Immagini della pagina
PDF
ePub

LII.

1807.

CHAP. tion, parents were separated from children, husbands from wives, and numbers of both remained ignorant of each other's safety till they landed in the Brazils; while the shore resounded with the lamentations of those who were thus severed, probably for ever, from those whom they most loved. It was some consolation to the crowd, who watched with aching eyes the receding sails, to see the royal fleet, as it passed through the British squadron, received with a royal salute from all the vessels-emblematic of the protection which Great Britain now extended to her ancient ally, and an earnest of that heroic support which, through all the desperate conflict which followed, England was destined to afford to her courageous inhabitants. Numbers, however, observed, with superstitious dread, that at the moment of the salute the sun became eclipsed, and mournfully repeated the words, "The house of Braganza has ceased to reign." Never had a city been penetrated with a more unanimous feeling of grief; the royal family, kindly and warm-hearted, had long enjoyed the affections of the people; the bitterness of conquest was felt without its excitement. In mournful silence the people lingered on the quay from whence the royal party had taken their departure; every one, in returning to his home, felt as if he had lost a parent or a child. Fifteen thousand persons in all were got on board, and followed the fortunes of the royal family to the New World. They were conveyed in eight sail of the line, three frigates, and a great number of transports and smaller vessels pressed into the service for the occasion. The embarkation took 1 Nevis, 175, place from the quay of Belem, on the same spot from i. 107, 113, whence, three centuries before, Vasco de Gama had sailed 108, 111, upon that immortal voyage which first opened to Euro383, pean enterprise the regions of Oriental commerce, and Tor. i. 39. whence Cabral set forth upon that expedition which gave Reg. 1807, Portugal an empire in the west, and had provided in the New World for her an asylum, in the future wreck of her fortunes in the Old.1

180. South.

Hard. x.

112. Foy,

40. Ann.

281. Bign. vii. 28.

LII.

24.

the French

Hardly had the royal squadron, amidst tempestuous CHAP. gales, cleared the bar, and disappeared from the shores of Europe, when the advanced-guard of Junot's army, 1807. reduced to sixteen hundred men and a few horsemen, Arrival of arrived on the towers of Belem. He came just in time at Lisbon. to see the fleet receding in the distance, and in the ebulli- Nov. 30. tion of his passion, himself discharged a piece of ordnance at a merchant vessel, which, long retarded by the multitude who were thronging on board, was hastening, under the walls of that fortress, to join the fleet which had preceded it. Although, however, the French troops were so few, and in such deplorable condition as to excite pity rather than apprehension, yet no resistance was made; the regency, to whom the prince-royal had, on his departure, intrusted the administration of affairs, wisely deeming a contest hopeless from which the government itself shrank, and regarding as their first duty the negotiating favourable terms for the inhabitants with the invaders. Resistance, therefore, was not attempted; and Europe beheld with astonishment a capital containing three hundred thousand inhabitants, and fourteen thousand regular troops, open its gates to a wretched file of soldiers without a single piece of cannon, the vanguard of which, worn out and attenuated, not fifteen hundred strong, could hardly bear their muskets on their shoulders, while the succeeding columns were scattered in deplorable confusion over mountain-paths two hundred miles in length. Such was their state of starvation, that, on entering the city, many of the soldiers dropped down in the streets, or sank exhausted in the porches of the houses, being unable to ascend the stairs, until the Portuguese humanely brought 271. Thieb. them sustenance. Lisbon received its new masters on Nevis, i. the anniversary of the very day (30th November) on 185, 213. which, a hundred and sixty-seven years before, the Por- 116, 117. tuguese had overturned the tyranny of the Spaniards, and re-established, amidst universal transport, the national 343. independence.1

1 Thib. vi.

68, 69, 72.

South. i.

Foy, ii. 400,

403. Thiers,

viii. 342,

CHAP.

LII.

1807.

25.

name of the

enormous

contribu

by the

troops.

Junot immediately took military possession of the country; the French troops were cantoned chiefly in the capital and the strongholds in its vicinity; while Elvas The country surrendered to the Spanish general Solano, and Taranco, is occupied by Junot in with the northern corps of the troops of that nation, took French: peaceable possession of the important and opulent city of Oporto. The strict discipline maintained by these Penintions levied sular corps, afforded a striking contrast to the license indulged in by the French soldiers, whose march, albeit through a friendly state, which had as yet committed no act of hostility, was marked by plunder, devastation, and ruin. Hopes even began to be entertained by those in the French interest, that the independence of their country might still be preserved. But these hopes were of short duration; and Portugal soon experienced, in all its bitterness, the fate of all the countries which, from the commencement of the war, had received, whether as friends or enemies, the tricolor flag. Heavy contributions, both in money, subsistence, and clothing, had from the outset been levied by the French troops; and Junot, with almost regal state, was lodged in the now deserted palace. But the first was ascribed by their deluded friends to the necessitous and destitute condition of the French troops; Lond. i. 45, and the last was forgiven in an officer whose head, never 12. Thiers, equal to his valour, appeared to have been altogether carried away by the novelty and importance of the situation in which he was now placed.1

1 Nevis, i. 250, 261. Thib. vi.

273, 274.

