The situation of Lisbon, at this time, is one to which history affords no parallel: it suffered neither war, nor pestilence, nor famine, yet these visitations could scarcely have produced a greater degree of misery; and the calamity did not admit of hope, for whither at this time could Portugal look for deliverance? 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. Some were at once turned off; others had documents given them, entitling them to be reinstated upon vacancies; a few had some trifling pension promised. All who had depended for employment and subsistence upon foreign trade were now destitute. Whole families were thus suddenly reduced to poverty and actual want. Their trinkets went first; whatever was saleable followed: things offered for sale at such a time were sold at half their value, while the price of food was daily augmenting. It was a dismal thing to see the Mint beset with persons who carried thither the few articles of plate with which they had formerly set forth a comfortable board, and the ornaments which they had worn in happier days. It was a dismal thing to see men pale with anxiety pressing through crowds who were on the same miserable errand, and women weeping as they offered their little treasure to the scales. Persons who had lived in plenty and respectability were seen publicly asking alms ... for thousands were at once reduced to the alternative of begging or stealing; and women, of unblemished virtue till this fatal season, walked the streets, offering themselves to prostitution, that the mother might obtain bread for her hungry children, ... the daughter for her starving parents. Such was the state to which one of the most flourishing cities in Europe was reduced!

As the general distress increased, tyranny became more rigorous, and rapine more impatient. Many of the convents could not pay the sum at which they had been assessed, their resources having suffered in the common calamity; their rents were consequently sequestered, and the intrusive government began to take measures for selling off their lands to discharge the contribution. The rents of inhabited houses were sequestered, to answer for the assessment upon untenanted ones belonging to the same owner. At the beginning of April a prorogation of two months, for the payment of the last third of the impost, was promised to those who should have paid the first by the end of the month; ♦Observador Portuguez, p. 123.♦ on the 28th eight days grace was proclaimed for the payment of the first third; after which rigorous distress was to be levied upon the defaulters, not for the first payment alone, but for the whole contribution; ♦Ibid. p. 174.♦ and this threat was enforced. Suicide, which had scarcely ever been heard of in Portugal, became now almost a daily act. There is no inhumanity like that of avarice. The Royal Hospital at Lisbon was one of the noblest institutions in the world. Under the house of Braganza it was the admiration of all who knew how munificently it was supported, and how admirably conducted: under the usurpation of the French more than a third part of the patients who died there perished for want of food. Meantime the French government, affecting to compassionate the misery which it had created, made an ostentatious display of relieving the poor, and issued billets of two francs each, ♦Ibid. p. 200.♦ in Portugueze money 320 reis; four hundred of which were distributed weekly among forty parishes, and five more added afterwards for a parish which had been overlooked. This measure was none of that charity which vaunteth not itself. The billets were given only at one place; crowds flocked thither in expectation; and the amount of this eleemosynary expense was loudly boasted and exaggerated by the French and their partizans, ... the whole sum thus expended scarcely exceeding 40l. per week. After a few weeks the billets were not regularly paid, and at length they became worthless: and this was the extent of the liberality of this execrable government in a city where they reckoned their plunder by millions! ♦Neves, ii 157.♦ To complete the miseries of this devoted country anarchy alone was wanting; and it soon necessarily resulted from the barbarous system of the French wherever the immediate pressure of their authority was not felt. ♦Evora no seu Abatimento gloriosamente Exaltada, p. 5.♦ After the disbandment of the Portugueze army, troops of banditti were formed, who robbed in companies with perfect impunity. The edict which prohibited all persons from carrying arms left the traveller entirely at their mercy; and not content with being masters of the roads, they levied contributions upon the smaller towns and villages.

