The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-07-09 00:00:00

THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE LIFE OF DON
JOSEPH OF PORTUGAL—OH the night of the 3d of Sep,
telpher, 1758, as the king was returning to his palace at
night in a cabriolet, attended only by his valet, two men
on horseback, armed with blunderbusses, rode up to the
carriage, and levelled their weapons at the monarch. One
of them missed fire, the other failed of its effect. The
royal postilion, in alarm, rushed forward, when two men,
similarly waiting in the road, galloped after the carriage,
and both fired their blunderbusses into it behind. The
cabriolet was riddled with slugs, and the king was wounded
in several places. By an extraordinary presence of mind,
Don Joseph, instead of ordering the postilion to gallop
onward, directed him instantly to turn back, and, to
avoid alarming the palace, carry him direct to the house
of. the court surgeon. By this fortunate order, he escaped
the other groups of the conspirators, who were stationed
further on the road, and by whose repeated discharges he
would probably have fallen. The public alarm and indig-
nation on the knowledge of this desperate atrocity was un-
bounded. There seemed to be but one man in the king-
dom who preserved hiz composure, and that one was
Pombal. Exhibiting scarcely even the natural perturbs.:
tion at an event which had threatened almost a national
convulsion, he suffered the whole to become a matter of
doubt, and allowed the king's retirement from the public
eye to be considered as merely the effect of accident. The
public despatch of Mr. Hay,
the British envoy at Lisbon.
alludes to it, chiefly as assigning a reason for the delay of
a court morning—the order for this etiquette, on the death
of the Spanish queen, no' having been put in execution.
The envoy mentions that it had been impeded by the
king's illness,—" it being the custom of the court to put
on gala 'when any of the royal family are blooded. When
I went to court to enquire slier his majesty's health, I
was there informed that the king, on Sunday night the 3d
Instant,
passing through a gallery to go to the queen's
apartment, had the misfortune to fall and bruise his right
arm; he had been blooded eight different times; and, as
his majesty is a fat bulky man, to prevent any humours
fixing there, his physicians hare advised that he should
not use his arm, but abstain from business for some time.
In consequence, the queen was declared regent during
Don Joseph's illness." This was the public version of
the
event. But appended to the despatch was a post-
script, in cypher. stating the rsality of the transaction.
Pombal's sagacity, and his self-control, perhaps a still
rarer quality among the possessors of power, were exhi-
bited in the strongest light on this occa,ion. For three
months not a single s'ep appeared to be taken to punish,
or even to detect the assassins. The subject WAS allowed
to die away ; when, on the 9th of December. all Portugal
was startled by a royal decree, declaring the crime, and
offering rewards for the seizure of the assassins. Some
days afterwards Lisbon heard, with astonishment. an or-
der for the arrest of the Duke of Aveira, one of the first
nobles, and master of the royal household ; the arrest of
the whole family of the Marquis of Tavora, himself, his
two sons, his four brothers, and his two sons-in-law.
Other nobles were also seized ; and the Jesuits were for-
bidden to be seen out of their houses. The three months
of Pombal's apparent inaction had been incessantly em-
ployed in researches into the plot. Extreme caution was
evidently necessary, where the criminals were among the
highest officials and nobles, seconded by the restless and
formidable machinations of the Jesuits. When his proofs
were complete, he crushed the conspirators at a single
grasp. His singular inactivity had disarmed them ; and
nothing but the most consummate composure could have
prevented their flying from justice. On the 12th of Ja-
nuary, 1759, they were found guilty; and on the 13th
they were put to death, to the number of nine, with the
Marchioness of Tavora, in the square of Belem. The
scaffold and the bodies were burned, and the ashes thrown
into the sea. Those were melancholy acts; the works of
melancholy times. But as no human crime can be so fa-
tal to the security of a state as regicide, no imputation
can fall on the memory of a great minister, compelled to
exercise justice in its severity, for the protection of all or-
ders of the kingdom. In our more enlightened period, we
must rejoice that those dreadful displays of judicial power
have passed away, and that laws are capable of being art_
ministered without the tortures, or the waste of life. which
agonise the feelings of society. Yet, while blood for blood
continued to be the code; while the sole prevention of
crime was sought for in the the security of judgment; and
while even the zeal of justice against guilt was measured
by the terrible intensitrof the punishment—we must
charge the horror of such sweeping executions to the
ignorance of the age, much more than to the vengeance o
power.—Blackwocd'g Magazine.