this unhappy prince; both from friends and enemies he was equally doomed to suffer. Some of the former, having insinuated that it was the regent's design to take him off when removed to such a distance, and the murmurs and discontent of the people being excited on this account, in order to allay them, Alonzo was brought back, and shut up in the castle of Cintra, near Lisbon, where he dragged out a miserable life of fifteen years imprisonment. When seized with the disorder which proved mortal, he said to his attendants, "I am going; but the queen will soon follow me, to answer before an awful tribunal for the evils she has brought upon my head." A. D. 1683. She indeed did not long survive him; and it was only for a few months that she saw her second husband enjoy the title of king in full right. For her own part she always affected to be called queen, though certainly she could have no legitimate claim to this distinction after the dissolution of her first marriage. Don Pedro, however, always treated her with esteem and respect, notwithstanding some low intrigues in which it was generally known she engaged. She undoubtedly possessed talents; but her private conduct was far from being correct. left no male issue. She Pedro II. soon after her death, was prevailed on to re-enter the marriage state with the princess Mary Sophia of Newburgh, by whom he had several children. As a prince, he has deservedly acquired the reputation of being a profound politician; but he frequently relied too little on his own judgment, and therefore was the more easily biassed by his ministers. On A. D. 1706. this account the English ambassador, in writing to his court, humorously said, "We have only one friend in the council, that is the king; but he has very little influence." He died in the fifty-seventh year of his age, in consequence of a cold caught from sleeping in the open air, after being violently heated with exercise, and left the crown to his son John V. who at that time had just completed his seventeenth year. This prince acted with such vigour and pru dence, and adhered so steadily to the plan of policy traced out to him by his father, that Portugal, under his government, was respectable among European powers, and the people happy. By preserving a just balance between France and the house of Austria, which disputed for the crown of Spain, he made himself important in the eyes of both parties, and profited by his alliance with England, without sinking into vassalage. Such were the resources of his mind, that though he suffered many reverses during the war, he obtained by the treaty of Utrecht better terms than his relative situation would seem to have commanded. The two crowns of Spain and Portugal, however, were not entirely reconciled till 1737, after which period their unanimity proved advantageous to both, and incurred no jealousy from other nations. In this position of affairs, a treaty was concluded with the court of Madrid, by which Nova Colonia, on the river Plata, was delivered up to his Catholic majesty, to the great regret of the Portuguese, who apprehended future danger to Brazil from the vicinity of their possessions. John was happy in his family, and left a nu merous A. D. 1750. merous progeny. At last, worn out with infirmities rather than years, he expired at the age of sixty-one, in the forty-fourth year of his reign. Don Joseph, prince of Brazil, his son and successor, assumed the reins of government under the happiest auspices. He was entirely beloved by his people, and this enabled him to effect several important regulations, in which his good sense and moderation were eminently conspicuous. Sensible of the danger of sudden innovations, he advanced his designs by almost imperceptible steps, so as to prevent all just grounds of alarm and complaint. Amongst other new regulations, he subjected the inordinate powers of the inquisition to some restriction, by directing that none of its sentences should be carried into execution till reviewed and approved by the privy council. The treaty which had been concluded between Spain and Portugal just before his father's demise, inimical as it was generally considered to the interests of his people, he strictly carried into execution, on the noble principle" that all engagements and conventions among sovereigns should be held sacred and inviolable." But though the sun of prosperity shone on the commencement of this reign, it was not long before the horizon was overcast, and the most dreadful storms arose, partly from the visitations of Providence, and partly from the rage of faction and the virulence of religious animosity. One of the most dreadful earthquakes recorded in history over A. D. 1753. * * See Appendix. whelmed whelmed the capital, a fire and a famine succeeded, and those whom the first calamity spared, fell a prey to the last. In addition to these ills, sufficient of themselves to be spread over the longest reign, a terrible conspiracy, broke out, which had nearly cost the king his life. In September 1758 his majesty was attacked by assassins, in a solitary place, near his palace of Belem, and with difficulty escaped. Immediately after, imprisonment followed imprisonment, and the wheel and the scaffold reeked with the noblest blood. The most illustrious families, on an accusation being preferred against them of having joined the conspiracy, were almost exterminated; but they were in general condemned without fair evidence, and their innocence has since been clearly ascertained. This conspiracy, which produced such horrible effects, is thought to have arisen from the, mixed motives of religion, politics, and gallantry. The expulsion of the Jesuits, who were now become formidable to princes, and who were supposed to have been implicated in the plot, soon after took place. The marquis of Pombal, indeed, who, in quality of prime minister, governed Portugal for many years with unbounded authority, spared neither individuals nor societies that obstructed his designs, which appear to have been frequently arbitrary and cruel. A. D. 1762. When a war broke out between Spain and England, the former power, reinforced by the influence of their allies, the French, attempted to force his faithful majesty into the confederacy, and offered to garrison the maritime towns of Portugal against the English; but this proposal being rejected, an VOL. XV. invasion invasion of Portugal ensued, though it produced no very important consequences. The enemy, indeed, was so very dilatory in its progress, though the capital itself was exposed, that it is doubted whether the motive might not have been to hasten the peace between England and France, in consideration of the great apparent danger of Portugal. The arrival of a few English battalions, however, checked the career of the invaders: the kingdom was saved by British prowess, as the people on a former occasion had been relieved by British generosity. A. D. Joseph dying, left only daughters. Maria Frances Isabella, the eldest, and 1777. the present queen of Portugal, was married to her own uncle Don Pedro, by dispensation from the pope, in order to prevent the crown from falling into a foreign family. One of the first acts of her reign was to dismiss the marquis of Pombal, who had so long exercised a tyrannical power over his fellow subjects. This was a very popular measure; yet it must be allowed that the temper and habits of the Portu guese nation require either a prince or a minis ter, who has genius to project plans of reform, and resolution enough to carry them into execution. This the worst enemies of Pombal allow that he possessed, and the nation are now reaping the benefit of some public measures which he forced upon them. Pedro departed this life in the sixty A. D. ninth year of his age. A few years after, 1786. the queen falling into a religious me lancholy, which still incapacitated her for the cares of government, her son John-Maria-Joseph-Lewis, prince of Brazil, as presumptive |