The Sun.
London, England, 1833-01-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is evidently in the interest of humanity
that the present sanguinary civil war should be
speedily brought to a termination in Portugal :
it has now been continued nearly five years,
for we must regard the usurpation of Don Mi-
guel, in the spring of 1828, as the commence-
ment of the struggle, and the Oporto expedition
of the summer of 1832 as a repetition of the
Oporto expedition of the summer of 1828.
Even before that time, and from the death of
King John in 1825, to the arrival of Don Mi-
guel in 1828, the parties had taken their stand,
and the country was agitated with actual insur-
rection, or threatened commotion. Thus have
seven long years passed in a contest to deter-
mine whether one member of the Braganza
family or another shall possess the throne of an
impoverished and harassed kingdom. Thus has
industry been interrupted, trade destroyed, the
country placed under military despotism, the
prisons been filled with the victims of despotic
oppression, confiscation and robbery been adopted
as the system of the Government, the most
enlightened part of the nobility, of the army,
and of the learned professions, together with a
great body of the best citizens, been driven
Into exile, and compelled to look for a re-
turn to their native country only through
blood and confusion, in order to resolve the
question whether a wretch who was banished
from Portugal for rebellion against his own father
and who has been called " a monster of a new
kind" by a French Minister, should be allowed
to usurp a throne which belonged to his niece.
Thus has Europe been canvassed from one end
to the other, in favour of one or other of the
claimants, expeditions been prepared by the
exiles wherever they could find generous friends
or free-born allies, the northern capital of the
Portuguese kingdom held for more than six
months by the latter,—much blood been shed
on both sides,—and at last the two brothers
been brought within sight of each other, and
almost into personal conflict. If after a long
period of fierce warfare the great Powers of
Europe interfered to terminate the struggle in
Greece, as a nuisance to modern civilization,
the same motives should prompt them to consult
the laws of humanity on this occasion. It is
quite evident that if the Usurper can make him-
self master of Oporto, we shall hear of massacres
and atrocities which Europe has not witnessed
for centuries among the nations of the west.
The success of Don Pedro might not be at-
tended by the same re-action, if he were now to
gain a triumph by the desertion of his brother's
troops; but if he has to fight his way to Lisbon
against a hostile faction, the mutual exasperation
of the combatants would be too strong for the
control of his better principles of government.
Such a long-continued conflict, and such a
hopeless prospect of its speedy termination by
the innate energies of the parties themselves,
would seem to lay the grounds of foreign in-
terference, without affording any warrant for
a meddling officious policy in ordinary cases
of domestic dissension. But it is evident that
without a military or naval expedition, which
England would be reluctant to employ in the
quarrel, we can, unaided by other Powers, do
nothing. Spain is the next neighbour, and,
from family connection, the most intimate ally
of the Braganza family. Without the support
of the Spanish Court, our remonstrances with
Don Miguel would be fruitless,—with the op-
position of the Spanish Court, our more active
interference against him would be a war with
the whole Peninsula, and consequently a
general struggle in Europe on subjects of poli-
tical opinion. It was therefore of the utmost
consequence to get the concurrence or aid of
Ferdinand's Government in settling the Portu-
guese question ; and the new system of liberal
policy adopted by the Regency of the Queen,
—the natural sympathy which a similarity of
position with respect to the rights of her
daughter had created in favour of the young
Queen of Portugal,—the additional influence
gained by the Court of the Tuileries, and many
other circumstances which we need not enume-
rate, combined to produce a hope that the
weight of the Spanish Government would at
last be thrown into the scale of Don Pedro.
The most zealous exertions of Mr. .Addington,
the British Minister, and those of M. Billing,
the French Charge d'Affaires at Madrid, were
employed, not without success, in the first in-
stance to prevent Spain from taking an
active part against the Constitutionalists, and
subsequently in inducing the Spanish Go.
vernment to view them with favour. In the
former case the diplomatic influence of France
and England was more powerful than in the
latter. It could master the violent party which
in summer and the beginning of autumn directed
the Spanish Cabinet ; but it could only exert an
uncertain and wavering control over the vacilla-
ting policy of the Regency, sometimes inclined
to support Don Pedro, and sometimes to stand
neutral between the two brothers,—sometimes
inviting his ships to enter the Spanish ports,
and sometimes sending orders for their departure
or exclusion. The project of the British and
French Cabinets would seem to have been to
procure the intervention of Spain to induce Don
Miguel to surrender his claim to the Portuguese
crown, on their joint engagement to withdraw
Don Pedro from the field, and to leave the un-
contested prize to his daughter, who might pro-
bably again be led to give her uncle her already
betrothed hand. The plan appears almost too
fine and smooth to succeed. Each party was to
withdraw their man, like two pieces of equal
value on a chess-board, without considering the
difficulties of the move, or the intricacies of the
v,anee. If Don Miguel, who has shown a too
eager passion to reign, is sure of success against
his brother in Oporto, he, of course, would not
obey the simple mandate to withdraw ; and if
Don Pedro is equally confident in his prospect
of raising the siege,—of advancing upon Lis-
bon, and of reigning as Regent in the
;lame of his daughter, he would be equally re-
fractory to the voice of his allies. In short, it
is extremely difficult to see a termination of this
fatal contest now going on at Oporto without
more blood, or such an overwhelming inter-
ference on the part of the mediating Powers as
would make them principals in the war. The
foregoing observations were written on the pre-
fairnption that there was some truth in the re-
porie Of the French papers, that the mission of
Sir Stratford Canning had failed. We have
since Learnt, on better authority, that these
reports are
altogether erroneous—that our Am-
bassador had been most graciously received by
the King and ale
en on the 15th inst.—that he
was to enter on the business of his mission
immediately aftervvartis_--rand that he had every
prospect of succeeding in the object for which
he was sent. Even already the news of his
arrival at Madrid is stated to have produced
the best effects in Portugal, and to have much
lowered the tone of the Miguelites, None will