respective resolutions, and in this general one also do acknowledge and declare, that to the King our Lord, Senhor Dom Miguel, the first of that name, from the 10th day of March, 1826, the aforesaid crown of Portugal has belonged; wherefore, all that Senhor Dom Pedro, in his character of King of Portugal, which did not belong to him, has done and enacted, ought to be reputed, and declared null and void, and particularly what is called the Constitutional Charter of the Portuguese Monarchy, dated the 29th of April, in the said year, 1826. And in order that the same may appear, this present act and resolution has been drawn up and signed by all the persons assisting at the Cortes, on account of the Three Estates of the realm. "Written and done in Lisbon, this 11th day of the month of July, 1828." Protest of the Plenipotentiaries of his majesty the Emperor of Brazil, against the usurpation which has recently been made of his crown and kingdom of Portugal. When we addressed our solemn protest to the Portuguese nation on the 24th of last May, 1st. Against all violation of the hereditary rights of his imperial majesty and those of his august daughter; 2d. Against the abolition of institutions liberally granted by that monarch, and legally established in Portugal; 3d. Against the illegal and insidious convocation of the ancient states of that kingdom, which had been abolished by virtue of a long prescription, and by effect of the in. stitutions above alluded to We then flattered ourselves that the horrible attempt, of which the acts referred to were the sad prelude, would not have been carried into effect. We had indeed been led to be. lieve, that the menacing attitude assumed by the ministers of fo. reign courts accredited at Lisbon, together with the efforts made by a part of the brave Portuguese troops, would have arrested the machinations of a perjured and rebellious faction, and prevented the accomplishment of an usurpation pregnant with mischief, and sub. versive of the principle of legitima. cy, held sacred by all the powers of Europe. Every noble spirit, to which treason and perjury are obnoxious, conceived the same hopes; but neither the remonstrances of the governments most deeply interested in the prosperity of Portugal, nor the praiseworthy resistance made by the friends of legitimacy, and by all those who reverence religion and respect the sanctity of an oath, could check the fury of that faction, which had resolved, at all hazards, to seal their ini. quity by a completion of the usur. pation which they had premedi. tated. By means of popular tumult, of violent destitutions, of innumera. ble imprisonments, and of revolting proscriptions ;-by the arts of seduction and undermining ;-and, indeed, by the employment of every kind of means, however odious or reprehensible, they rendered access easy to the criminal object they had in view and their progress was so rapid, the work of usurpation was speedily effected, in despite of, and to the great injury of all the potentates of Eu. rope, who had, in a formal manner, fulminated a general anathema against it. On the 23d of June last, the assembling of the soi-disant "three estates of the kingdom" was witnessed at Lisbon; but which, in fact, was nothing more than a meeting of the accomplices of an execrable faction; and when, every thing for this scandalous proceed. ing was ready, having been for a long time previously arranged, it was opened, by the proposition of the following question, to ascertain, "If the crown of Portugal ought, on the demise of Don John VI., to have descended to the eldest son, the emperor of Brazils and prince royal of Portugal, or to the youngest son, the infante Don Miguel?" On this proposition being submitted, a miserable and insidious discourse was delivered in favour of his highness's rights to the succession, and against those of the emperor, our august sovereign, whom it was endeavoured to represent as a foreign prince, and deprived of his rights of primoge. niture from the circumstance of his having ascended the throne of Brazils in the lifetime of his father. In this tribunal of injustice and hall of usurpation, no one dared lift up his voice in favour of legitimacy, with which the cause of the emperor of Brazils and king of Portugal is identified. The honourable duty of defending those rights belonged, as a matter of course, to the attorney. general of the crown; but he was not called upon to fulfil it, which proves that he ought not be included in the number of their accomplices. Unanimity was consequently so complete amongst the conspirators, who assumed to themselves the unbecoming title of "the three estates," that they could have de. cided the question at once without any adjournment; but the better to impose on the Portuguese nation, and as well on the people of the two hemispheres, they deemed it expedient to defer it; and on the 28th of June, after a few days of mock deliberation, they presented to the head of the illegitimate