellington and Lord Aberdeen) were to consider every
member of the Portuguese royal family as personally under
the protection of the British army," and *hien intim aloe
actually prevented the expulsion of Miguel, snit alone ena-
bled him to consummate his treacherous usurpation of the
Queen's throne and the overthrow of the conittitutional
party ; so that what the Holy Allies did by open violence
in Naples, Piedmont, and Spain, the Tory Government of
the Noble Duke and Lord Aberdeen compassed by Machi-
avelism in Portugal ; for it is absurd to say that they,
shrewd and foreseeing men as they are, did not perceive
the consequences of such an order, palpable as they were,
to the officer who acted upon it and to Don Miguel, whom
it so effectively assisted, and yet this want of foresight is
the only defence they or their partisans have ever ventured
to set up ; an insincere defence, or the order would have
been resciuded when its effects became visible. In truth,
the continuance of the British army in Porto al, under
such instructions, while the Regent was destituting the
ccustitutionai officers and civilians, and replacing them
with absolutists, and taking other measures which the
Duke of Wellington could not have known less than other
people, were preliminary to an usurpation—was in effect
the loan of that army to enable him to accomplish it.
The Deice of Wellington and Lord Aberdeen are therefore
the last persons who, unless they divest themselves of all
modesty, can rise up to complain of the very unequal and
inferior assistance which it may be wished, for Hu y Alli
ante and Tory objects, to charge their feeble successors
with rendering, or permitting to be rendered, by individual
Englishmen to the Queen's party at this later period of a
contest which had long ago ceased but far their own prior
.uterference on the other side.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant and daily readir,
June 1, 1833. 2EQUITAS.

Ou Tuesday' the Britannia and Birming-
ham, steamers, with about SO troop', and accoutrements
sailed from tuts port for Oporto. The City of Pembroke,
steamer, also left with about SOO seamen, for the fleet of
Don PEDRO. The Duke of TERCEIRA (late Marqui. of
PALMILLA) and suite, with other officers, arcomo
the,e steamers in the Osprey Wed cutter..—Faimonth
Packet.