The Sun.
London, England, 1833-06-05 00:00:00

Queen of that country, and the younger of
whom, having no title to the throne, was enabled
to usurp the rights of his niece by the most deli-
berate perjury and the most treacherous violence.
In this contest, so long as it continues a domes-
tic or family quarrel, the Government of Eng-
land has nothing to do ; but this Portuguese
struggle is connected with political principles
and parties which the English Government
at one time encouraged, and which the English
public, less fickle than their Government, have
not yet abandoned. In 1825 our Cabinet pro-
cured the assent of the late King of Portugal to
a separation of Brazil—the brighest jewel in the
Portuguese crown—from that country, the ne-
gotiation in favour of a separation being con-
ducted at Rio de Janeiro by Lord Stuart de
Rothsay, an English Ambassador, representing
both King John of Portugal and King George
of England ; but before his Lordship had left
Brazil, in April, 1826, news of the death of the
King of Portugal had arrived across the Atlantic,
and Lord Stuart was consequently charged with
the task (which must have been agreeable to
his feelings) of carrying to Europe, not only
the announcement of the family succession, but
the copy of a new political charter to the Portu-
guese nation. We are far from inferring that
either our Tory diplomatist or his Government
were bound by his having been the bearer of
such a document, but the whole policy of our
Administration afterwards seemed framed to be
an act of indemnity on his conduct. A civil
war ensued on the announcement of this consti-
tutional change ; the standard of revolt was
raised by the partisans of Don Miguel, then in a
state of banishment at Vienna on account of
his attempt to depose his father, against
the legitimate rights of the young Queen,
supported by the friends of the charter and of
constitutional freedom. The British Govern-
ment took the side of the latter, and sent an
army to Lisbon ostensibly to repel a Spanish
invasion, but really to give stability to the new
political arrangement. It would be superfluous
to detail subsequent events. Don Miguel
formally and repeatedly swore fidelity to his
niece, and to the Portuguese charter, at Vienna,
before our ambassador and the diplomatic re-
presentatives of Europe. He passed through
England with great popularity, amid the universal
conviction that he was resolved to keep his
sworn engagements ; he was escorted to the
Tagus by an English squadron ; he was attended
by an English Minister; and he was protected
on his landing by an English army, all actuated
by the belief that he was neither a usurper of
the throne of his niece nor a traitor to the prin-
ciples of the charter. Within a short month,
however, he showed himself both. All the
Governments of Europe, in consequence, with-
drew their representatives from his Court, and
forbade him all diplomatic intercourse with
theirs, This happened in March and April,
1828, and up to November, 1830, nearly
three years afterwards, the Administration
of the Duke of Wellington had still refused
to acknowledge his title, or to renew diplo-
matic intercourse with his Government. Dors
ing the whole interval which occurred between
November, 1830, when the Duke resigned
office, aid the landing of the expedition at
Oporto, in the summer of last year, no approach
was made towards an accommodation by the
Usurper. 1-le offered no amnesty to his exiled
countrymen, he invited to no compromise with
his outraged brother, he proposed no measure
of reconciliation with the allies of his house.
Was the Ooverurnent of this country, therefore,
bound to anything more than to enforce the laws
of a formal neutrality in the contest which he
himself had provoked ? Nay, if any favour was
to be shown, were we pot bound to show it in
behalf of our own friends—in behai of those
who .had shed their blood, or encountered exile
and confiscation, for their adherence to a cause
in which they were encouraged by our policy,
and, to a certain event, assisted by our military
succours and our flattering spiupyal The
Duke of Wellington had, during three years,
and under two successive Sovereigns, refused to
acknowledge the Usurper of Portugal, unless he
would grant an amnesty to those friends whom
we had misled by our interfeFenee. The despot
refused to pass such an act of grace or iimqiiity,
and was the present Government of England,
more liberal in its principles and more attached
to constitutional freedom than the last,OPPterß-
mediateiv into friendly intercourse with a usurper
whom their Tory predecessors had continued for
three years to excommunicate, on account of his
faithless and perfidious conduct ? Before the
French revolution, in July, 1830, the Portus
guese exiles had little hope of a liberal insur-
rection against *Or Royal persecutor; and at
the very time when, by Op, change of circum-
stances, their hopes revived, was it the dr;ty of
the English Government to dash the cup of ex-
pectation from their lips ? We ask this without
being disposed either to admit that our present
Government has,fin its conduct, departed from
the principles of strict neutrality, of that it has
acted wisely in observing them. There have
been complaints on. both sides—on the part of
Don Pedro, that England has not sufficiently
protected her own dignity and her commercial
interests in the Douro—and on the part of Don
Miguel, that we have favoured too much the
cause of the Constitutionalists. We certainly
do not think that the Tories, friendly as they
are to the Usurper, have proved the latter. This
alliance between this country and Portugal,
though we admitted all the antiquity and all the
force claimed for it by the Noble Duke, was
never intended as a compact to support any
tyrant who might occupy the throne of that
kingdom, in every wrong which he might commit
either against his own subjects or against foreign
Powers, ,Having ourselves demanded a redress
of injuries and ,insults from Don Miguel, how
could we interpose our shield between him aßnfrdently.
French Government, which he had civally
ed? The Stale charge of permitting supplies of men,
money, and arms, from this country to the bel-
ligerents in Oporto, is tpo ridiculous or too an-
tiquated to deserve an answer. firras Great
Britain ever been able to prevent her subjects'
from engaging, as individuals, in quarrels in
which their feelings are interested ? Did the
Foreign Enlistment Bill restrain the supply of
British adventurers to Spanish America or to
Greece? and suppose a war were to commence
in Spain to-morrow, would it be possible for
Government to keep Englishmen from fighting
for the liberal cause in that country T' In our
opinion Lord Grey gave so complete an answer,
both to the principles and to the allegations of
the Noble Duke, that we only feel surprise at
the subsequent vote. Such a result, bQw.ever,
is more to be erqslairied by the state of the
House than by the force of the argument. The
subject of the Portuguese ,contest has been so
often discusses!, that nothing new can be said,
and nothing new was attempted in the late de-
bate, but it is quite evident that the Tory
phalanx came down to the House resolved to