On a sudden, a decree came forth, dated the 23rd of July, the first two articles of which were as follows: :- "1. Paper money shall cease to be circulated after the 31st day of August; from that period all payments shall be made in specie current in this kingdom. 2. From the day specified in the preceding article, all bearers of paper money may present it at the treasury of the Bank of Lisbon, where they will receive its amount in specie, with a discount of twenty per cent:" and it concluded with the usual appendage to don Pedro's ordinances. "All laws contrary to these arrangements are revoked." The injustice of of compelling contracts entered into previously to be fulfilled by payments in specie, at the same time that the government refused to redeem at par its own depreciated paper, was obvious. If a merchant had bought in June 100 pipes of wine for a certain amount in currency, at a credit of three months, and accepted a bill for the amount due in September, the new law compelled him to pay the full amount in metallic coin, instead of the depreciated currency in which the contract had been made: he would be a loser of ten per cent, but for this change, the paper money, in which one-half of the sum would have been paid being worse than coin by twenty per cent. Against so unequal a measure the merchants, both of Lisbon and Oporto, petitioned the finance minister: demanding, that on all contracts made previous to the 1st of September, when the new law was to come into force, creditors should be compelled to receive payment in the old currency, or its equivalent-namely, ninety per cent in metallic cur

rency. But all their petitions and remonstrances were fruitless.

On the 14th of August, the extraordinary session of the Cortes was opened. In the speech, which Don Pedro addressed to them from the throne, he drew a flattering sketch of the series of events, which had made the cause of Donna Maria triumphant; and, after adverting to the foreign relations of the government, proceeded to direct the attention of the legislature to what had been done, and remained to be done for the prosperity of the kingdom. "After having shown you," he continued," in a short but faithful sketch, the principal events of a period, which for so many reasons will prove an era in the history of Portugal, and having shown you what has been done to restore the nation, and to raise it from the deplorable state of depression, to which it has been reduced by the errors and crimes of the usurpation, I must recommend to you, which I do with the most entire and unlimited confidence in your zeal, the two principal objects which now call for in preference the attention of the Cortes-namely, 1. Whether the regency ought, or ought not to be continued during the remainder of the queen's minority. 2. To take the proper steps that her majesty may marry some foreign prince. Your consummate wisdom and prudence will deliberate and decide upon both points with the discretion which may be expected from the union of so much knowledge, and a happy association of the most estimable virtues.

"It is also necessary to fix the amount of the force by sea and land, conformably to article 15, sec. 10, of the constitutional char

ter, having respect to the circumstances and internal state of the country, and not losing sight of the peculiar situation in which the neighbouring and allied nation may be placed, where a prince pretending to the throne is come again to revive the almost extinguished flames of civil war. "Besides these objects many others claim your attention. The Jaws regulating the liberty of the press, the responsibility of the ministers and public officers, the inviolability of the residence of the citizen, the law which is to regulate the use and the employment of the property of the citizen for the benefit of the public, and the indemnity which is previously to be given him for it, according to article 145, sec. 21, of the charter, the organization of public instruction and study in all their branches, the pious and charitable establishments,-the laws for the protection and promotion of manufactures, commerce, and arts, and of agriculture, which is the queen of them all,-the measures for improving the situation and administration of our transmarine dominions, from which so many inestimable advantages, hitherto overlooked or despised, may be derived, — everything, in short, that the charter prescribes or recommends, all that public necessity requires, and all that may contribute to the prosperity of this honourable nation, and to restore its ancient glory and greatness, must deserve the zeal and labour of the Cortes."

In the chamber of deputies the ministers of Don Pedro found a tolerably tractable majority; but in the upper house they were deficient in strength; and even on the address, an amendment moved

by count Taipa was carried against them. At the opening of the session there were only fourteen peers who attended the sitting of the upper chamber; but on the 1st of September Don Pedro added twenty-four to their number.

One of the first proceedings of the legislature was, to consider how the executive power should be exercised during the minority of the queen. The committee, appointed by the deputies to take this question into consideration, recommended unanimously that the regency should be conferred without restriction on Don Pedro. This suggestion was acceded to by the deputies, by a majority of ninety to five. In the peers two amendments were moved, proposing certain restrictions on the authority of the regent, one by the marquis of Loulé, and one by count Taipa: both were rejected, one by a majority of nine to four, and the other of ten to thirteen; and on the 28th of August, the measure was passed in the form in which it had been adopted by the deputies.

But it was not the fate of Don Pedro to exercise long the powers of royalty thus conferred upon him. Before the meeting of the Cortes, he had been ailing ; towards the end of August his health seemed to improve; but the improvement was only apparent and of short duration; and apprehensions for the result of his illness began to be entertained. On the 18th of September, he sent to the chambers a message in which he informed them that, having on the preceding day complied with the holy rites which the church provides for the consolation of her dying sons, he could no longer attend to public

one

affairs, and recommended them to adopt such measures as the occasion might require. This message gave rise to a difference of opinion. According to the old laws of Portugal the minority of the sovereigus ceased with their entrance into the fourteenth year of their age; but the charter had fixed eighteen as the period of their minority; and as Donna Maria had not yet attained that age, she could not, according to the letter of the constitution, be admitted to the exercise of the royal prerogative. The ministers were afraid of permitting power to devolve into any other hands than those of Donna Maria; they argued that the clause in the charter was which the Cortes might dispense with; that the queen, by the developement of her mind and her body, was perfectly qualified for the discharge of the duties of government; and they, therefore, proposed that she should be declared of age, and should immediately enter upon the exercise of the powers which the constitution intrusted to the crown. Others, among whom were the marquis of Loulé and counts Villa Real and Taipa, resisted the proposition, and contended, that until the queen attained her eighteenth year, the regency should devolve according to the charter, on the Infanta Donna Isabel Maria. The former prevailed; the decree of the Cortes, framed according to their views, was communicated to Donna Maria; and on the 20th of September she attended in the hall of the Cortes, and took the oath which the constitution presc ibed.

