Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

extend beyond these two objects would appear to me an infraction upon the individual liberty of foreigners, which but ill accords with the impartial attitude of a neutral government.

Applying these reflections to the present case, I have the honour to assure your excellency, that the Portuguese refugees leave this country as they arrived in it, that is, without arms, as may be satisfactorily proved at Plymouth, and that they will leave it, not altogether, but at successive intervals, and according as the transports which are to carry them shall be ready, and with the intention of going to the island of Terceira, where they have the assurance of being received by the authorities which are faithful to her majesty Donna Maria 2nd, as fellow countrymen, and as friends.

I venture to hope that, according to the very terms of your excellency's letter, the measures taken to prevent the landing, on any part of the Portuguese territory, of an expedition bearing an hostile character, cannot be applied in the present case. I cannot, M. le Duc, after having shown you the principal considerations which have offered themselves to my mind, on the resolution which your excellency communicated to me in your last letter, resist saying a few words on the principal allegations contained in that letter, at the risk of repeating, to a certain degree, the opinions which I have already expressed.

Your excellency observes, 1stthat the troops which are now about to leave Plymouth are the very troops for which the marquis of Barbacena solicited, some months ago, a convoy of the Bri

tish navy. 2ndly, that they are the same troops, on the subject of whose departure I expressed so much regret in my letter of the 3rd instant. 3rdly, that they are the troops of whom general Stubbs took the command, and to whom he addressed an order, which has been published in the newspapers. 4thly, that arms and munitions having been landed by the Brazilian frigate at the island of Terceira, these troops will have the means of arming themselves on their arrival. 5thly, your excellency repeats several times, and in different ways, that the continuance of these troops at Plymouth is an act of disobedience to the orders of his Britannic majesty, and your excellency adds, that in your opinion, an abuse of the hospitality which was granted to them in this country has been committed. 6thly and lastly, your excellency, in conclusion, thinks proper to remind me that more than a month has passed since his majesty's order was signified for the departure of the Portuguese officers and soldiers from Plymouth. With regard to the first point, the application addressed to your excellency by the marquis de Barbacena had for its object the guarantee of the Portuguese re fugees from the danger they might incur in meeting with Portuguese ships of war, during their passage by sea, from England to the Azores. This request was refused, as it was undoubtedly the right of the British government to do, but the request which I address to your excellency this day is of a totally different nature; it is no longer a convoy, in order to escape the danger to which they voluntarily expose themselves, which is solicited, but merely an assurance, not that they may be protected, but that they may not be detained by the ships of war of his Britannic majesty in their passage from England to the island of Terceira. With respect to the 2nd-in explaining to your excellency, in my letter of the 8th instant, the sad consequences which might result from the departure of the Portuguese emigrants, I spoke a truth, which appears to me evident, and which the partizans of the actual de facto government of Portugal repeat with triumph, since the knowledge of it has become public. Your excellency, in your letter of the 8th instant, mentions, that the resolution taken by the Portuguese to leave England, is a voluntary act on their part; but I will take the liberty to remind your excellency, that there remained for them only the choice between this determination, or that of submitting to reside in stated numbers, at places selected for that purpose, the officers separated from the soldiers; and this treatment, which is generally reserved for prisoners of war, would have produced as bad an effect as their departure, by tending to attach credit to the erroneous opinion, on the subject of the disposition of the British cabinet with regard to the affairs of Portugal.

I might, therefore, I think, with reason, express regret at the motive which occasioned the departure of the Portuguese refugees, and I have never taken the liberty, in addressing your excellency, to find fault, of which your excellency unjustly accuses me in one of your letters, with the determinations of your government.

3rdly. I know not what importance your excellency attaches to the circumstance repeated in your two last letters, of general Stubbs having taken the command of the Portuguese dépôt at Plymouth. This circumstance appears to me quite unimportant;, and I can even assure your excellency, that general Stubbs is not among those who are about to leave England, and that he has only lately taken the direction of the dépôt, because M. Candido Jozé Xavier, who was there before him, is unwell.

