in which they had embarked; this, however, was only done to extort farther bribes, and when nothing more could be squeezed out of them, they were permitted to sail. Several vessels cleared out under Kniphausen colours, and with passports for the north of Europe. They were in reality bound for Brazil, and paid each from 5,000 cruzados upwards, to have the deception winked at. Many persons got on board beyond the bar, others were secreted in the hold, and others dispersed themselves as sailors, daubing their hands with pitch, lest it should be discovered that they had not been accustomed to manual labour. Many escaped to the English squadron. Heavier punishments were enacted against those who attempted thus to escape, and every person assisting was sentenced to death. Higher rewards were offered to informers; and all persons inhabiting the house from which any one had escaped, were ordered to give information of his flight within eight and forty hours. One act of oppression more was to be exercised upon a nation already so cruelly oppressed; her troops were to be marched off to join Buonaparte's armies, a first sacrifice of blood to that insatiable tyrant, and soon to be followed by his accursed conscription. Many soldiers deserted. In consequence of this, the French code of martial law was declared to be applicable to the Portuguese army, and death became thereby the punishment of desertion. The office of intendant of police, vacated by the absence of the traitor Novion, who marched to France with his regiment, was conferred on Lagarde, a Frenchman, and one of the most rapacious of the race. He took up his abode at the inquisition, and converted it into a receiving house for suspected persons. A curious specimen soon occurred of this man's administration. A quarrel took place in the Moura ria between a Portuguese soldier and three Frenchmen, and the Portuguese was killed. The scene of this transaction happened to be the St. Giles's of Lisbon, and it occasioned a great tumult among the inhabitants of the Rua cuja, or Dirty street, and three other such sties of vice and beggary; more French collected; the mob, however, had the advantage, and the riot was not appeased till a French serjeant of grenadiers was killed, a soldier mortally wounded, and three others severely cut by the knives of the Portuguese. Upon this, an order ap peared from M. Lagarde, decreeing that twelve of the inhabitants of these streets who bore the worst character, should be apprehended and imprisoned for three months, unless they declared who were the chief instigators of the riot; that all the common prostitutes who lodged in these four streets, should quit them within four days, on pain of having their heads shaved, and being banished from Lisbon; and that all eating and drinking houses in the said streets should be shut up for six months, unless the owners would give information against some person concerned in the disturbance. The result of this order was, that every strumpet who could pay a six and thirty was suffered to continue in her abode, as not being concerned in the tumult; that the taverners paid from one to five pieces each, as they were able; the eating houses from eight milreis to two pieces; and the twelve hostages from twelve milreis to six pieces each; and the sum total which M. Lagarde ex. torted from these wretches, as the price of two Frenchmen killed and three wounded, according to an exact account, amounted to 862 mil. reis. Junot had now been created duke of Abrantes, and a deputation of fidalgos was sent to Bayonne, there to receive from the Corsican a constitution for Portugal. Every new measure which might serve to rivet the chains of that unhappy country, was regarded with delight by the party of traitors who had sold themselves to France. Hitherto no fears had clouded their triumph; but the face of things was now about to be changed. The villanous designs of Buonaparte upon Spain were known to Junot; and that general perceiving how deep an interest was felt in the transactions of Aranjuez, not only by the Spanish soldiers, but by the people of Lisbon also, lost no time in taking precautions against the effects of their agitation. The merchants were ordered to send all the muskets, guns, and other arms used on board their ships, to the arsenal, there to be held in deposit till they obtained a license for their ships to sail; and all persons dealing in arms of any kind were in like manner to deliver them up. They had no sooner been collected then the guns were spiked, and the stocks of the muskets broken. The first measure taken against the Spanish troops was to confine them to their quarters in the evening, a spirit of animosity against the French having shown itself, as soon as they knew that Ferdinand was gone to Bayonne. Junot then divided them, sending some to Mafra, and distributing others among the fortresses, so that only one regiment remained in the city. He spread a report that Portugal was to be united to Spain, and that the French were about to retire. This was designed to conciliate the Spaniards, and to exasperate the Portuguese against them; and at the same time, to soothe the latter, it was asserted that the contribution would be excused, and all confiscated property restored. Official notice was handed round that the deputies had been received with the utmost benignity at Bayonne, and that the emperour Napoleon had given them unequivocal proofs of his compassionate disposition; in fine, every kind of happiness was now to be showered down upon Portugal. While this was the language of the French, the real feelings which prompted it, were sufficiently manifested by all the measures of the military usurpation. The streets were filled with patrols on the prince regent's birth-day; and that his name, if possible, might be put out of remembrance, a ship which was called after him was ordered to be renamed the Portugueze. In like manner the Maria I. was to be called the City of Lisbon; and even the name of the St. Sebastian was changed; for as superstition is never so contagious as in a time of distress, Junot feared lest the strange faith of the Sebastianists should spread, and produce some desperate effort. That faith had been probably invented, certainly encouraged, during a former usurpation of Portugal by a patriotick party, whose object was to effect the emancipation of their country, and who, for more than half a century, never lost sight of that object till they had accomplished it. The superstition still existed; and Junot had still some reason to think that politick heads were at work once more to inflame it, now when it might again be useful. About the middle of March, an egg was produced with the letters V. D. S. R. P. distinctly traced in the shell, and apparently formed with it. It was said to have been laid in this state by a hen belonging to one José Caetano da Costa, and the Sebastianists immediately interpreted the letters to signify, Vive Dom Sebastiam, Rei de Portugal. The trick had been well executed.* * It is curious that a similar trick, though far less skilfully contrived, was practised about the same time by Mary Bateman, the Yorkshire witch. This woman, with her characteristick cruelty, forced into the ovary of one of her hens three eggs, at different times, with the words Crist is coming scratched upon them. They were dropt in the nest, and she carried on a gainful trade by showing them for a penny to credulous multitudes. Many experiments were made to ascertain how the letters had been formed, but all failed; other eggs were inscribed, but no person could succeed in giving the same varnish to the inscription as on the rest of the shell. Crowds assembled round the house where this prodigy had been produced, and the egg was sent round in a silver salver to those who had sufficient interest or authority to be intrusted with such a treasure, till after it had been three days the topick of conversation in Lisbon, it was carried to Junot. The fact of his altering the name of the St. Sebastian shows what importance he attached to the circumstance, and to a superstition once so prevalent, never obsolete, and so easy to be revived. The command of Alem-Tejo was given at this time to Kellerman, who has since rendered himself so infamous by his edict in Spain for hamstringing and blinding all the cattle left for the purposes of agriculture within the district under his authority. He bore in Portugal a less odious character than most of the other generals. His rapacity, however, was equal to the cruelty which he has since manifested. As soon as he entered upon his new government, he imposed an additional contribution upon the province, requiring 10,000 cruzados novos from Evora, 8,000 from Elvas, eight from Portalegre, six from Villa Viçosa, and rating the other places in like proportion to their population. Kellerman was, in this instance, the dupe of his own greediness: thinking to secure the whole plunder for himself, he ventured to exact it by his own will and pleasure, without any order from Junot, or M. Herman the French minister of the interiour. Complaint was made to them, and the general was ordered to refund the whole which had been paid. This was regarded as the most extraordinary circumstance during the whole usurpation; but the fact was, that what Junot resented was the slight shown to his own authority, not the injury done to the Portuguese. Alein-Tejo had little leisure to rejoice in this act of grace: the patriotick war in Spain was known in that province as soon as it broke out; and about six hundred Spaniards who were in garrison at Cezimbra, and other places dependent upon the government at Setubal, collected and began their march with flying colours towards their own country. A French detachment of nearly the same force was sent from Lisbon to pursue them. They came up with the Spaniards at Pegoens. In affairs of small parties, tacticks are of little avail; success depends upon individual courage, and then it is that the strength of a good cause is made apparent. The French were defeated: they brought back their wounded to Lisbon; for to have left them out of the immediate protection of an army would have been leaving them to certain death. They were landed at night, that the loss might be as little publick as possible; it was, however, soon known that there were above 180 wounded. This was the first act of open war which took place in Portugal. Tidings soon arrived that the Spaniards, at Porto, had seized the French general in that city, and marched to join the patriots. Junot now for the first time perceived that his situation was become dangerous as well as difficult, and the next day he disarmed and confined the 5,000 Spaniards who still remained in Lisbon and the adjoining country. Tidings were now arriving of insurrections in every quarter, and Junot began to prepare for defending himself in Lisbon:-he set men to work in fortifying the castle, employed the watermen in filling the cisterns, laid in stores and fodder, and removed thither all the arms from the foundery. The festival of St. John the Baptist was near at hand; the vespers of this and of a few other festivals occurring about the same time, are celebrated with bonfires in Portugal, as they formerly were in England. The ceremony is as old as the worship of the Kelts, even, perhaps, before their entrance into Europe; and it is one of the many pagan customs which catholicism made its own. Junot now forbade all rejoicings upon these occasions. Any person letting off fireworks, as usual, making any use of gunpowder, or kindling a bonfire, was to be imprisoned eight days, and fined in proportion to his means; parents were to be answerable for their children, schoolmasters for their boys, masters for their servants, tradesmen for the people in their employ; the publick walk was not to be open in the evening, and all concourse in the streets was prohibited. Individuals were ordered to deliver up all the weapons in their possession, because of the danger which would result to the well-disposed inhabitants of Lisbon, if their tranquillity should be disturbed by designing men. One detachment was sent to quell the