The French, in the pride of their strength, and their ignorance of the national character, despised this poor oppressed people too much to be in any fear of what despair might impel them to; and one remarkable effect of the general misery tended at once to increase their contempt and their security. There exists in Portugal a strange superstition concerning King Sebastian, whose re-appearance is as confidently expected by many of the Portugueze as the coming of the Messiah by the Jews. The rise and progress of this belief forms a curious part of their history: it began in hope, when the return of that unhappy prince was not only possible, but might have been considered likely; it was fostered by the policy of the Braganzan party after all reasonable hope had ceased; and length of time served only to ripen it into a confirmed and rooted superstition, which even the intolerance of the Inquisition spared, for the sake of the loyal and patriotic feelings in which it had its birth. The Holy Office never interfered farther with the sect than to prohibit the publication of its numerous prophecies, which were suffered to circulate in private. For many years the persons who held this strange opinion had been content to enjoy their dream in private, shrinking from observation and from ridicule; but, as the belief had begun in a time of deep calamity, so now, when a heavier evil had overwhelmed the kingdom, it spread beyond all former example. Their prophecies were triumphantly brought to light, for only in the promises which were there held out could the Portugueze find consolation; and proselytes increased so rapidly that half Lisbon became Sebastianists. The delusion was not confined to the lower orders ... it reached the educated classes; and men who had graduated in theology became professors of a faith which announced that Portugal was soon to be the head of the Fifth and Universal Monarchy. Sebastian was speedily to come from the Secret Island; the Queen would resign the sceptre into his hands; he would give Buonaparte battle near Evora on the field of Sertorius, slay the tyrant, and become monarch of the world. These events had long been predicted; and it had long since been shown that the very year in which they must occur was mystically prefigured in the arms of Portugal. Those arms had been miraculously given to the founder of the Portugueze monarchy; and the five wounds were represented in the shield by as many round marks or ciphers, two on each side, and one in the middle. Bandarra the shoemaker, who was one of the greatest of their old prophets, had taught them the mystery therein. Place two O’s one upon the other, said he, place another on the right hand, then make a second figure like the first, and you have the date22 given. The year being thus clearly designated, the time of his appearance was fixed for the holy week: on Holy Thursday they affirmed the storm would gather, and from that time till the Sunday there would be the most tremendous din of battle that had ever been heard in the world; ... for this April was the month of Lightning which Bandarra had foretold. In pledge of all this, some of the bolder believers declared that there would be a full moon on the 19th of March, ... when she was in the wane! It was a prevalent opinion that the Encoberto, or the Hidden One, as they called Sebastian, was actually on board the Russian squadron!

Those parts of the old prophecies which clearly pointed to the year 1640, when the event for which they were intended was accomplished, were omitted in the copies which were now circulated and sought with equal avidity. Other parts were easily fitted to the present circumstances. A rhyme, importing that he of Braganza would go out and he of France would come in, which was written concerning the war of the Succession, was now interpreted to point to the prince of Brazil and Buonaparte; and the imperial eagle which was preserved in the Spanish banners after Charles the Fifth, and against which so many denunciations had been poured out, was the device of this new tyrant. The Secret Island had lately been seen from the coast of Algarve, and the quay distinguished from which Sebastian was to embark, and the fleet in which he was to sail. The tongues of the dumb had been loosed, and an infant of three months had distinctly spoken in Lisbon to announce his coming. One believer read prophecies in the lines of those sea-shells upon which a resemblance to musical characters may be fancied. The effect of this infatuation was that in whatever happened the Sebastianists found something to confirm their faith, and every fresh calamity was hailed by them as a fulfilment of what had been foretold. The emigration of the Prince and the entrance of the French were both in the prophecies, and both therefore were regarded with complacency by the believers. When the French flag was hoisted they cried Bravo! these are the eagles at the sight of which Bandarra, one of the greatest prophets that ever existed, shed tears! During the tumult in Lisbon their cry was, Let them fire! let them kill! all this is in the prophecies. This folly gave occasion to many impositions, which served less to expose the credulity of individuals, than to increase the prevalent delusion. One Sebastianist found a letter from King Sebastian in the belly of a fish, appointing him to meet him at night on a certain part of the shore. A more skilful trick was practised upon another with perfect success. An egg was produced with the letters V. D. S. R. P. distinctly traced upon the shell; the owner of the hen in whose nest it was deposited fully believed that it had been laid in this state, and the letters were immediately interpreted to mean Vive Dom Sebastiam Rei de Portugal. The tidings spread over the city, and crowds flocked to the house. The egg was sent round in a silver salver to the higher order of believers. ♦Neves, ii. 142.♦ After it had been the great topic of conversation for three days, it was carried to Junot, by whom it was detained as worthy of being placed in the National Museum at Paris. These things naturally excited the contempt and ridicule of the French; nevertheless, when Junot, as if to put out of remembrance the very names of the Royal Family, ordered the ships that were called after the Prince and the Queen ♦Obs. Port. p. 275.♦ to be called the Portugueze and the City of Lisbon, he altered the name of the St. Sebastian also.

