the assembly consists of more than six persons, and the house is of a suspicious character, even though the object of the assembly be not known, the reward shall be two thousand reals, and the clerk shall be entitled to pro

motion.

This Circular is to be kept among the secret papers.

Madrid, November, 10, 1826.

ROYAL ORDER RESPECTING COM

MERCE.

Royal order, communicated to the direction general of the revenue, allowing, for a time, foreign vessels to carry on commerce with America. The king our lord, sensible of the necessity of protecting and extending the mutual commerce carried on between America and the mother country, by means of regulations adapted to the present state of commerce and navigation, and of introducing therein a uniformity and generality productive of the facilities required by the royal treasury, and by industry and commerce, has been pleased to ordain, conformably to the report of his council of ministers, that, from this time, and until the subject shall have been more deliberately settled, the following regulations be complied with.

1st. Spaniards wishing to fit out mercantile expeditions to the American possessions, from the ports designated in the peninsula and the adjacent islands, in vessels of friendly and allied powers, shall be allowed to do so without the necessity of previously obtaining license.

2d. Foreign vessels of the above description sailing from the

ports designated in the peninsula and the adjacent islands for the American possessions, with entire cargoes of merchandise and products of the kingdoms, to return with colonial products, shall pay the duties levied on goods exported to the Indies, on the cargo; and four per cent for the privilege hereby granted to foreign vessels. Flour shall continue exempt from this charge.

· 3d. On arriving in a direct course, at the ports designated, without the return cargoes described in the foregoing articles, they shall pay thereon the assessed duty of free trade, (with the modifications- it has undergone by virtue of the royal order of 1st February, 1825, as to coffee and sugar,) and eight per cent for the privilege granted to foreign vessels; but in case of their having touched at any foreign port, they shall pay twelve per cent for said privilege, unless it shall be satisfactorily proved that such deviation was unavoidable, and that the cargo has neither been landed or trans-shipped.

4th. Foreign vessels of the above description, sailing from the ports designated, for the American possessions, with one half, or one third at least of their cargoes consisting of merchandise and products of the kingdom, and the balance of foreign products, shall pay, 1st, the duties levied on national products destined for the Indies; 2d, two per cent transit duty on foreign products, for no other cause than their foreign origin; 3d, eight per cent for the privilege to foreign vessels.

5th. On arriving in a direct course, at the ports designated,

with return cargoes mentioned in the preceding article, they shall pay thereon the assessed duty on free trade, and ten per cent for the privilege to foreign vessels. But in case of their having touched at any foreign port, they shall pay, in addition, sixteen per cent for the privilege to foreign vessels, unless it shall be satisfactorily proved that such deviation was unavoidable and that the cargo has neither been landed or transshipped.

Portuguese!

By the constitutional chart which you have just now sworn to, I have been called to the regency of these kingdoms, during the minority of my august niece, and our legitimate queen, Maria da Gloria. As the first vassal of the empire, it is my immediate duty to put in to a prompt and vigorous execution the wise constitutional chart which my august brother, Don Pedro the 4th, whose glorious name resounds with admiration and deference throughout America, Europe, and the whole world-has, from his elevated throne, bestowed upon his Portuguese subjects. This immediate code I shall fulfil and cause it to be fulfilled. It is the bulwark of our political safe ty. Unhappy he, who dares to oppose it; the law will punish him, and I shall be as inexorable as the law itself.

Portuguese !-What I am at, is to revive our former prosperity and glory; to encourage the arts; to

improve sciences; to promote commerce, agriculture, and industry; in a word, to employ every means within my power to make happy a nation worthy of being so is my subordinate duty-such my ambition: 1 grudge no other. Portuguese! if I sacrifice, as I have hitherto done, my health for the welfare of the country, be sure that I will hereafter sacrifice my own life, if it be necessary, to the good of the country. And who will be the Portuguese, worthy of the name, that would not join me in such noble sentiments?

Portuguese! let us imitate our superiors, and we shall be as they have been, the admiration of Europe, and of the whole world. Union and obedience to the laws will render us happy: and when I surrender the government of this kingdom to our legitimate sovereign, Don Maria da Gloria, I will be enabled to tell her, with truth, and with the effusions of the heartiest joy

:

"Madam! you are about taking the reins to govern a nation, great, faithful and true to its legitimate sovereigns that nation has been unfortunate, because the genius of evil has found among the Portuguese a fatal and long asylumbut the wise political institutions which your father, our late august king, has kindly given us, has consolidated the hopes of our happiness and glory. I have reared this edifice of our felicity, as much as I could, by the assistance of the nation at large; but the consummation of it is reserved for your majesty! You will find great and worthy models in the catalogues of Portuguese monarchs and queens. Read and ponder well on the history of Portugal; a wise and useful lesson it will be to your majesty; it will instruct you in the difficult art of reigning. If you but adhere to these lessons, madam, you will be hailed as the friend of the Portuguese, and the Portuguese will ever repeat with respect, love and gratitude, the name, the adored name, of your late august father, and yours.

Portuguese! Union and obedience to the laws; let us imitate the virtues of our superiors, then we shall be as they have been, subjects of admiration and respect of the whole universe.

INFANT REGENT.
Adjuda, Palace, 1st Aug. 1826.

NEW CONSTITUTION OF PORTUGAL.

