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which it seemed to offer to the king's authority, tended, no doubt, in some measure to overawe the discontented of both parties, whose numbers were rapidly increasing throughout the kingdom.

The extreme harshness maintained towards the queen, and the unmeasured severity of her treatment, excited the compassion of many, and daily augmented the number of her friends; until the whole of the party which had been originally the king's, espoused her cause, while the constitutionalists had disappeared; and the king, with the exception of the faction immediately about him, was without political supporters. Yet, among the lower orders, he was beloved with an enthusiasm that, all circumstances considered, almost deserves. the name of infatuation; and to the prevalence of such a feeling I can bear personal testimony, having witnessed at this time one of the most striking ebullitions of native loyalty that ever I saw displayed.

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The king had ordered a wolf-hunt to take place, near Santarem; and for that purpose, the peasantry of the surrounding country were commanded to assemble in different directions, all moving upon a point where the royal shooting-party were to await the approach of their prey, to be thus driven towards them in a manner similar to that in which the tinchel of the Highland hunters collects the deer. A circle of several leagues was formed, which narrowed as the individuals comprising it approached the central station. When this duty was performed, such a scene ensued as baffles description. The joy of the rustics was of an almost frantic character, when, to the number of about three thousand, they caught a glimpse of the royal carriages, upon which they pressed as though resolved to demolish them. While some shouted their strenuous vivas in the most joyous tone, others were bathed in tears of silent delight; and many were thrown to the earth in their attempts to kneel, as the carriages moved off. My astonishment was really great; for I well knew that, in addition to the long-protracted miseries to which these poor creatures had been subjected, through the contentions of their rulers, many of them were, at this moment, in a starving condition; for no allowance was made for their support during their attendance, some for three days, others for less, to promote the royal pastime, at a considerable distance from their homes. Nor could they bear away provision for that period, without leaving their helpless families destitute. Half an hour previous to this enthusiastic display, I had seen the cavalry, who were employed to keep the cordon entire, roughly striking some of them with the flat of their sabres, because they did not move exactly in their assigned places; yet all was insufficient to abate the force of their loyal devotion. I was riding near the king's carriage, when a poor woman, with an infant in her arms, ran out from a cottage, and throwing herself on her knees, with so little regard to her personal safety that she was in great danger of being rode over, sobbed out, "Let me see my king! Look, my child, at our beloved father:now I can die contented."

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In all this there was no artifice, no attempt to produce stage effect,

effect, nor any expectation of personal advantage. All was evidently from the heart; and no one could witness, with indifference, such an affecting burst of simple love from an almost perishing people to a monarch, who, whatever he might possess of the will, had not enjoyed the power of conferring one national benefit upon them. It was impossible to view the miserable condition and the artless good feeling of these poor creatures, without a sentiment of deep commiseration, and an ardent desire that they might be brought to participate in the blessings which civil and religious liberty never fail to produce.'p. 115-121.

The favourite, who had now been created Count of Subserra, persuaded the unhappy king that Don Miguel's intention was to depose him, and place his mother at the head of affairs. The king had but too much reason to know that any thing might be believed of his consort; and he must have had cause also to distrust the disposition of this, her second son; but that son had hitherto kept the straight and honourable line of duty, and he had rendered the most essential service to him. Happy would it have been for all parties if he had then been treated with the confidence which at that time he deserved, a constitutional government established, and the succession secured to him, as it ought to have been;-happy would this have been for all parties, and most of all for Don Miguel himself. Sinister influence prevented this; and the subsequent transactions might seem rather to have occurred in barbarous ages, or in Moorish countries, than in a Christian and European kingdom in our own days. The murder of the Marquis of Loulé in the palace, while the royal family was there, in revenge for his friend Subserra's conduct, the assumption of power by Don Miguel, and the arrests which he ordered upon the scale of a Roman proscription, roused the king, both by a sense of personal and immediate danger, to the only act of vigour that he ever exerted; and Miguel was secured on board an English man-of-war, and sent out of the country. These events are put in the clearest light, and related in the most temperate and candid spirit, by Captain Browne, than whom no person had better opportunities of knowing the whole truth. The death of the king was for himself a deliverance devoutly to have been wished, but a great misfortune to the country: irresolute to the last, he left the succession unsettled. His will, however, inclining, as beyond a doubt he did, to Don Pedro's claim, could not have decided it. On either side a strong case might be made out; but when a question is ultimately to be resolved by might, the legal and rightful claim, though it were clear as day, is worth no more than Magna Charta was in Oliver Cromwell's estimation. In this case, the ablest jurists might doubt to whom the succession

had

had devolved, and have interminably disputed upon it. Equity would have adjudged it to Don Miguel, had there been no forfeiture on his part; but he waived all other claims by acceding to the arrangement for intermarrying with his niece, (a customary connection in that family!) and accepting the throne in her right; and he swore to maintain the constitutional charter, which, at the time of that arrangement, Pedro, exerting an extraordinary power on an extraordinary occasion, sent over from Brazil; and which, with all possible solemnity and legal form, was accepted in Portugal. That oath he has violated, and is now reigning as absolute king. Undoubtedly the inclination. of the people is for an absolute monarchy, because they lived peaceably and contentedly before they heard of revolutions and constitutions; and, in their ignorance, they suppose that, under an absolute monarchy, things, as far as they are concerned, would revert to their former state. The best-administered government could not realise that expectation: it remains to be seen what course their disappointment will take under the worst.