Foy, iii. 11,

viii. 345,

346.

26.

the French

bon.

All uncertainty, however, was soon at an end. A fortHoisting of night after their arrival, a review of six thousand troops flag on the in the capital took place: the soldiers were assembled in forts of Lis the principal streets and squares-the infantry in battalions, the cavalry in squadrons, the artillery limbered up and in order for service; and the whole population of the neighbourhood crowded together to witness the spectacle. Suddenly the thunder of cannon from the Moorish fort attracted their attention; all eyes were instantly turned in that direction, and they beheld the ancient flag of Por

LII.

1807.

tugal torn from the staff, upon which the tricolor standard CHAP. was immediately hoisted. The magnitude of the calamity now became apparent: Portugal, seized by a perfidious ally, was to be reduced to a province of France. At first, a solemn silence prevailed; but soon a hoarse murmur, like the distant roar of the ocean, arose, and cries of "Portugal for ever! Death to the French!" were heard on all sides. But the principal persons of the city were secured, the populace were unarmed, and the forts and batteries Nevis, i. were all in the hands of the invaders. The evening passed in feverish agitation; but the people, destitute of leaders, vi. 273, 274. were unable to turn the general indignation to any ac- 123, 125. count, and the day closed without any convulsion having 11,14. occurred.1

1

250, 273.

46. Thib.

South. i.

Foy, iii.

is at length

Junot, and

This measure, however significant as to the ultimate 27. designs of the conqueror, was yet only a demonstration; The regency and as the police of Lisbon was rigidly enforced by the dissolved by French, and no other change was made in the government the whole but the introduction of two or three creatures of Napoleon's seized by into the regency, which still administered the laws in the the French. name of the Prince Regent, hopes began to be again entertained that the occupation would prove only temporary. But the events which rapidly succeeded, demonstrated that Portugal was destined to drain to the dregs the cup of humiliation before the day of its political resurrection came. A forced loan of 2,000,000 cruzados (£200,000) was exacted from the merchants, though their fortunes Dec. 5. were seriously affected by the blockade of the harbour, and the complete stoppage of foreign commerce and public credit. The entire confiscation of English goods was next proclaimed, and ordered to be enforced by tenfold penalties and corporal punishment; while the carrying of arms of any sort was strictly prohibited, under the pain Dec. 6. of death, over the whole kingdom. Meanwhile, fresh troops, the last columns of Junot's array, daily poured into the capital; and, to accommodate them, the monks were all turned out of the convents, which were forthwith

LIJ.

1808.

Feb. 1.

CHAP. converted into military barracks. Still no indication of a permanent partition of the kingdom had appeared at Lisbon, and Junot seemed chiefly intent on a small Jan. 1808. squadron which he was fitting out with great expedition in the harbour, apparently against the English; although the Spanish officers at Oporto and in Alentejo made no secret of the treaty of Fontainebleau, and had already begun to levy the revenue collected there in the name of the King of Spain. But on the 1st February the mask was completely thrown aside, and it appeared that Napoleon was resolved to appropriate the whole monarchy to himself, without allotting any portion to his confederates in iniquity. On that day Junot went in state to the palace of the Inquisition, a fitting place for such a deed, where the regency was assembled, and, after a studied harangue, read a proclamation of Napoleon, dated from Milan in the December preceding, followed by a proclamation of his own, which at once dissolved the regency

Dec. 23, 1807.

Feb. 1, 1808.

-appointed Junot governor of the whole kingdom, with instructions to administer it all in the name of the Emperor Napoleon-ordained a large body of Portuguese troops to be forthwith marched out of the Peninsulaand for the support of the army of occupation, now 23. Lond. i. termed the army of Portugal, imposed a contribution of 1. 41, 42, 49, a hundred million of francs (£4,000,000), above double i. 263, 288. the annual revenue of the monarchy,* upon its inhabitants,' besides confiscating the whole property of the

1 Foy, iii. 15,

47, 49. Tor.

50. Nevis,

* "Inhabitants of Portugal," said Junot's proclamation, "your interests have engaged the attention of the Emperor: it is time that all uncertainty as to your fate should cease; the fate of Portugal is fixed, and its future prosperity secured by its being taken under the all-powerful protection of Napoleon the Great. The Prince of Brazil, by abandoning Portugal, has renounced all his rights to the sovereignty of that kingdom; the house of Braganza has ceased to reign in Portugal; the Emperor Napoleon has determined that that beautiful country, governed over its whole extent in his name, shall be administered by the general-in-chief of his army." Thus did Napoleon first sign a treaty at Fontainebleau for the entire spoliation of the Portuguese dominions; next, by his perfidious invasion, drive the ruling sovereign into exile; and then assign that very compulsory departure as a reason for the previously determined appropriation of the whole of his territories to himself.-See both the Milan Decree and JUNOT's Proclamation in Fox, iii. 343, 345; Pièces Just.

« IndietroContinua »