The order of the day, which your excellency mentions, was published in the newspapers, as were other similar orders, address ed, some months before, to the Portuguege refugees. Your excellency well knows, that it is impossible in this country to prevent the public papers from seizing upon every thing which can directly or indirectly excite the least interest. Besides, the said order of the day, as your excellency might have seen, had merely for its object the taking the necessary measures to prepare for the speedy dissolution of the dépôt.

4thly. It does not belong to me to examine the communications which have taken place between lord Aberdeen and the viscount d'Itabayana; but all that I have to say is, that if there is not in the island of Terceira an arsenal sufficiently furnished with arms and ammunition, I should conceive it to be my duty, and for the interest of her majesty, the queen Donna Maria 2nd, to take the necessary measures for providing them as soon as possible; and I am persuaded that, once landed on the Portuguese possessions, the refugees, who are at presentin England, have no longer to answer for their conduct to any authority but that of their lawful sovereign.

5thly. Your excellency addresses to me a reproach, which I do not deserve, on the subject of the delay which has taken place in the departure of the Portuguese refugees. Your excellency knows that I considered the order to disperse them, and to separate the officers from the soldiers, as a condition attached to their remaining in England; and, forced to choose between this condition and their departure from England, I have announced to your excellency that they have decided to go. Your excellency agreed to this decision, without, however, fixing any stated time, and should you even have fixed it, the determination must have depended upon the elements, and your excellency is aware that for the last month contrary winds for the sailing of vessels bound to the south have scarcely ceased to blow. Your excellency is also aware that active preparations are going on at Plymouth, for the departure of four transports, carrying 600 men, and that they will be followed by others in succession. Your excellency may be persuaded that so soon as this departure became necessary, no one desired more than I did, to hasten the moment of it. But with the limited means which are at my disposal, it would have been impossible to use more activity than has been used in these preparations. I have reason to think that, at this very moment that I have the honour of addressing you, some of those vessels are already at sea. I must be permitted, after what I have stated, VOL. LXXI.

to reject the accusation which your excellency brings against me, and to assure you that the forbearance of the government of his Britannic majesty has not been intentionally abused, and that that forbearance will soon have ceased to be necessary.

6thly. I think I have replied to the sixth allegation, at the same time with the preceding one, and I fear that I should be encroaching upon your excellency's time were I still to lengthen this letter by referring to every point contained in your excellency's of the 8th and 12th instant. I shall content myself with adding, in a few words, that the assembling of the Portuguese refugees at Plymouth was not premeditated, but, on the contrary, was the consequence of the successive emigration of military men, as well as of those of every other class (for a third of those who are at Plymouthhave never carried arms) -an emigration which still continues in consequence of the system of persecution adopted in Portugal, with which those who are the victims cannot certainly be reproached. The assembling of these emigrants, who arrived by degrees at Plymouth, offered the advantage of providing means for their subsistence with greater economy, and of being able, at the same time, to watch over the conduct of so many individuals of all classes of society.

I am happy in being able to assure your excellency that there has not been, up to this moment, amongst the Portuguese emigrants in England, a single person who has been guilty of any infraction of the laws of nations. Up to the 19th of last month, I had no

2 H

reason to suppose that the residence of those individuals at Plymouth was contrary to the wish of the government of his Britannic majesty. As soon as I knew it, I hastened to take measures for their departure, and I hope that it has already taken place, at the moment I am writing.

I thought, in the first place, that there remained no other asylum for them than Brazil, and I have the honour to announce to your excellency, that that was their destination.

