and skill in placing the defences of the kingdom on a proper footing. His internal administration was characterised by many startling acts. Viceroys, Ambassadors, Ministers of State, even members of the Royal Family itself, were not unfrequently hurried off into arrest or banishment without any warning whatever. But interesting as such events may be as episodes in a long ministerial career, or as indications of character and disposition, it is Pombal's attempts to improve, as he believed, the commerce of his country that should claim onr principal attention. Though in some cases-most certainly not in all-his remarkable commercial schemes, as schemes so introduced and so fostered occasionally may, obtained at first some transient success, they ended on the whole ruinously for those who took part in them. It would have been well had this been the extent of their mischief. But who can regard the state of Portugal now and not see plainly how disastrous have been their effects? Portugal, the pioneer of constitutional government on the Continent, where a liberal and rational form of monarchy has already attained a respectable longevity amongst recent constitutional states, has by no means attained a degree of prosperity commensurate with her liberties or with the ancient splendour of her crown. An embarrassed government, an impoverished nobility, and a failing trade, bear witness to the fatal results of that disastrous intermeddling with the commerce of his country which was the favourite occupation of Pombal. His mischievous interference left no branch of human industry untouched. Agriculture, commerce, manufactures, fisheries, all experienced the misfortune of suffering from the vicious economical opinions of a minister who could glibly enunciate the smoothest maxims upon freedom of trade. Vines were rooted up that corn might be grown. Certain lands were to produce bread-stuffs alonesuch were some of the methods by which Pombal sought to make his country prosperous. Having once grasped the idea that wealth consisted only in gold and silver, he never shook himself clear of it, and his constant effort was to keep those metals from leaving the country. Though it is impossible to deny him the credit of great vigour and very considerable ability, and of his having really made his country, when already on the decline, assume a position of some importance amongst the States of Europe, it would be false to the truth, both of history and political philosophy, to conceal that his long tenure of power has hastened the ruin which he seemed for a time to arrest. So destructive to true prosperity were the childish economical fancies--more suited to the political

darkness of the sixteenth century than the enlightenment of the eighteenth-which vitiated all the acts of his government. No country has, on the contrary, more to gain than Portugal from the most extended and complete freedom of foreign trade.

His career closed with the reign of the monarch who had so long entrusted him with supreme power. Dom Joseph died in 1777, and Pombal was soon made to perceive that the new Sovereign, Donna Maria I., was under the influence of a party hostile to him. One of the Queen's earliest acts was the release of the still surviving prisoners who had been accused of complicity in the Tavora conspiracy.' The miserable appearance of these unhappy victims of his tyranny on quitting the dungeons in which they had been immured for eighteen years, caused a great reaction against Pombal. Of the prisoners, the Marquis of Alorna and the surviving Tavoras refused to accept their release unless accompanied by a legal acquittal. Pombal now more than once sent in his resignation, but it was not accepted. At length the Queen proceeded to dismiss him from the various offices which he had so long held. His final dismissal from the Interior was conveyed in a decree the terms of which were almost complimentary. The case of Alorna and the Tavoras was submitted to a tribunal which completely exonerated them from their alleged guilt. The Jesuits, in spite of the recent abolition of their Society, began to again raise their heads. A subscription of Donna Maria to the support of those who had been sent to Rome, encouraged some of them to take the bold resolution of returning to Lisbon. The combined efforts of these returned exJesuits and the released prisoners were directed to obtaining the complete revision and annulling of the sentence passed in the Tavora case. These efforts were so far successful that a special tribunal convoked to examine the sentence gave judgment to the effect that the Duke of Aveiro and his servants only were guilty of the crime committed on the 3rd September, 1758. But this hardly satisfied the enemies of the Marquis of Pombal, and the cry for justice was followed by one for vengeance. A former victim of the late minister's arbitrary measures, named Caldeira, on his return from exile, attempted to regain some property of which he had been deprived, and which had come into the hands of Pombal; and with that object published a pamphlet attacking both the public and the private character of the Marquis. The latter issued a reply, which was in reality a long and even tedious vindication of his whole career. The contents of this reply so irritated the Queen that she ordered the pamphlet itself to be burned, and

at length decided upon instituting an inquiry into the conduct of the fallen Minister. His papers were seized, and a commission proceeded, towards the end of 1779, to Pombal, whither he had retired, to interrogate him personally. The aged Marquis (he was now in his eighty-first year) exhibited a painful spectacle during this examination. He appears to have lost himself in a maze of quibbles, contradictions, and equivocations, caused partly, perhaps, by fear of the results of the inquiry, and partly by physical weakness, which occasionally cut short his replies. On receipt of the final report of the commissioners, the Queen issued, on the 15th August, 1781, a decree, declaring Pombal guilty of great crimes and deserving of exemplary punishment; but that in consideration of his age and infirmities, and his humble prayers for pardon, he was only to be banished, until further orders, to a distance of twenty leagues from the Court. The publication of this decree inspired the aged statesman with the courage which he had failed to exhibit when in the presence of his judges, and he drew up and published a long memoir, under the title of A Petition to the Queen,' in which he attempted to vindicate himself from the charges made against him, and especially from that of having enriched himself at the expense of his country. The petition was not listened to, and indeed attracted little notice, and the fallen Minister survived its publication only a few months. He breathed his last on May 8, 1782, having almost completed his eighty-third year, in a small and squalid room, which may still be seen, on the market-place of Pombal.