government established at Lisbon, the result of their contemptible machinations, consisting of their unanimous and criminal votes in favour of that usurpation they had been called together for the purposes of sanctioning, and which was unfortunately consummated in that city on the 1st of July last, a day, the memory of which will ever be execrated in the annals of Portugal, on account of the disastrous consequences which cannot fail to flow from such a deplorable event. Disappointed in our expectations, we now find ourselves under the disagreeable, but imperious necessity, of unfolding to the eyes of the whole world, all the perfidy of the acts above mentioned, as well as the fallacies contained in the arguments brought forward against the incontestible and acknowledged rights of our august master the emperor of Brazil, and prince royal of Portugal, to the crown of that kingdom on the death of the king his father. We very well know (and all publicists confirm it,) on the direct and legitimate line of any reigning amily becoming extinct, that in case there should appear amongst the collateral branches several pretenders to the succession of the vacant throne, whose respective pretensions may be doubtful, it belongs to the superior tribunals or authorities of the state, to decide so important a national question; and the history of Portugal itself affords two examples: the one on the death of the king Don Ferdinand, and the other at the period when the Portuguese nation, on throwing off the intolerable yoke of Spain, exalted the august house of Braganza to the throne. But as that question cannot be raised where the succession to a crown is regulated by the right of primogeniture (and such is the case with respect to that of Portugal, as it regards his majesty the emperor of Brazils, the eldest son of his majesty Don John VI., who has besides been recognised, as well by his own father as by all the powers of Europe, in his quality of prince royal of Portugal, both before and since the partition which was made of the crown of Portugal, by a solemn treaty executed be. tween the two sovereigns,) the hereditary rights of our august master could not be rendered doubtful on the demise of the king, his father,nor were they. Before even this unfortunate event, which occasioned the important succession, was known at Rio de Janeiro, his imperial majesty had been proclaimed king in Portugal, and immediately recog. nised as such by all the sovereigns and governments of Europe. Such proclamation, and such recognition, as spontaneous as precise, are of themselves proof so irrefrag able and solemn of the legitimacy of the hereditary rights of his majesty the emperor of Brazils to the crown of Portugal, that we should be justified in limiting thereto our opposition to the usurping faction which has dared to impugn at the same time the unanimous opinion of all the courts of Europe, and that of the majority of the Portuguese nation itself. But we will not confine our. selves to this allegation; we will go further, and combat the arguments with which this perfidious faction have attempted to attack rights so incontestible. And 1st. That of an ancient law made by the Cortes of Lamego, of which we transcribe the precise "Sit ita in sempiterwords-viz. num, quod prima filia Regis recipiat maritum de Portugale, ut non veniat regnum ad extraneos: et si cubaverit cum principe extraneo, non sit Regina, quia nun. quam volumus nostrum Regnum ire fore Portugalibus, qui reges fecerunt sine adjutorio alieno, per suam fortitudinem.' By altering the sense of this law, (the existence of which, by the by, is very doubtful, but which we will not now dispute,) the usurping faction pretend, that by his accession to the throne of Brazils, his imperial majesty has foregone his quality of a prince of Portugal, and has become in consequence incapacitated from succeeding to the crown of his forefathers on the death of John VI. The misapplication of this law is This law prohi. very evident. bits, it is true, queens of Portugal to marry foreig ers by birth, but it does not prevent Portuguese acquiring other princes from crowns, nor from succeeding to that of Portugal, after having acquired any other sovereignty, and the Portuguese history abounds with proofs thereof. Don Alphonsus III. was a Portuguese prince, and although at the same time in possession of the county of Bologna, he succeeded his brother Sancho II., and preserved the sovereignty of Bolog. na; notwithstanding Alphonsus V. enjoyed the crown of Portugal together with that of Castile and Leon; and Don Emanuel united on his head the crowns of Portugal, of Castile, of Leon, and of Arragon. Consequently, if that law did not exclude the count of Bologna, Don Alphonsus, from the succes. sion to the throne of Portugal, it cannot now exclude his majesty the emperor of Brazils and prince royal of Portugal from the like succession. 