Any government in Portugal would at this time find its revenues insufficient to support even the necessary civil and ordinary military establishments; and yet an extraordinary armed force is and must be needful while any revolutionary designs are to be apprehended, and till habits of peaceful order can be restored, among a people whom distress has rendered predatory. From the time of the removal to Brazil there has been a drain of the gold currency; and that beautiful coinage, formerly the best in Europe, and which was once as current in Great Britain as the money of our own sovereign, is now as rarely to be seen in Portugal as guineas were here in the days of the Bullion question. It has continually been flowing out of the country, and nothing has flowed in to replace it. Here are difficulties which might almost weigh down the spirit and break the heart of a good king, even though he could count upon the sympathy and friendship of other powers, and hope for their assistance. But the present ruler has broken his faith; he has stained his hands in blood, and shown himself capable, as far as the will and the heart go, of treading in the steps of those monarchs, to whose names the epithet of the cruel' is annexed in history. The steps of a Portugueze king, who, in some parts of his character, sufficiently resembled Don Miguel, though he had fewer crimes to answer for, may be seen at this day in the palace at Cintra, deeply worn in the tiled pavement of the room which served him for his prison. A faithful counsellor, or a faithful confessor, (who might, perhaps, more easily be found, and less unwillingly heard,) should advise Miguel to pace that foot-worn floor, in his own palace, to and fro, and consider upon that spot by what

VOL. XLI. NO. LXXXI.

means

means a second Catastrophe de Portugal may be averted, which if it overtake him, is likely to be more tragic than that which befel the last Affonso. It is not by violence and tyranny that it can be averted, but by retracing some of his own steps, and doing that which is lawful and right.

ART. VIII-A Dissertation on the Course and probable Termination of the Niger. By Lieut.-Gen. Sir Rufane Donkin, G.C.H., K.C.B., and F.R.S. London. 1829.

WE certainly thought there had been an end to all further spe

culation concerning this endless river; but it seems we were mistaken. A new candidate for fame has started a fresh hare, and run her down in grand style over ground never coursed before scarcely a single point of the compass had escaped from having the honour of directing this mysterious stream to its termination, with the exception of one-and upon that one Sir Rufane Donkin has pounced, and thus completed the circle. This work, then, has novelty on its side, which always goes a great way; being an article of high request in the literary workshop. The intellectual as well as the corporeal part of man seems to require that the appetite for change should be gratified by variety and novelty; and Sir Rufane has given us both.. His little volume is not limited to A Dissertation on the Course and probable Termination of the Niger,' but comprises also many other learned disquisitions, from the Greek definite article to the Greek digamma. But we shall strictly confine ourselves to the main subject-on which, indeed, we feel ourselves particularly called upon to make a few brief observations; because, firstly, the conclusions arrived at are contrary to known facts-because, secondly, we feel that the author is deceiving himself in supposing that, by applying the words Neel or Naxos to all great rivers, 'we shall find our geographical difficulties dispersing, one after the other, like mists before the sun;' (p. 19);-and because, thirdly, we know Sir Rufane to be an excellent scholar, of a clear, intelligent, logical, and comprehensive mind, ingenious in argument, and forcible in language; and, consequently, whatever proceeds from his pen, will always be entitled to respect, and must command attention. Having said thus much, which we do from an honest conviction of its truth, we feel some little diffidence in venturing to point out, and endeavouring to rectify, what we conceive to be mistaken notions, hastily taken up and adopted, without due consideration of the present state of our knowledge of Africa; having no basis to rest upon, but the fanciful and erroneous statements of the Greeks, Romans, and Arabs, all of whom,

having no personal knowledge of their subject, ran riot in speculative geography, and, for want of facts, indulged in the wildest fancies.

In our criticism of Sir Rufane Donkin's book, we shall confine ourselves to the three principal points of his argument. 1. That geographers and travellers have been all wrong in searching for THE Niger, or THE Nile, instead of A Niger or A Nile. 2. That the first meridian of Ptolemy was not in the Canary or 'Fortunate' Islands; but on the Cape de Verde Islands; an error made either by himself, or his commentators and map-makers, by which he has been robbed of 7° of longitude. 3. That the termination of the Niger is to be found in the gulf of Sydra or Syrtis.

1. The object which the General seems to have in view, in setting the two articles by the ears, is that of securing to himself a disposable Nile or Niger, to pave the way for his new and ingenious speculation. For this purpose, he commences his plan of operations with a long discussion on the word Nile or Neel, which, he tells us, signifies indigo, or blue; and is applied in the East to designate any great or blue river, as instanced in the Sinde or Indus, which is sometimes called the Neel by the natives. Major Rennell had long ago made the same observations; and we believe that not only the Hindoos, but the Persians and Arabians have a word of the same sound and import, which they also sometimes apply, not, however, to any river, but, xar' εoxv, to some particular, great river: thus the Arabs call the great river of Soudan, the Neel el Abeed, the great river of slaves.' But the question on which we are at issue with our author is, whether the Greeks ever employed the word Neλos in this sense? Let us hear what the General says in the affirmative :- Herodotus tells us that there was "a Nile," or, at least, a black or deep river in Thessaly. His words are, in speaking of this river, os καλλεται Μελας ; for Μελας is the translation into Greek of the oriental word Kala, and, with some modification, of Neil or Neel; and it was only by long use that Naxos became a legitimate Greek word.' (p. 17.)

Sir Rufane, we suspect, in writing this curious paragraph, had some design to turn the flank of his readers. The spurious progeny of a blue begotten by a black, we can well suppose, would require long use' to establish its claim to legitimacy. The association of the two colours is not very common, except about the eyes of one of the fancy after a set-to. The conclusion of the paragraph is rather a whimsical non sequitur:-'Indeed,' says our author, the Greek and Latin historians mention seven or eight rivers by the name of "Melas," -and what are we to understand by this except that the Greek and Latin historians called

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