In person Pombal was tall, with a handsome countenance, regular features, and bright and piercing eyes. His voice is said to have been remarkably pleasing. His imperious disposition was tempered by much bonhommie and an occasional rough jocularity. This latter characteristic is testified by several anecdotes, one of which is worth relating. Dom Joseph had proposed that all persons of Jewish extraction should be made to wear, as a mark of distinction, white hats. Few families in Portugal were free from some intermixture of Jewish blood. Pombal one day appeared at the palace with two white hats under his arm, and on being questioned by the King, informed him, that in consequence of the proposed edict, he had provided one for His Majesty and one for himself. The joke had the effect of keeping back the decree. The despatches of the foreign envoys to the Court of Lisbon establish the fact that Pombal was not devoid of that almost cynical frankness which is not an unknown characteristic of eminent ministers and

imperious negotiators in our own day. He has been accused of having greatly enriched himself whilst in office, and his friends have endeavoured to prove that he received nothing beyond the regular income of his various employments. But it is not the less true that he who, as we have seen, began life in but indifferent circumstances, left a wealthy family and considerable estates. It can scarcely be said that his memory is revered in Portugal; true views on political science are making their way there as in other countries, and though his name is not now pursued with the hatred which it once evoked, his claims to be considered a great Minister are looked upon as at least an open question.

We shall conclude this article by producing a literary curiosity, unknown to all but a very small number of our readers a character of Pombal by the author (as we hold him to be) of the Letters of Junius.' In 1773, Mr. Francis (who had just left the War Office) employed his leisure in translating an Essay on Circulation and Credit, by M. de Pinto, a philosophical economist living at Amsterdam. The book was published in London in the following year, under the name of his friend, Stephen Baggs. But the translation and the copious notes added to the text are the work of Francis, written, it will be observed, between the cessation of the Letters of Junius' and his departure for India. At the end of the volume a note is added of nearly ten quarto pages, on the relations of Portugal and Great Britain, in which Francis has evidently introduced the result of his experience and observation, when he formed part of Lord Kinnoul's mission to Lisbon, several years before. The whole passage is extremely curious, but we must content ourselves with extracting the following notice of the Marquis of Pombal :

:

'All the commercial ideas of the minister are founded upon one general maxim, that trade, in order to be prosperous, should not be free. Accordingly, he has heaped project upon project. and regulation upon regulation; and destroyed a healthy constitution, by confining it to a sickly regimen, and by loading it with prescriptions. He has made it his study to distress foreign merchants, and to drive them out of the kingdom. He has put the vineyards and their produce, the only internal source of wealth to Portugal, under the check and control of a monopoly; and he has confined a considerable part of the Brazil trade to two exclusive companies, the principle and spirit of which is, to make the greatest profits upon the smallest outset or venture. If the Pernambuco and Maranham companies had succeeded, it was his intention to have taken the same care of the Bahia and Rio trade. But the first subscriptions were completed with so much difficulty, that it would have been in vain to attempt new ones. One would think that he meant to contract the commerce of his country,

and to stifle industry at its birth. The event has corresponded with the design. In the year 1759, the fleet from Pernambuco consisted of forty-five ships. In the year 1772, the trade to that settlement employed only eighteen. To support the credit of the new companies, he thought it advisable to issue an edict, which ordered that their actions should be a legal tender, and be accepted, at an arbitrary valuation fixed by the directors, as so much specie; that is, in other words, that the natives, who are constantly the debtors, should remove the burthen from themselves, and impose it upon their foreign creditors. This, however, was an attempt too extravagant to be supported. Such are the general plans, and such the temporary expedients, from which we are to collect an opinion of the minister's capacity. The facts I refer to are notorious. In a country, where the true principles of trade are understood, it is unnecessary to prove that, in theory, no better consequences were to be expected from a system so false and anti-commercial. The Portuguese must be taught by experience.

'To form a judgment of his political measures, we should compare the defenceless state of Portugal with the general plan of ambition of the united house of Bourbon, and the particular claims and enmity of the crown of Spain. The independence of Portugal can only be maintained by cultivating the friendship of the other powers of Europe, particularly by confirming the ancient alliance with the only nation that ever has, or ever can engage effectually in her defence. These are essential objects, not to be compared with any temporary advantages, and from which a wise minister will not suffer his attention to be diverted. It is needless to say how little they have been regarded in the political system of the Marquis of Pombal. Upon the whole, it must be admitted, that the proofs of his ministerial abilities are of an extraordinary nature. His commercial experience and information have led him to divide the trade of his country into monopolies. His policy has taught him to provoke the natural enemies, and to alienate the natural allies, of the crown. His two systems correspond and co-operate with each other. In consequence of receiving all foreigners upon the same footing in Portugal, and of laying all foreign trade under equal restraint, it ceases to be a great natural interest to any one nation to maintain the independence of the kingdom. A union of inferior states, in favour of a court with whom they have no solid foundation of alliance, is not to be expected, nor would it be effectual. His country then, with a small internal force, and destitute of all alliance, is left exposed to the invasion of a superior enemy, whose claims are not absolute, and who do not always wait for just or decent pretences to act against Portugal; nor is there a power in Europe, to which his Most Faithful Majesty can say with truth, "It is your interest to protect me."

The last question to be considered is, whether he has made the Portuguese a richer or a happier people than he found them? If he has, it must be confessed, that the means he makes use of would hardly have produced that effect in any other country. If he has not, his maxim, that sovereigns are not to be restrained by treaties from consulting the internal welfare of their subjects, leaves him without the possibility of a defence. If the measures, which he calls expedient,