2d. That of another law, made afterwards on the 12th of September, 1642, by king John IV., by desire of the three estates, and therefore a ratification of that of the Cortes of Lamego. It is declared by this second law, "that the successor to the crown ought to be a prince born in Portugal, and that no foreign prince by birth, however nearly related to the king, could succeed him." Now as this applies solely to princes born in a foreign country, it is clear that it cannot be made to apply to his imperial majesty Don Pedro IV., who was born in Portugal. Moreover, as neither the one nor the other of these laws have provided against the possible partition of the Portuguese crown, by a solemn agreement between the reigning prince and his immediate heir and successor, (but which has taken place, for the first time, between his majesty king John VI., and his eldest son, the prince royal, Don Pedro,) these laws, we repeat, cannot be applicable to the case now under consideration. On ratifying the treaty of the 29th August, 1825, by which the partition above alluded to was made, his majesty John VI. promulgated a law, or perpetual edict, dated the 15th of November, 1825, by which he recognises his eldest son the emperor of Brazils, in his capacity of prince royal of Portugal, and expressly revoked all the laws, customs, rules, and decrees of the Cortes, which might be contrary to the intent and meaning of such law. For a new and unforseen case, it becane necessary to enact a new law. And as the authority of his majesty John VI. was as competent and unlimited as that of his august predecessor, John IV., the law of the 15th of November, 1825, (published in consequence of a treaty, which is a sacred and inviolable compact, and a supreme law amongst all civilized nations,) is become a fundamental law of Brazils and Portugal, and is in fact the only one that ought to regulate, as it actually did, the succession to the crown of Portugal, at the moment when it became vacant. hereby protest most loudly, and be. foreall the world, against the usurpation recently made of the crown of Portugal, on behalf of his majesty the emperor of Brazils and king of that kingdom, as also on behalf of his well-beloved daughter, Donna Maria da Gloria. And we confide this our solemn protest to the almighty power of the Supreme Arbiter of empires, and to the justice of all the sovereign princes of Europe. Dated, London, this 8th of August, 1828. (Signed) Marquis de RESENDE. Viscount de ITABAYANA. Correspondence between the Earl of Aberdeen and the Marquis de Barbacena, relating to the interposition of Great Britain, on Don Miguel proclaming himself King. THE MARQUIS DE BARBACENA TO THE EARL Of Aberdeen. London, Nov. 25, 1828. The undersigned, Plenipotentiary of his Majesty the Emperor of Brazil, discharges the sacred duty imposed upon him by his august master, by addressing to his Excellency, the Earl of Aberdeen, his Britannic Majesty's principal Secretary of State for Foreign Af. fairs, the official demand of his Britannic Majesty's support in fa. vour of her Majesty the Queen of Portugal, and the claim of effectual assistance in placing her most faithful Majesty upon the throne belonging to her, as well as in securing to her the possession of her kingdom. The intelligence of the usurpation effected at Lisbon on the 1st of July of this year, having excited in the mind of his Majesty, the Emperor Don Pedro, a just indignation, and the most lively pain, it may be easily conceived that these feelings of his Imperial Majesty are heightened by the paternal uneasiness necessarily occasioned by the lot of a beloved daughter, from whom he could not separate but with regret, to comply with the repeated instances of the sovereigns, his allies; and in the full convic. tion that she would keep possession of the crown guarantied to her, no less by her legitimate rights, than by the solemn arrangements to which the courts of England and Austria were parties, and by the oaths of the prince upon whom he had conferred the regency of Portugal, and for whom he had des. tined the hand of his daughter. His imperial Majesty, though cruelly disappointed in this hope, can entertain no doubt of the same powers sharing his just indignation; and he has gratefully received the first proof which they afforded of it, by withdrawing their ministers from Lisbon. He has looked upon it as a sure pledge, that the ancient and intimate ally of Portugal would not be satisfied with testifying by that act, in common with all the other Courts of Europe, his disapprobation of the perfidious insurrection excited in Portugal, but that his powerful co-operation would be still more effectually displayed in favour of the Queen, when formally called upon for that purpose by the head of the house of Braganza; and this hope happily accords with the words spoken from the throne at the closing of the last session of the British Parliament. Determined never to come to any terms with the usurper of the Portuguese crown, and to assert the rights of her Majesty, the Queen Donna |