The Comte de Novion was succeeded in the police department by Lagarde, the fame of whose rapacities in Venice and other parts of Italy prepared the people to expect in him what they found. ♦April 7.♦ The first edict of this new minister commanded the Corregedores and Juizes do Crime, or Criminal Judges, to make out in the course of the ensuing fortnight a list of all the persons who had emigrated from their respective jurisdictions, specifying in every instance the place of abode both in town and country, the parish and street, the number and the floor of the house. Sequestration of the emigrant’s property was to follow as soon as possible; and any person, though father or child, or in their default the nearest heir, who should attempt to conceal or cover any part of the property, was to be treated as having criminally taken possession of that to which he had no right. If any person fled after the publication of this decree, his name, with all particulars concerning him and his disappearance, must be sent to the Corregedor, or Criminal Judge, within eight-and-forty hours, by the owner of the house which he had inhabited; or its chief tenant, if it were divided among many; or all its inhabitants, if the person dwelt in one of his own, and by those persons also to whom he should have left the keys and intrusted the care thereof. If any of these persons failed in informing in due time, they themselves would be considered as having intended to subtract property destined to sequestration. ♦April 5.♦ It had already been ordered that all flags of truce from the British squadron should be fired upon: that any person caught in attempting to reach the fleet should be punished with imprisonment for not less than six months, or with death, according to the circumstances; and that the master of the boat, and all other persons convicted of having consented to assist in the escape, should suffer capital punishment. It was now enacted, that every one having newspapers, letters, or any communication of any kind from the British ships, should instantly deposit them, or give account thereof, at the Intendant General’s office, on pain of being treated as an agent of the English; and the same penalty was decreed against every one who should spread news from the fleet, unless he specified his authority and named the person from whom his intelligence came. Notice was also given that an office was opened to receive information against those who were seeking to emigrate, against the boatmen who would facilitate the escape of such persons, and against all agents of the English; and it was added, that on proof of the accusation, Junot would determine what reward should be given to the informer. ♦Obs. Port, p. 224.♦ Lagarde had taken possession of the Inquisition; the old establishment of that devilish tribunal gave place only to one for political persecution, as if the edifice itself were polluted, and destined always to deserve the execrations of mankind.

The next edict announced the formation of a special tribunal for all criminal cases. It was to consist of a President, who must be a superior French officer; a French Capitam Relator, which may be rendered Captain-Attorney-General; four other officers, of whom three must be French, the fourth a Portugueze; one Portugueze judge versed in criminal jurisprudence; and a secretary, who might be of either nation, but must speak both languages. Death was decreed against all who should be convicted of having been engaged in insurrection and popular commotion, or present at an armed assembly, these offences holding the first place: the same punishment for murder, either accomplished or attempted, arson, and robbery accompanied with violence; death or the galleys for burglary; stripes and the galleys for disobeying the law respecting the use of knives and other deadly weapons. It is remarkable, that though the preamble spoke of the insufficiency of the penal laws, all these punishments were, in the edict, sanctioned by references to the Portugueze, as well as to the French Code. But death for the crime of espionage, or for seducing any person to pass over to the enemy, was enacted by Junot’s own authority. The sentences of the Tribunal were to be without appeal. In the body of the decree it was said, that inasmuch as robberies had infinitely multiplied both in Lisbon and the whole kingdom, this Court should take cognizance of all offences of that nature, the General in Chief having so decreed in his desire of protecting with all his power the property of the inhabitants: but the Tribunal was never embodied; when any persons were to be fusiladed, a military tribunal sufficed for the summary forms with which these murders were committed.

The new Intendant was active in issuing edicts. Lisbon was infested by dogs, who, belonging to no one, found subsistence in the filth and offal which were cast into the streets. ♦Apr. 9.♦ The police guards were ordered to kill all whom they met in their rounds; the French soldiers were invited and entreated to assist in delivering the city from this nuisance, and the rabble were tempted to exert themselves by the promise of fifty reis per head: as long as the premium was paid, these poor animals were hunted down without mercy; the French however soon became weary of the expense, and the butchery then ceased after more than 2000 had been killed. ♦Apr. 11.♦ Another edict forbade old keys to be exposed for sale at the old iron stalls, because of the obvious facility which they afforded to thieves. These measures affected to reform glaring evils, though not of importance, and against which there were already existing laws; but Lagarde’s chief attention was directed to the two objects of securing the intrusive government and enriching himself. There soon occurred a curious specimen of his administration of justice. A quarrel took place in the Mouraria between a Portugueze soldier and three Frenchmen, and the Portugueze was killed. The scene of this transaction happened to be the worst part of Lisbon, and it occasioned a great tumult among the inhabitants of the Rua Suja, or Dirty Street, and three other such sties of filth and iniquity: more French collected; the mob 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 Portugueze. Upon this an order appeared from M. Lagarde, decreeing that twelve of the inhabitants of these streets, being persons who bore the worst character there, should be apprehended and imprisoned for three months, unless they declared who were the chief instigators of the disturbance: that all the common strumpets 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 affray. The result of the order was, that every strumpet who could pay a six-and-thirty was suffered to continue in her abode as not having been concerned in the riot: that the taverners paid from one to five pieces each, according to their means; the victuallers from eight milreis to two pieces; ♦Obs. Port. p. 250, 256.♦ the twelve hostages from twelve milreis to six pieces each; and the sum total which M. Lagarde extorted from these wretches as the amends for two Frenchmen killed and three wounded, amounted, according to an exact account, to 862 milreis; more than five times the weekly sum distributed by the intrusive government among the starving population of Lisbon.