On the 22nd, Don Pedro expired; having, during the latter years of his life, acted a part which the earlier

stages of his career gave the world little reason to expect. Deprived of the advantages of regular moral and intellectual discipline in his youth; removed in a great measure, from the restraints of old established European forms of society, and installed in the possession of arbitrary power, before experience or reason had imposed any check on his passions, he merits less to be censured for the extravagancies, vices, and follies, of which he was guilty in Brazil, than to be respected for the energy, perseverance, and disregard of danger, suffering, and toil, which he manifested from the moment of his landing on the shores of Portugal, on the 8th of July, 1832.

The first care of the queen was the formation of a ministry. Carvalho and most of the former ministers were retained; reinforced, however, by some of the more moderate constitutionalists, among whom were the duke of Palmella and count Villa Real. Palmella had no particular department of the government, but was placed at its head with the title of president of the council.

This coalition excited, as is usual with such events, great clamour amongst those who were not included in the official arrangements. The standing committee of infractions of the charter took upon themselves spontaneously to report to the chamber of deputies, that the appointment of the duke of Palmella to the presidency of the council of ministers, when he had no particular department intrusted to his charge, was contrary to the spirit of the constitution, and would, in fact, confer on him a character of inviolability which belonged to none but the sovereign. The friends of the

ministry objected to take this report into consideration; because the committee had taken upon themselves to report on a matter which had not been referred to them; and, after a stormy discussion, it was held by a majority of five that the report should not be received. But the question of the legality of placing at the head of the ministry an individual, who had not the specific charge of any particular department of the administration, was formally brought before the deputies on 31st of October; and after a debate of two days, was decided in favour of Palmella, by a majority of fifty-three to forty-two.

An affair still more important to the young queen than the appointment of a ministry, was the selection of a husband. On the 1st of September, a resolution was moved in the chamber of deputies, that Don Pedro should have power to arrange a marriage between his daughter and some foreign prince, subject, however, to this limitation -that the marriage should not be carried into effect without the approbation of the Cortes. The resolution was carried in the deputies by sixty-seven to twentyseven; and in the peers, by twentythree to six. The duke of Leuchtenberg, the son of Eugene Beauharnois, and the brother of Don Pedro's wife, was the selected husband. The sudden death of Don Pedro occasioned some delay in the completion of the arrangement; but on the 1st of December the marriage of the queen to this prince was celebrated at Lisbon by proxy; and the solemnity was accompanied by great rejoicings.

In the meantime a bill to exclude Don Miguel and his descend

ants from the throne of Portugal had been passed by the deputies without one dissentient voice, and had received the sanction of the peers. The following were the principal enactments:-The exinfante, Don Miguel, and his descendants were for ever excluded from the succession to the Portuguese crown: he and they were for ever banished the Portuguese dominions, deprived of all political or civil rights, and precluded from possessing or acquiring any property in Portugal: should he or they venture to enter the Portuguese territories, they, and all who accompanied them, were to be considered guilty of high treason; they were to be tried by a council of war, composed of a president and four other members; the whole process was to be verbal, and was not to last more than twenty-four hours; and when convicted, he and they were to be shot immediately. Such individuals, as joined them after their arrival within the kingdom were to suffer death. Any inhabitant, who met the ex-infante within the Portuguese territory, might kill him, and was to receive a reward of ten contos, equivalent to about 2,500l. sterling, for the delivery of his body. The like reward was to be given to any one who handed him over alive to the authorities; and any public functionary, who neglected to apprehend the usurper, was to be punished with death.

Another measure, adopted with a view to give permanence to the new order of things by increasing the number of persons whose interests were bound up in it, was the sale of the national domains, including that part of the property of the Church which had been

confiscated. By the law, which was passed on this subject, landed estates were directed to be divided into as many lots as possible, in order that the facility of purchas ing might be increased; and the purchaser had the option of a variety of modes of payment. The government securities were to be received in payment at par, whatever their value in the market might be; the same privilege was extended to a great variety of titles, giving the holders pecuniary claims against the government; and that the poor might be enabled to buy as well as the rich, it was sufficient if twenty per cent. on the purchase money were paid in cash, and the remaining fourfifths in the course of the next sixteen years, by annual instalments of five per cent, with interest at two per cent per annum.

The measure for the substitution of a metallic currency for the paper currency, which don Pedro

Casa Real (Royal-house)
Legislative Chambers
Ministry of the Interior

had announced by his decree, was brought forward in the shape of a law. It received various modifications, the most material of which was, that prior contracts should be liquidated according to the terms on which they were contracted; and it finally received the sanction of the legislature with very little opposition.

On the 4th of November, M. Silva Carvalho presented the financial budget of the year, from the 1st of July, 1834, to the 30th of June, 1835. It showed a deficit of 5,333 contos of reis (about 1,280,000l. sterling); but it was expected that a sum would very shortly be received in part payment of the debt due by the Brazils, which would reduce the deficit to 2,971 contos of reis, or about 720,000l. sterling. The budget amounted to 12,549,270,912 milrees, equal to about 3,100,000l. sterling, and consisted of the fol lowing items:

...

405,000,000 67,000,000 1,115,342,499

...

...

1,207,601,354