preparing materials, for which future historians would be grateful

The author of the Portuguese Observer is a man of this description. During the tyranny of Junot, he collected every edict which was issued, kept a faithful journal of the events passing within his own knowledge, and procured accounts, on which he could rely, from other parts of the kingdom. When this melancholy task was begun, there could have been no other feeling to alleviate it, than the desire of leaving to posterity a faithful detail of an aggression, at that time unparalleled for injustice and cruelty, in the annals of Europe. On the deliverance of his country, he was enabled to publish as much of this journal as prudence would permit; much, he confesses, has been withheld, because the times required it; that is to say, he has been unwilling to make himself obnoxious, by exposing the misconduct of individuals; and there is as yet no liberty of the press in Lisbon. But though he admits that it has not been possible for him to relate the whole truth, his book contains nothing but the truth; this he solemnly affirms; it is corrobo rated by the testimony of persons best acquainted with the transactions of that period, and the work itself bears the strongest marks of veracity.

According to this writer, the circumstance which made the prince of Brazil resolve upon retiring to his vast empire in America, was the communication of the secret treaty of Fontainbleau from the English court. Had this measure been ear lier resolved on, the act itself might have been one of the sublimest spectacles recorded in history; but the haste with which it was conducted, rendered it a scene of confusion. On the part of the emigrants, nothing was to be seen but hurry and disorder; on the part of the people, astonishment and dismay Sir Sidney Smith offered to bring his fleet

abreast of the city, and there, seconded by the indignant populace, dispute every inch of the ground with the invader. Lisbon, he said, was surely as defensible as Buenos Ayres. It was well for Junot, that this resolution was not effected.

The first division of the French army, consisting of 10,000 men, reached the villages adjoining Lisbon, on the 29th of November, while the prince and his faithful followers were sailing out of the river. They arrived without baggage, having only their knapsacks, and a half gourd slung from their girdle as a drinking cup; their muskets were rusty, and many of them out of repair; the

men

were mostly bare foot, foundered with their march, and almost fainting from fatigue and want of food. The very women of Lisbon might have knocked them on the head. On the following day, the royal guard of police went out to meet Junot, and he made his entrance into the city. A proclamation had previously been circulated, in which the general added to his other titles, that of Great Cross of the Order of Christ, an honour conferred on him by that very prince whom he came to entrap and destroy." Inhabitants of Lisbon," he said, "I come to save your port and your prince from the malignant influence of England. The prince, otherwise respectable for his vir tues, has permitted himself to be drawn away by perfidious counsellors, to be delivered by them to his enemies; they alarmed him for his personal safety; his subjects were regarded as nothing, and your interests were sacrificed to the cowar dice of a few courtiers. People of Lisbon, remain at peace in your houses; fear nothing from my army, nor from me; our enemies and the criminal are the only persons who ought to fear us. The great Napoleon, my master, sends me to protect you. I will protect you."

The first act of this protection

was to seize the fortresses upon the iver, and fire upon the ships which had not yet got out. The shops were shut; the streets full of people, and the discount upon the paper money rose to 50 per cent. The next day, December 1, was the anniversary of the acclamation; of that revolution which restored the crown of Portugal to its rightful heir. What a day for those inhabitants of Lisbon who loved their country, and were familiar with the history of its age of glory! Powder wagons were now creaking through the streets; the patroles and the whole force of the police were employed in calming and controlling the people who beheld all this with indignation, and an instinctive longing to vindicate themselves The parish ministers went from house to house, informing the inhabitants that they must prepare to quarter the French officers, and collecting mattresses and blank ets for the men. In the midst of all this, so violent a storm of wind arose, that it shook the houses like an earthquake; and in the terrour which it occasioned, many families fled into the open country. Many buildings were injured; the treasury and arsenal unroofed; and the tide suddenly rose twelve feet. The cir cumstance was noted in the Paris papers; and, in the spirit of those writers who speak of the tempest which occurred at Cromwell's death, as something supernatural, it was added, that no sooner had the French flag been hoisted, than the elements were calmed, and the sun broke forth in all his splendour. This in. terpretation, however, could not be current at Lisbon, because the French flag was not hoisted there till ten days after the storm.