patriots in the north of Portugal, another upon the same service to the south; the men marched out of the city with provisions and kettles upon their backs, and every one had a loaf fixed upon his bayonet. Preparations were made for an encampment upon the Campo d'Ourique, from whence, and from the castle, the French might command the city. At the same time it was ordered that no person should quit it, with out a special license from the intendant general; and all who had retired into the country, within the last fortnight, were ordered to return on pain of imprisonment. This was designed as a new means of extorting money; for all persons who had any place to retire to, had already left Lisbon, expecting that some tumult would give the French an opportunity of sacking the town, and they were now obliged to pur chase permission to remain where they were. Junot's famous proclamation had already been issued: "Portuguese,” it said, "what delirium is this! into what an abyss of evils are you about to plunge! After seven months of the most perfect tranquillity and harmony, what reason can you have for taking arms? And against whom? against an army which is to secure your independence, which is to maintain the integrity of your country; a numerous, brave, and veteran army, before which you would be scattered like the sands of the desert, before the impetuous breath of the winds of the south!" In the same strain of bombast and impudent falsehood, the French general proceeded to threaten and flatter, bidding them beware of the English hereticks, who sought equally to debase their country, and destroy their religion; telling them that the emperour Napoleon, at his intercession, had graciously remitted half the contribution, and that he was on the point of accomplishing all their wishes; that this was the moment in which they were about to reap the fruit of their good fortune, the moment in which Portugal was to be made happy. This, too, was the only moment they had to implore the clemency of the emperour; his armies were already upon their frontiers; every individual taken in arms should be instantly shot; and every town or city which should rise against the French, should be delivered up to pillage, totally destroyed, and all its inhabitants put to the sword. Notwithstanding this boastful language, Junot was well aware that the storm was gathering round him. The French squadron at Cadiz had been captured; Spain was in arms; the English general at Gibraltar, and the English admiral, without waiting for instructions from home, were co-operating with a people, whose generosity the English had always acknowledged, whom it was painful to think of as enemies, and whom, the instant they rose against the oppressor, we regarded as friends and brethren. The Portuguese were in insurrection; England was mistress of the seas; her flag was always in sight from Lisbon; and it was not to be doubted, but that on the first favourable moment, she would send an army to the assistance of her oldest and most faithful ally. However the usurping duke of Abrantes might vaunt, he felt that his dukedom was held by an insecure tenure, and, looking forward to a retreat, gave orders that the church plate should, with all speed, be melted down into bars, for more convenient removal, that he might not leave the country without his booty. We have two lessons to learn from the French: the art of provisioning an army, and that constant activity which never suffers it to remain unemployed, but attacks the enemy whenever and wherever they are weakest. In these points, and in these only, they are our su periours; in the field, we have never failed to show them, that, in the words of the celebrated war song, We are the sons of the men Junot's measures were taken with a promptness equal to the occasion. He hoped to crush the insurgents, before any English could arrive to their assistance; and wherever they ventured to oppose a regular body of French troops, the event was what he had expected and foreseen. Two hundred patriots were killed in the streets of Villa Viçosa, and twelve who were taken prisoners, shot as rebels, by orders of general Avril. Twelve hundred, according to the French account, fell before Beja; every man taken in arms was put to death, and every house, from which the enemy had been fired upon, was burnt. "Beja has revolted," said Kellerman, in a proclamation to the people of Alem-Tejo, "Beja no longer exists; its guilty inhabitants have been cut off with the edge of the sword, and its houses delivered up to pillage and to the flames. Take ye all warning by this terrible example, and learn from it, that it was not in vain the commander in chief told ye the clouds of the rebels would be scattered before us like the sands of the desert, before the impetuous breath of the winds of the south." Junot called other means to his assistance. Three infamous dignitaries of the patriarchal church issued a pastoral letter, under his orders, denouncing excommunication against all persons who directly, or indirectly, assisted the patriots. This was dispersed over the provinces, accompanied by a letter from the French intendant general, in which he asked the Portuguese why they subjected themselves to the weight of the French power, at a moment when the Almighty Authority* thought only of laying aside the rights of conquest, and of governing with mildness. "Is it," said he, "before a few handfuls of Portuguese that the star of the great Napoleon is to be darkened, or the arm deadened, of one of the most valliant and skilful captains?" It is but too well known, how deeply the baneful superstition of the Romish church has rooted itself in Portugal; but in this instance, the threat of excommunication was regarded with contempt; the people knew that their most sacred duty was to deliver their country, that no devotion could be so holy, as the sacrifice of their own lives, in such a cause; no offering so righteous, as the blood of an invader. Basely as the Spaniards have been *This phrase is literally translated from the original blasphemy of the proclamation. |