By another edict all gunpowder, artillery, fire-arms, and weapons of every kind, in the possession of merchants or other individuals, were ordered to be carried to the arsenal, and deposited there till the owner having obtained a licence for his ship to sail, should want to embark them. ♦Obs. Port. p. 249.♦ As soon as they were delivered in, the best pieces of cannon were spiked and the musquets disabled. Such precautions were now become more needful for many reasons. May is the month in which23 provisions are always dearest in Portugal; and at this time Buonaparte’s plots against Spain were drawing toward their completion, and the ferment which had arisen in that country extended to Portugal. The Spanish troops from Alemtejo were all removed to Lisbon, and so divided as to be completely within the power of the French; and to amuse the Portugueze people with hopes, reports were circulated that the contribution was remitted, and that the sequestered property would be restored. Halcyon days were now to succeed. ♦Obs. Port. p. 262.♦ There was to be nothing but prosperity for Portugal. A deputation had been sent to Bayonne to offer the homage of their countrymen to Buonaparte. The persons appointed for this were either those who were thought dangerous in their own country, or useful in France. They were the Marquises of Penalva, Marialva, Valença, and Abrantes, father and son; the Counts of Sabugal and Arganil; Viscount de Barbacena, the Inquisitor-General, the Bishop of Coimbra, the Prior of Avis, D. Nuno Caetano Alves Pereira de Mello, D. Lourenço de Lima, Joaquim Alberto George, and Antonio Thomas da Silva Leitam. On the Prince’s birth-day, when the streets were strongly patroled lest that anniversary should call forth any expression of popular feeling, a letter from ♦Letter from the Deputation.♦ this deputation was made public. It assured the Portugueze, that if any thing could equal the genius of the Emperor Napoleon, it was the elevation of his soul, and the generosity of his principles: that with a truly paternal affability he had manifested those principles in his use of the rights which circumstances gave him. His army had not entered Portugal as conquerors. He bore no enmity to their Prince, nor to the royal family; he sought only to connect them with the rest of Europe in the great continental system, of which they were to be the last and closing link, for he could not tolerate on the continent an English colony. It depended upon the Portugueze themselves to show, by their conduct in this respect, whether they were now worthy still to form a nation, or must be annexed to a neighbour, from whom so many causes tended to divide them. The Emperor knew and lamented the privations which, in common with the continent and America, Portugal endured during the temporary interruption of her commerce; but this was the consequence of a struggle, the result of which would amply compensate for them. The weight of the contributions had impressed his heart, and his goodness had dictated a promise that it should be reduced to just limits, compatible with their means. These intentions of the Emperor, the deputies said, would, they doubted not, excite in the Portugueze the greatest gratitude. They meantime would continue to fulfil near the person of the Emperor, and conformably to his orders, the duties of a mission which had no difficulties, since the goodness of Napoleon united with his wisdom to simplify their dearest interests.

Upon the publication of this letter, the heads of the first corporate bodies were made to understand, that they must wait upon Junot, whom Buonaparte had created Duke of Abrantes, and request him to transmit the expression of their gratitude to the Emperor for the gracious reception with which their deputies had been honoured. The Dean of the Patriarchal Church spoke in the name of the clergy; the Desembargador do Paço and High Chancellor for the magistracy: both these speeches were remodelled by the intrusive government, and then printed; so that men who were groaning over the miseries of their country, were made appear to that country as if they crouched to lick the feet that trampled upon her. The Conde da Ega, one of the most devoted partizans of France, spoke for the nobles. Junot in reply told them, that Portugal, under the protection of the great Napoleon, would soon be replaced in that rank to which a Vasco da Gama and a Joam de Castro had raised it by their conquests; a Luiz da Cunha and a Pombal by their policy; and he desired that a Junta of the Three Estates might be assembled forthwith, to express the wishes of all classes in a manner worthy of the nation, and worthy of the monarch to whom they addressed themselves. ♦He hopes to be made king of Portugal.♦ The intention of this meeting was, that the Portugueze should request to have Junot for their king, a business which Ega was to manage in the Junta. This intrigue was unexpectedly counteracted by another, of which Carrion de Nizas, a French officer of cavalry, M. Verdier, a French subject born and always resident in Portugal, and the Desembargador Francisco Duarte Coelho, are said to have been the prime movers. Carrion de Nizas had the reputation of being the best informed man in the French army. M. Verdier was a man of great knowledge and extraordinary talents, fond of the country in which he had passed his life, but too enlightened not to perceive and lament the abuses by which it had been debilitated and degraded. He was too far advanced in years, and too wise a man, to wish for those sudden and violent revolutions, of which the evil is great, certain, and immediate, and the good contingent and remote. Such a revolution however had occurred, and he was perforce involved in it, having been called from a numerous family at Thomar, ♦Neves, T. ii. C. 42.♦ where he had a large cotton manufactory, that Junot might avail himself of the knowledge which he was known to possess.