The troops entered Lisbon mostly by night, and without beat of drum. Eleven thousand were now posted in the city, from Belem to the Grilo, and from the castle to Arroios. The generals of division and brigade took possession of the houses of

those fidalgos who accompanied the prince, and of the principal merchants; and, as the first fruits of that protection, which the religion of the country was to experience, all per sons in the great convents of Jesus, the Paulistas, and S. Francisco da Cidade, who had any relations by whom they could be housed, were ordered to turn out, that the French soldiers might be quartered in their apartments. On the 3d the merchants were called on for a forced loan of two millions of cruzados, and this at a time when their ships had been seized in France, when a British squadron blockaded the port of Lisbon, when the ships from Bra zil were warned off by that squadron and sent to England, and all foreign commerce utterly destroyed! Every day, almost every hour, brought with it some new mark of French pro tection. Account was taken of the property of all those persons who followed the prince, that it might be confiscated. M. Hermann was added to the regency, and made minister of finance, and of the interiour, by an appointment of Buona, parte, which by its date sufficiently proved, if any proof had been needed, that whatever the conduct of the prince might be, that tyrant had resolved to usurp the kingdom. The edict which Junot had issued, on his first entrance into Portugal, was now printed and circulated in Lisbon. Beginning in the usual style of French hypocrisy, it ended with their usual insolence and cruelty. Every Portuguese, it said, who, not being a soldier of the line, was apprehended in an armed assembly, should be shot. If any Frenchman was killed in the country, the town or village, to which the district belonged where the murder was committed, should be fined in not less than three times the amount of its whole annual rents, and the four principal inhabitants taken as hostages for the payment. And as an exemplary act of justice, the first city, town, or village,

in which a Frenchman was assassinated, should be burnt to the ground. When this decree was issued, the prince of Brazil was in alliance with France, and Junot protested that he was entering as a friend, expressing his confidence that the fine city of Lisbon would joyfully receive an army, which alone could preserve it from becoming the prey of the English.

The next measure was an edict for the confiscation of English goods, ordering all persons who had any English property in their possession, to give an account of it within three days, on pain of being fined in a sum ten times the amount of the property concealed, and even of corporal punishment, if it was thought proper to inflict it. On the same day, the use of fire arms in sporting was prohibited throughout the whole kingdom, and any person detected in carrying fowling pieces, or pistols, without a license from general Laborde, the commandant of Lisbon, was to be considered as a vagabond and highway murderer, carried before a military commission, and punished accordingly The next day all kinds of arms whatsoever were prohibited; and the winesellers were ordered to turn out all soldiers at seven in the evening, on pain of a heavy fine, and of death for the third offence. The troops, as they continued to arrive, were quartered in all the convents, and their women with them, as if to insult the religious feelings of the people. Complaints were made that the officers required those persons upon whom they were billeted, to keep a table for them. An order was issued, in which Junot expressed his displeasure, saying that the French officers in Portugal were to consider themseives as in garrison, and had no right to demand any thing more than lodging, fire, and lights. He reminded them also that the emperour had placed them on the same

footing as the grand army, in consequence of which they would regularly receive extraordinary pay sufficient to defray all their expenses. This edict was in the true spirit of the French generals; it was something to be published in foreign newspapers, as a proof of the good order which they observed; meantime all the superiour officers, not merely compelled those upon whom they had billetted themselves, to furnish a table, but every kind of provision also for the entertainments which they thought proper to give. Many persons gave up their houses to these insolent guests, and retired into the country; still they were obliged to support the establishment; and answer all the demands which the intruders chose to make.

There now appeared a pastoral letter from the cardinal patriarch of Lisbon, written at the request, that is to say, under the orders of Junot. The author of this journal apologizes for its abject and servile language. Its secret meaning, he says, will be apparent if it is read with attention; and its effect was, as the venerabie pastor intended, to strengthen the veneration of the Portugueze for their religion, and tend to the destruction of the impious wretches who were profaning it. It is to be regretted that so faithful and patriotick a writer should, in his wish to excuse another, attempt to justify what ought not even to be published. For whatever may have been the patriarch's secret desires, and however his language may have belied his heart, certain it is that he now betrayed his country, and, as far as in him lay, contributed to its degradation and destruction. He told the Portuguese that the French were come to assist them; that they were under the protection of Napoleon the Great, whom God had destined to support and defend religion, and to constitute the happiness of his people. "You know him," said he; "the whole world knows him; confide

therefore, with unalterable security in this prodigious man, whose like has not been seen in any age. He will diffuse over us the blessings of peace, if you respect his determinations." In this manner, exhorting them passively to submit to whatever might occur, he entreated all his clergy, by the bowels of Christ Jesus, to concur with him in impressing upon them the duty of resignation and submission. This address was intended to prepare the people for what followed; and on the succeeding day the French flag was hoisted upon the arsenal. It is the system of Buonaparte, and the infamous ministers of his tyranny, to break down, by a series of insults, the spirit of every nation which is unhappy enough to be brought under his yoke. Two days the French colours remained flying there; on the 3d, the French troops were drawn up in the square of the Rocio, when Junot thanked them, in the emperour's name, for the constancy with which they had endured the hardships of their march. Heaven, said he, has favoured us in our object of saving this fine city from the oppression of the English, and we have now the glory of seeing the French flag planted in Lisbon. He then called upon them to cry, long live the emperour Napoleon! At the same moment the French colours were hoisted on the castle, a salute of twenty guns was fired, and repeated by all the forts upon the river. This was about mid-day; the Portuguese had been murmuring from the moment the flag appeared upon the arsenal, and this new insult increased their shame and indignation. Without plan, without leaders, without other arms than sticks, and stones, and knives, they attacked the guards, in the great square, between five and six in the evening. Junot was giving a grand dinner, in honour of some victory; it was abruptly ended; his officers hastened to their posts, and the Portugueze traitors,

