The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-02-22 00:00:00

PORTUGAL

LISBON, FEB. 14.—The charter was proclaimed in this city
on the 10th instant.

Just after the last packet sailed for England, it became
known that the Queen had agreed to Viscount.. Sada Ban-
deira's terms, and had appointed the following ministry :
President of the Council and Foreign Affairs—Duke of
Palmella.

War Department—Viscount Sade Bandeira—an ultra.
Home Department—J. A. Magalhaes.
Marine Department—Jervis d'Atonguia—renegade char-
tist.
Justice—J. F. de o. Soure—ditt
•

•.• •.• • • v••.,
Finance, ad interim—Avila (the former Minister.)
The very first act of the new ministers was to displace the
Duke of Terceira from the command of the troops in the
capital, and appoint Count Borefim, who was yet at Elvas,
in his stead. They likewise gave the command of a brigade,
to be composed of the marines and municipal guard, to Cesar
de Vasconcellos ; appointed Count das Antas to head the
division of troops to be sent against the Oporto chartists ;
and removed the Administrator-General, or chief of the civil
police, M. Gamboa, to make way for M. Grijo, an ultra
Septembrist.
Having made these and other preparatory arrangements,
they got the Queen to issue an order to the new Administra-
tor-General, directing him to call out the men of the arsenal
corps, and of all those battalions of the national guard which
had not been suppressed by law, as also to incorporate with
them the men who had belonged to thesuppressed battalions.
At the same time her Majesty, by their advice, sent orders to
the military arsenal to deliver muskets to all who should ap-
ply for them, for the defence of the constitution. Next
morning, accordingly, at an early hour, the drums were heard
beating to arms all over the city ; but earlier still, at the very
first peep of dawn, the citizens were roused from their slum-
bers by a thundering solute of 21 guns from the citadel or
castle of St. George, and it was soon found that the garrison
of that fortress, consisting of the 2d, 12th, and part of the
10th infantry, had proclaimed the charter of 1826. The first
report was, that the Duke of Terceira had placed himself at
the head of the movement, but this proved untrue. At the
first tidings of this untoward event, the whole of the ministers
hurried off to the Palace to concert measures with the Queen
for putting down the revolt. Their proposal was that a force
should be immediately sent to storm the citadel ; but the
Queen, desirous (as she said) of preventing the effusion of
blood, would not consent to such a step. It was, therefore,
resolved that pickets should be stationed round the castle, so
as to cut off the supplies from it; by which means it was
thought it could speedily be forced to surrender, not having
provisions for more than a day.
This was accordingly done with detachments from the 30th
life infantry, the marines, and the municipal guard ; but the
men deserted so fast into the castle that it was found neces-
sary to withdraw the pickets altogether, and the approaches
being then left completely open, the friends of the charter
soon began to send in large quantities of wine and provisions.
Meanwhile the Septembrists had assembled several thou-
sands of the armed populace, the municipal guard, the ma-
rines, the 30th foot, and the remainder of the 10th, at the
Camo-square, where the leading men of their party formed
themselves into a sort of committee of public safety, to deli-
berate upon the measures to be taken for the defence of their
cause, one of which was to form barricades in all the streets
leading from the eastern to the western division of the city.
While this was going on, three regiments, the 7th, 16th, and
17th marched to the Necessidades, and, drawing up under
the windows of the royal palace, declared, that rather than
he sent to fight against their countrymen and comrades, they
would have the charter, as they had already had quite suffi-
cient civil strife. Soon after this abundant supplies of vic-
tuals were sent to them by the friends of the cause, as also
six vinters (the price of two bottles of wine) to each man.
The money, of course, quickly found its way to the wine
shops, and then, indeed, the enthusiasm of the soldiers knew
no bounds. They rent the air with their vitas, and swore
that nothing but the charter would they have.
In the course of the afternoon a deputation of officers from
the citadel arrived at the palace and requested an interview
with the Queen, in order to learn from her own mouth whe-
ther she would have the charter which they tendered to her
or not. On their arrival the bands all struck up the chartist
hymn, and the uproar of shouts was renewed with tenfold
force. The Queen, I understand, appeared to be in a state
of great trepidation, and returned an equivocal answer to the
question put to her, merely saying that she could not sanc-
tion the overthrow of the existing form of government, by
means of a military movement, but that she was willing to
accede to the wishes of the majority of the nation, whatever
they might be. With this answer they went back to the ci-
tadel. At night the troops returned to their quarters and
the armed citizens to their homes, both parties resuming
their positions next day.
Thus ended the second day. On the following morning
the ministers finding that nearly all the regular troops had
declared for the charter, and the municipal guard were wa-
vering, and knowing well that no reliance could be placed on
the courage of the national guards and armed populace, went
in abody to the palace, and tendered their resignation, which
was immediately accepted. The Queen then appointed the
following ministry:—

President of the Council and Minister of War—Duke of
Terceira.