Whatever may have been the motives of the French officer in opposing Junot’s pretensions to the crown, those of M. Verdier, and the Portugueze who acted with him, cannot be mistaken, and ought not to be condemned. Unlikely as it appeared that the House of Braganza should recover the throne, they desired in this dissolution of government, to build up the best system which circumstances seemed to allow; and for this purpose they drew up a paper which they entrusted to the Juiz do Povo, Jose de Abreu Campos, that he might produce it at the assembly. The Junta of the Three Estates was but a mere name which might give colour to the proceedings of Junot; the Juiz do Povo was little more; but one name served well in array against another, and moreover this had a popular sound with it, favouring that order of things which these persons were properly desirous of restoring. Accordingly when the deputies of the clergy and the various bodies corporate assembled in the mock Junta, and some person, after the Conde da Ega’s speech, would have answered for the Juiz do Povo, Campos spoke boldly and honestly for himself. He declared that he did not assent to what was going on, and that he had no authority to assent, for he was not a representative of the people. What was proposed could not be their wish, as the paper with which he had been entrusted would show. He then, amid the confusion which his unlooked-for opposition occasioned, produced and read a paper to this effect: that the Portugueze, looking upon France as their mother country, inasmuch as the first conquerors of Portugal from the Moors were French, and mindful of the aid which they had received from France when they recovered their independence in 1640, acknowledged with all gratitude the protection which the greatest of monarchs at this time offered them: they desired a constitution and a constitutional king, who should be a prince of the imperial family; the constitution with which they should be content was one in all things like that which had been given to the duchy of Warsaw, with only an alteration in the mode of electing the national representatives, which should be by chambers. The better to conform with their ancient customs, they desired that the Catholic and Apostolic Roman religion might be the religion of the state, requiring the admission of all the principles established by the last Concordat with France, whereby the free and public enjoyment of all modes of worship was tolerated: that there should be a minister specifically charged with the department of public instruction: that the liberty of the press should be established as it then was in France, because ignorance and error had caused their decay: that the legislative power should be divided into two houses, and communicate with the executive: that the judges should be independent, and the Code Napoleon established: that causes should be publicly tried with justice and dispatch: that all property held in mortmain should be set free: that the public debt should be paid, for which means were not wanting: and that the number of public functionaries, who in the general change must be displaced, should all receive decent and equitable pensions, and upon every vacancy be ♦Neves, T. ii. C. 42.♦ preferred, provided they were duly qualified.

Junot and the sycophants who hoped to figure at his court were incensed at this opposition to their project. They easily overpowered the Juiz do Povo in the meeting, and the Intendant of Police was then instructed to find out the persons who had instigated him. M. Verdier in consequence was sent back to Thomar in disgrace. This was what he would most have wished, could he have returned to that tranquillity and domestic happiness which he was wont to enjoy. But the crimes of his countrymen were visited upon him. In the tumults which ensued, the people among whom he had lived so long, and by whom he had been deservedly loved and respected, imagined that as a Frenchman he must needs be a partizan of France, and he was compelled to return to Lisbon for safety. There, as long as the French continued in Portugal, he remained under the inspection of the police, a prisoner by Junot’s orders in his own house. Upon the restoration of the legitimate government, the part which he had taken was remembered as a crime, and he was ordered to leave the kingdom. The forms of justice had long been dispensed with in Portugal; and a man who had violated no allegiance, who had broken no law, who had offended in no point of honour or of duty, was marked for punishment, when those who had sinned in every point were overlooked. Junot however had little leisure to enjoy his dreams of royalty; he was roused from them by the events in Spain, to which it is now necessary to recur.