who were his guests, fled to their own houses. The tumult continued about three hours. It was then so far suppressed that Junot, with most of his generals, went to the opera, and there displayed the French flag, as if in triumph. The greater part of the few Portugueze who were present left the theatre. While this bravado was going on, cannon were planted at head-quarters, and gunboats stationed so as to command some of the market places and streets. At daybreak the streets were full of soldiers, horse and foot, patrolling the town; but wherever a Frenchman ventured to appear alone he was immediately attacked. Many families fled into the country. Junot published an edict, ordering that every person taken in arms should be carried before a military commis sion. He prefixed to it this sentence, as a text for his bloody laws: “ Rebellion is the greatest of all crimes.” He then fortified the castle, threw up new works, and planted batteries, from which he threatened to destroy Lisbon if the insurrection was renewed.

These disturbances were not attended with much bloodshed, and no executions followed them. The Portugueze troops had not joined the people, for no plan had been concerted, and the resistance, when at tempted, was perfectly hopeless.Their disposition, however, was well known; and the regiments which had been called from the provinces by the prince immediately before his embarkation, were now ordered back to their respective stations. It was found that the decree for the discovery and confiscation of English property and goods had produced little effect; the three days allowed for giving in an account elapsed on the 7th, and on the 8th the term was prolonged for eight days more, with heavy denunciations against those persons who should attempt to evade it. That part of the decree which related to English property might

easily be obeyed by those who chose to obey it; but the confiscation of all English goods, in a place where half the goods were English, was a measure as impracticable as oppressive; and the day after Junot had issued his second edict upon the subject, he found it necessary to publish a third, modifying the former two, and, in fact, confessing their absurdity. It appeared, he said, that, in virtue of these decrees, the merchants and shopkeepers could not dispose of many articles of English manufacture; that the want of these articles kept out of the market a great number of things which were in daily use, and would therefore raise the price of those which were not prohibited; they were, therefore, permitted to sell such articles as were not actually the property of British subjects, under the following conditions. 1. That an account of the British goods in their possession should be delivered in, and permission to sell them obtained from the commissary at Lisbon, or some publick functionary in the provinces. 2. That this permission should not be granted, unless the kind, quality, measure, quantity, and price of the article for sale were specified. 3. That the vender should hold him self responsible for the amount of all which he disposed of, and, for that purpose, should enter in his books the 'quantity of the thing sold, the price, and the name of the purchaser.

A few days before Christmas the priests were forbidden to celebrate cock mass, that the people might not have that opportunity of assembling by night. It was ordered that no bells should be sounded on that night, and even the use of the little bell, which precedes the sacrament when it is carried through the streets, was prohibited. On the day after these orders were issued, the inquisitor general published a pastoral letter, repeating and enforcing the base language of the patriarch.

It was received with indignation by the people. The author of this diary says, that they condemned the inquisitor because they read only the written words, and did not discover the hidden meaning; but when the Spaniards and Portugueze shall have worked out their own deliverance, which, whatever disasters they may now experience, sooner or later they assuredly will do, both nations will do well to remember that the inqui sition betrayed the government by which it had so long been encou⚫ raged, and the people whom it had so long oppressed and degraded.

Great exultation was manifested by the French at the news that Russia had declared against England; this they had considered as the most difficult of all their projects, and the only thing requisite to ensure their full success. But the same day brought tidings that many of the Brazil ships had been warned off by the blockading squadron; and though a Russian fleet was lying in the Tagus, Junot had occular proofs that these northern allies could not enable France to wrest from Britain the dominion of the seas. Lisbon is dependent for great part of its corn upon foreign supplies; to provide against the scarcity which was now foreseen, it was decreed that all farmers and corn dealers who were indebted to the crown, should pay half the amount in grain, which was to be delivered to the French commissariat at the current prices. As the government was now effectually converted into a military usurpation, it became easy to simplify its operations, and most of the persons formerly employed in civil departments were dismissed from office. were at once turned off, others had documents given them, entitling them to be reinstated upon vacancies; a few had some trifling pension promised them. The miseries of servitude were now fully felt in Lisbon, which but a few weeks before, had been one of the most flourishing

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