Home Department—Mosinho d'Albuquerque
Marine and Colonial—Colonel Looreiro.

Justice, Finance, and Foreign Affairs—Left vacant

The moment it became known that the cabinet of the pre-
ceding day had resigned, and that an unalloyed chartist ad-
ministration had succeeded it, the hopes of the Septembrists
fell to Zero ; and to add to their dismay, the few regular
troops and armed sailors who had till then stood by them,
began to desert at a rapid rate. The new Ministers, on ac-
cepting office, solemnly declared that their determination was
to uphold the constitution of 1838. Nevertheless the very
first thing they did was to rescind all the civil and military
appointments made by their immediate predecessors, and to
issue an order for disarming the rabble. The execution of
this order was voluntarily undertaken by Count das Antas
himself; but before he could begin to carry it into effect, the
parties having got the scent of what was going to take place,
many of them resolved to make the best they could of it, by
selling the murkets with which they had been supplied from
the royal arsenal. The average price of a musket and bayo-
net at this improvised fair was two cruzadoes, or about five
shillings. On arriving at the Carmc, the head quarters of
the Septembrists, Count das Antas communicated the queen's
order to them, with an assurance from her majesty that the
existing constitution should be maintained—upon which
those of them who were vet there quietly dispersed.
On the morning of the 10th all the barricades raised during
the preceding days by the Septembrists were thrown down.
About noon a small number of well-dressed men, not more
than fifty or sixty in all, assembled under the windows of the
Municipal Chamber, and began to shout viva: for the
charter, upon which, the municipality having drawn up a
representation to the Queen, stating that an immense crowd
had been shouting for the charter under the windows of the
chamber, and praying that her majesty would authorize them
to proclaim it in due form, proceeded to the palace, where,
on presenting it to the Queen, they were told by her that she
had already, by the advice of ministers, issued a decree for
the restoration of the charter, and the convocation of the
Cortes, to meet on the 10th of June next. Shortly after-
wards the fact was announced to the ears of all by royal
salutes from the forts and ships of war.
At night an illumination took place, but it was very partial,
and the whole affair is described as being exceedingly tame.
The charter has lain so long on the shelf that the differ-
ence between it and the constitution has been forgotten by
most of the Portuguese themselves, and, therefore it is as
well to explain it for the information of Engliah readers. By
the constitution, the Senate, or upper house, was, like the
Chamber of Deputies, elective. The Queen had not the
power of concluding treaties with foreign nations without the
approbation of the Cortes ; and the post of commander-in-
chief of the army could not he filled by any member of the
royal family. By the charter, the peers are named by the
Queen for life; the Crown can make treaties, independently
of the Cortes ; and the King, or Prince Royal, is always to
be commander-in-chief of the forces. The royal prerogative
has thus been increased, in theory at least ; but, in point of
fact, with the immense majority which the Queen's Govern-
ment always contrived to obtain in both chambers, she had
quite as much power under the constitution as she can de-
rive from the charter.

One curious question remains to be solved. By what mo-
tives were the soldiers impelled to overthrow a constitution
the work of their own hands, and which they so resolutely
defended against the first chartist attempt in 1837? By
what means did Costa Cabral and his confederates win them
over to become the instruments for working out their de-
signs? To these questions I have heard the following solu-
tion from a quarter possessing good sources of information.
It is that the primum mobile of this affair has been no less
a personage than King Louis Philip himself, who, knowing
that the restoration of the charter cannot fail to rouse the
jealousy and excite the apprehensions of the Spanish govern-
ment, hopes by this means to embroil England in a quarrel
with Espartero. Others say that the new Austrian minister
was the person who first suggested the plan to Costa Cabral,
but that he wanted it to be done by representations from the
different town councils, and without any intervention on the
part of the troops, and that he opposed it afterwards only
because it had been carried into effect in a manner diametri-
cally opposite to his wishes. Be this as it may, one fact
pretty certain now is, that the chartist clubs were liberally
supplied with money from some quarter unknown ; that
before Costa Cabral quitted this city the greater part of the
serjeants of the regular army bad been bribed, and that the
soldiers were so afterwards.