X. 1808. June. mann's pro to the pco ple of Alem In this whole merciless proceeding Maransin CHAP. · acted upon his own judgement, well knowing that such was the system which Napoleon had laid down, and which his generals felt no reluctance in executing. He proceeded to Evora, and Kellermann, approving of his conduct, held out the fate of Beja in a proclamation, as a warning to the province. "Inhabitants of Alem- KellerTejo," he said, "Beja had revolted, and Beja clamation exists no longer. Its guilty inhabitants have of m been put to the edge of the sword, and its houses Tejo. delivered up to pillage and to the flames. Thus shall all those be treated who listen to the counsels of a perfidious rebellion, and with a senseless hatred take arms against us. Thus shall those bands of smugglers and criminals be treated, who have collected in Badajoz, and put arms into the hands of the unhappy Lusitanians, but dare not themselves march against us. Who, indeed, can resist our invincible troops? Ye who have precipitated yourselves into rebellion, prevent, by prompt submission, the inevitable chastisement that awaits you! And ye who have hitherto all who were found in arms after it, sacking the city, and setting it on fire, it seems difficult to understand what the mercy was which the surviving inhabitants are said to have sent to Lisbon to solicit. According to Baron Thiebault, un brave religieux, after the assault, moved all his auditors to tears, by representing to them how much they had provoked their own misfortunes: he was consequently deputed unanimously to implore Junot's cle mency. Junot received him gra- a canonry; LA RECONNOISSANCE CHAP. X. 1808. June. Observador Portuguez, 347. Junot's proclamation tugueze. been happy or prudent enough to continue in your duty, profit by this terrible example! Our general in chief has not told you in vain that clouds of rebels shall be dispersed before us like the sands of the desert before the impetuous breath of the south wind." The bombastic sentence which Kellermann to the Por- thus quoted, was from a proclamation that Junot had just sent forth, in that spirit of shameless falsehood and remorseless tyranny which characterised the intrusive government. He asked the Portugueze what madness possessed them? What reason they could have, after seven months of the most perfect tranquillity, of the best understanding, to take arms; . . and against whom? against an army which was to secure their independence and maintain the integrity of their country! Was it their wish, then, that ancient Lusitania should become a province of Spain? Could they regret a dynasty which had abandoned them, and under which they were no longer counted among the nations of Europe? What more could they desire than to be Portugueze, and independent? and this Napoleon had promised them. They had asked him for a king, who, under his all-powerful protection, might restore their country to its rank. At this moment their new monarch was expecting to approach them. "I hoped," said Junot, "to place him in a peaceable and flourishing kingdom; am I to show him nothing but ruins and graves? Will he reign in a desert? assuredly not; and you will not be any thing X. 1808. June. but a wretched province of Sin. Your customs CHAP. and laws have been maintained; your holy religion, which is ours also, has not suffered the least insult; it is you who violate it, suffering it to be influenced by heretics, who only wish for its destruction. Ask the unhappy Roman-catholics of Ireland under what oppression they are groaning! If these perfidious islanders invade your territory, leave me to fight them; .. your part is to remain peaceably in your fields." He then attempted to soothe them, saying, that if any abuses in the administration still existed, every day's experience would diminish them. The Emperor, satisfied with the reports which he had received of the public spirit, had graciously remitted half the contribution. He was fulfilling all their wishes. And would they let themselves be dragged on by the influence of a banditti, at the very moment when they should be happy? "Portugueze," said he, "you have but one moment to implore the clemency of the Emperor and disarm his wrath. Already the armies of Spain touch your frontiers at every point;.. you are lost if you hesitate. Merit your pardon by quick submission, or behold the punishment that awaits you! Every village or town in which the people have taken arms, and fired upon my troops, shall be delivered up to pillage, and destroyed, and the inhabitants shall be put to the sword. Every individual Observador found in arms shall instantly be shot." The French had dealt largely in false pro Portugucz, 317-320. X. 1808. June. National feeling of the Portu gueze. CHAP. mises; they were sincere in their threats, and on the very day when this proclamation was issued at Lisbon, that sincerity was proved at Beja. But as the Portugueze had not been deceived, neither were they now to be intimidated. Their character had been totally mistaken by their insolent oppressors. They, like the Spaniards, had a deep and ever-present remembrance of their former greatness. It was sometimes expressed with a vanity which excited the contempt of those who judge hastily upon that imperfect knowledge which is worse than ignorance; more generally it produced a feeling of dignified and melancholy pride. The kingdom had decayed, but the degeneracy of the people was confined to the higher ranks, whom every possible cause, physical and moral, combined to degrade. Generation after generation, they had intermarried, not merely within the narrow circle of a few privileged families, but oftentimes in their own; uncles with their nieces, nephews with their aunts. The canonical law was dispensed with for these alliances; but no dispensing power could set aside the law of nature, which rendered degeneracy the sure consequence. Thus was the breed deteriorated; and education completed the mischief. The young fidalgo was never regarded as a boy: as soon as the robes, or rather bandages of infancy were laid aside, he appeared in the dress of manhood, was initiated in its forms and follies, and it was rather his misfortune than his fault, if, at an early age, he became familiar X. 1808. June. with its vices. When he arrived at manhood, no CHAP. field for exertion was open to him, even if he were qualified or disposed to exert himself. The private concerns of embellishing and improving an estate were as little known in Portugal as those public affairs in which the nobility of Great Britain are so actively engaged: if not in office, he was in idleness, and his idleness was passed in the capital. A wasteful expenditure made him a bad landlord, and a bad paymaster; a deficient education made him a bad statesman; and well was it if the lax morality which the casuists had introduced into a corrupt religion, did not make him a bad man. Exceptions there were, because there are some dispositions so happily tempered, that their original goodness can never be wholly depraved, however unpropitious the circumstances in which they are placed; but men, for the most part, are what circumstances make them, and these causes of degeneracy were common to all of the higher class. On the other hand, the middle classes were improved, and the peasantry uncorrupted. Their occupations were the same as those of their forefathers; nor did they differ from them in any respect, except what was a most important one at this time, that a long interval of peace, and their frequent intercourse with the Spaniards, had effaced the old enmity between the two nations, so that along the border the languages were intermingled, and intermarriages so common, as to have produced a natural and moral |