The news received from the island of Terceira induced me, by the unanimous desire of all the individuals whom it concerned, to change this first place. I had, in my last interview with your excellency, expressed a desire to obtain from the government of his Britannic majesty a guarantee, in case they should meet on the voyage any men-of-war belonging to the government, de facto, of Portugal. Your excellency believed that I asked you for an escort. I can, however, assure you that such was not my intention; although it is possible that I may have badly expressed myself, and I thought it my duty to declare to your excellency the motives which prevented me from accepting an escort, which you were willing to grant me,

I also think that individuals found without arms on board English ships, or those of any other neutral nation, will be always, and on all occasions, under the protection of the law of nations, and I only here observe, in answer to an objection that I find in one of your excellency's letters, that the guarantee which I asked for from the British go

vernment, would have bound it to nothing, in case that the Portuguese emigrants should be guilty of a breach of faith, and follow a different course from that which they announced.

In your letter of the 8th December, your excellency takes the trouble to point out that the Portuguese refugees, officers, and soldiers, who are in England, are not in the service of his majesty the emperor of Brazil, and that moreover that sovereign is not at war with the government of Portugal, and that even if he were, no foreign sovereign has the right to assemble troops in the dominions of his Britannic majesty, nor to make use of his ports, and his arsenals, to carry war into foreign countries. Your excellency adds "that it is not a sovereign, but a private individual, the marquis of Palmella, who has committed those acts!"

My answer to this last accusation has been already given in this letter; I have committed no acts for which I need blame myself. The assemblage at Plymouth appeared to me innocent, so long as the pleasure of his Britannic majesty had not been signified to me. As for hostile acts, they never took place; the projects that are attributed to me have not the least foundation, and I do not think myself obliged to defend any thing but my own acts. As for the capacity in which I act, and which your excellency considers as that of a private individual, I think this a secondary consideration, as compared with the great interests which are in question, and as searcely worth being at this time formally discussed. It is possi

ble that the character with which THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON to

I had the honour to be invested

may be cancelled, diplomatically speaking, by the changes which have taken place since the usurpation of the Crown of Portugal; and I shall by no means seek to change the opinion which the government of his Britannic majesty has formed upon that subject, although that opinion be not adopted by the other cabinets of Europe, particularly by that of Vienna.

But it is equally certain that the wish shown by the august father of her majesty the queen of Portugal, to renew my appointment, sufficiently prove that I enjoy the confidence of the only natural protector that an extraordinary combination of circumstances has left to the young queen of Portugal; that I act in the name and for the service of that sovereign, with the acquiescence, and according to the wishes of all the subjects who have remained faithful to her; and that unless it is maintained, which I cannot suppose any one could do in earnest, that the interests of the queen Donna Maria 2nd cannot, and ought not to be defended by any one, it is to me, and I speak it without disguise, that belongs, from the nature of the circumstances, the honour of fulfilling this sacred duty.

I again beg that you will exeuse, M. le Duc, the length of this letter, and I have the honour to be, &c.

[blocks in formation]

THE MARQUIS DE PALMELLA.

Apthorpe, Dec. 30, 1828.

Monsieur le Marquis, - I had the honour of receiving, this morning, your letter of the 28th inst., to which I do not hesitate to send an answer from hence, as nothing contained in it can have any effect in altering the decision of his majesty's government.

The troops collected at Plymouth are those referred to by the marquis de Barbacena, in his application to me of the 15th October last. They are the same troops whom I requested you, on the 19th November last, to remove from Plymouth to the neighbouring towns and villages. We know, that there are arms for them at Terceira.

The Azores are part of the dominions of Portugal, and we know that a civil war is now carried on in those islands, particularly in that very island of Terceira. His majesty is neutral in that contest, and he cannot permit a body of troops, respecting whom he thought proper to give orders that they should remove from Plymouth, to go to Terceira, from any port in his dominions. There can be no doubt in the mind of any man, who is acquainted with the circumstances, of the object in view, in sending these troops to Terceira, and I repeat to you, Monsieur le marquis, that they will not be allowed to land there.

I might here close this letter, if there were not some points in your's to which it is necessary that I should advert.

You say that his majesty has no right to treat these troops as prisoners, and to send them, se

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »