CHAP. was to have the province of Entre Minho e Douro, with the city II. of Porto for its capital, erected into a kingdom for him, under the 1807. title of Northern Lusitania. Alentejo and Algarve were in like manner to be given to Godoy*, in entire property and sovereignty, with the title of Prince of the Algarves; the other Portugueze provinces were to be held in sequestration till a general peace, at which time, if they were restored to the house of Braganza, in exchange for Gibraltar, Trinidad, and other colonies which the English had conquered, the new sovereign was, like the King of Northern Lusitania and the Prince of the Algarves, to hold his dominions by investiture from the King of Spain, to acknowledge him as protector, and never to make peace or war without his consent. The two contracting powers were to agree upon an equal partition of the colonial possessions of Portugal; and Buonaparte engaged to recognize his Catholic Majesty as Emperor of the Two Americas, when every thing should be ready for his assuming that title, which might be either at a general peace, or at farthest within three years therefrom; and he guaranteed to him the possession of his dominions on the continent of Europe south of the Pyrenees. A secret convention, which was concluded at the same time, agreed upon the means for carrying this nefarious treaty into effect. Twenty-five thousand French infantry and 3000 cavalry were to enter Spain, and march directly for Lisbon; they were to be joined by 8000 Spanish infantry and 3000 cavalry, with * No additional infamy can possibly be heaped upon Don Manuel Godoy; it ought however to be mentioned, that the minion who thus planned the destruction of the kingdom of Portugal, in order to obtain a new principality for himself, was, at this very time, a noble of that kingdom, by the title of Conde de Evora-Monte, and enjoyed a pension from the crown. This was conferred upon him by an Alvara of Feb. 5th, 1797, in which the Queen calls him "My Cousin." II. 30 pieces of artillery. At the same time 10,000 Spanish troops CHAP. were to take possession of the province between the Minho and Douro, and the city of Porto; and 6000 were to enter Alentejo 1807. and Algarve. The French troops were to be maintained by Spain upon their march. As soon as they had entered the country, (for no opposition was expected,) the government of each portion of the divided territory was to be vested in the Generals commanding, and the contributions imposed thereon accrue to their respective courts. The central body was to be under the orders of the French Commander-in-chief. Nevertheless, if either the King of Spain, or the Prince of the Peace, should think fit to join the Spanish troops attached to that army, the French, with the General commanding them, should be subject to his orders. Another body of 40,000 French troops was to be assembled at Bayonne, by the 20th of November at the latest, to be ready to proceed to Portugal, in case the English should send reinforcements there, or menace it with an attack. This army, however, was not to enter Spain, till the two contracting parties had come to an agreement upon that point. This nefarious treaty, whereby the two contracting powers disposed of the dominions of two other sovereigns with whom the one was connected by the nearest and closest ties of relationship and alliance, and both were at peace, was carried on with a secresy worthy of the transaction. D. Eugenio Izquierdo, an agent of Godoy's, was employed to negociate it unknown to the Spanish embassador in France, and the whole business is said to have been concealed from the ministers* in both countries, * Azanza and O'Farrill declare that when they came into office as Ferdinand's ministers, they found no papers concerning it in their office. Cevallos says, that he was entirely ignorant of the transaction: Izquierdo indeed charges him with having II. The En glish re sidents expelled from the exclu tish com merce. CHAP. It was signed on the 27th of October. The convoy with the English factory on board had sailed from the Tagus on the 18th, 1807. and never had a day of such political calamity and general sorrow been known in Lisbon since the tidings arrived of the loss of Sebastian and his army. Their departure was followed Lisbon. by a proclamation for the exclusion of British commerce: it had ever, the Prince said, been his desire to observe the most Edict for perfect neutrality during the present contest; but that being no sion of Bri- longer possible, and having reflected at the same time how beneficial a general peace would be to humanity, he had thought proper to accede to the cause of the Continent by uniting himself to the Emperor of the French and the Catholic King, in order to contribute as far as might be in his power to the acceleration of a maritime peace. Whatever hopes he might have indulged of satisfying France by this measure were soon dissipated, when the Portugueze embassadors at Paris and Madrid, having been formally dismissed, arrived at Lisbon. The former of these, D. Lourenço de Lima, is said to have travelled night and day, for the purpose of dissuading the Prince from removing to Brazil,..a measure which the French ap Oct. 22. approved the treaty in conversation with him, as the most advantageous which had ever been made by Spain; and with having complimented him for obtaining what France had constantly refused, while the Bourbons occupied both thrones. (Nellerto (Llorente) T. iii. p. 80.) But this does not necessarily imply that Cevallos was acquainted with the business while it was in progress. M. de Pradt affirms that Talleyrand only learnt it from Marshal Bessieres, of whom he inquired why the guards were marching towards Spain, and that Bessieres had been informed by one of the persons who signed the treaty. But M. de Pradt adds that Talleyrand immediately apprized the Conde de Lima, then chargé d'affaires for Portugal, and that the Count set off instantly to give his government the alarm; this is wholly incredible. M. de Pradt is always a lively, and often a sagacious writer, but not always correct in his assertions. He makes the unaccountable mistake of supposing that the French had already occupied the North of Portugal two years before the treaty was made! (p. 26, 33.) II. 151. prehended, and which of all others would oppose the greatest CHAP. obstacles to their projects. D. Lourenço is said to have represented that this step would make him the victim of the per- 1807. fidious counsel of England, and at the same time provoke the utmost wrath of the great Napoleon. That emperor, he assured the Prince, had the highest respect for his virtues, and harboured no hostile intentions against him: he would be completely satisfied if Portugal would only sequester the British property and arrest the few British subjects who remained. To this last sacrifice the Prince now consented, trusting to the generosity of England, and probably also, as has been well Neves. 1. observed by a Portugueze historian, secretly resolving to indemnify the sufferers whenever it should be possible,.. for this is consistent with his character. Under these feelings he issued an Edict for edict for registering all English persons and property which the persons were still to be found in his dominions. The order was re- perty of the luctantly given, and leniently carried into effect; but it compelled the British minister, Lord Strangford, to take down the arms of Great Britain from his house: he demanded his passports, and went off to a squadron under Sir Sidney Smith, which had been ordered to cruise off the mouth of the Tagus, and Lisbon leaves was then declared to be blockaded. registering and pro English. The British minister Lisben. squadron enters the Tagus. While the court was waiting in the most anxious incertitude 4 Russian the result of its submission, the agitation of the Lisbonians was increased by the appearance of a Russian squadron in the Tagus. Admiral Siniavin with nine ships of the line and two frigates had been acting in the Archipelago against the Turks, in alliance with England; and now on his way home to act against England in conformity with the plans of Buonaparte, he found that he could not possibly reach the Baltic before it would be frozen. He would have put into Cadiz to winter there, but the British admiral who commanded upon that station II. November. CHAP. would not permit him, rightly judging that as the disposition of the Russian government was now known to be unfriendly towards 1807. England, it was not proper that these Russian ships should be allowed to enter an enemy's port, and thus effect a junction with an enemy's fleet. Siniavin therefore proceeded to the Tagus; his unexpected arrival at such a juncture was naturally supposed to be part of the tyrant's gigantic plans, and it was not doubted now that Buonaparte meant to make Lisbon one of the ports from which the British dominions were to be invaded. The circumstance was in reality accidental, but at such a moment it appeared like design, and the blockade was therefore more rigorously enforced. Buonaparte endeavours royal fa mily. If Buonaparte's only object had been to force the Prince to seize the into hostilities with England, he would now have been satisfied. A courier had been immediately dispatched to inform him that all his demands were complied with, and the Marquis de Marialva speedily set out after the courier with the title of Embassador Extraordinary;.. while he was on his way the French troops had entered Portugal. The tyrant thought to entrap the royal family; but disdaining in the wantonness of power to observe even the appearances of justice or common decorum toward a country which he so entirely despised, the success of his villainy was frustrated by his own precipitation. From the commencement of these discussions the Prince had declared that if a French army set foot within his territories he would remove the seat of government to Brazil. The French expected that the rupture with England would deter him from pursuing this resolution; should it prove otherwise they thought to prevent it by their intrigues and their celerity: and such was the treachery with which the Prince was surrounded, and the want of vigilance in every branch of his inert administration, that Junot was within an hundred miles of Lisbon before any official advices were re |