The inviolability of the civil and political rights of Portuguese citizens, which has liberty, individual security and propriety, for its basis, is guarantied by the constitution of the kingdom, in the following manner :

1. No citizen can be obliged to do, or hindered from doing, a thing, but in virtue of a law.

2. No provision of a law; shall have a retrospective operation.

3. Every man may communicate his thoughts, by word, or writing, and publish them by way of the press: every one, however, will be responsible for the abuses he may commit in the exercise of this right, in the cases and forms determined by law.

4. No one can be persecuted for religious matters, if he respects the religion of the state, and does not offend public morals.

5. It is permitted to every individual to remain in the kingdom, or go out of it, as may seem good to him, taking with him his property, upon complying with the police regulations, and if it be not to the prejudice of any one.

6. The house of every citizen is an inviolable asylum; no one whatever can enter therein in the night without his consent, unless in case of a cry for succour from within, or to defend it from fire or inundation; the entrance into it by day shall not be allowed, except in the cases and manner fixed by law.

7.. No one can be arrested without a complaint lodged against him, except in the cases specified by law; and in these cases, the judge, within twenty-four hours after his commitment to prison, if it be in a city, town, or village, adjacent to the residence of a judge, and in an interval proportioned to the extent of the territory, and fixed by law for the distant places, the judge shall signify to the accused person, by a note bearing his own signature, the

ground of his imprisonment, the names of the accusers, and those of the witnesses, if he knows them. 8. In like manner, in the case of arrest, no man can be committed to prison, or detained there, if he gives the bail required by law; and, in general, for all crimes which do not incur more than six months imprisonment, or banishment from the territory, the accused person shall remain at liberty. 9. Except when taken in the act, persons cannot be imprisoned, except by a written order from the competent authorities; if this order be arbitrary, the judge who gave it, and the person who required it, shall be punished as the law directs; in what is fixed, relative to imprisonment before a complaint is made, are not included military ordinances, these being necessary for the discipline and recruiting of the army, nor the cases which are not absolutely criminal, and in which the law, nevertheless, decides the imprisonment of a person for having disobeyed the orders of justice, or for not having fulfilled their obligations within the time prescribed. . 10. No one shall be condemned but by the competent authority, in pursuance of an anterior law, and in the form by it prescribed,

11. The independence of the judicial power shall be maintained: no authority can bring before a higher court any pending causes,. stop them, or re-commence terminated proceedings.

12. The law shall be equal for all, whether it protects or punishes, and shall recompense according to the merits of each.

13. Every citizen is equally admissible to civil, political, and military posts, without any other dif

ference or consideration than that of talents and virtues.

14. No one shall be exempt from contributing to the burdens of the state in proportion to his means.

15. All privileges which are not essential and closely connected with offices for the public utility, are henceforward abolished.

16. With the exception of causes, which, from their nature, appertain to special judges, in conformity to law, there shall be no privileged tribunal nor special commission for civil or criminal causes.

..17. A civil and criminal code, founded upon the solid basis of justice and equity, shall be drawn up as early as possible...

18. From this day, whipping, torture, branding, and all other barbarous punishments, are abolished.

19. No penalty shall ever extend beyond the guilty person: thus, there cannot exist any confiscation of goods, and never shall the infamy of a guilty person be transmitted to his relations, whatever may be their degree.

20. The prisons shall be secure, clean and airy, with different divisions, to separate guilty persons, according to the circumstances and the nature of their crimes.

21. The right of property is guarantied in its utmost plenitude. 22. The national debt is likewise guarantied.

23. No kind of labour, culture, manufactory, or commerce, can be prohibited, whenever it is not opposed either to public customs, or the security and health of citizens.

24. Inventors shall have the property of their discoveries or production: a law shall secure to

them a temporary exclusive privilege, or recompense them for the loss which the publication of the discovery may cause them to suffer.

25. The secrecy of letters is inviolable: the administration of the post-office is rigorously responsible for every infraction of this article.

26. All the rewards bestowed for services rendered to the state, in the civil and military professions, are guarantied, as well as the right attached to these rewards in conformity to law.

27. Public functionaries are strictly responsible for the abuses and omissions which they commit in the exercise of their functions, and in no case can they throw the responsibility upon those under them.

28. Every citizen may address representations, complaints, or petitions, to the legislative or executive power, and even set forth all the infractions of the constitution demanding of the. competent authority the effective responsibility of the guilty persons.

29. The constitution likewise guaranties public succour.

30. Primary instruction is gratuitous for all the citizens.

31. The constitution guaranties hereditary nobility and the prerogatives.

32. As also the colleges and universities, where the elements. of the sciences, belles-lettres, and the arts, are taught.

33. The constitutional powers can never suspend the constitution; nor attack individual rights, except in the cases and circumstances specified in the following article.

34. In case of rebellion or hostile invasion, the safety of the state requiring that, for a determinate time, some of the formalities which guaranty individual liberty should be dispensed with, provision relative thereto may be made by a special act of the legis lative power; but if the cortes caanot be assembled in time, and the country be in imminent danger, the government may exercise this measure as a temporary and indispensible remedy, by suspending the ordinary course of the laws, according to the urgent necessity requiring it; but it shall re-establish things as soon as the urgent necessity upon which the contrary was grounded, is at an end. In either case, however, it must lay before the cortes, as soon as they meet, an account of the imprisonment and other means of precaution which it has taken, with the grounds thereof; and all the authorities who shall have the execution of these measures shall be responsible for the abuses committed relative thereto.

The 4th title defines the legislative power which is to belong to the cortes with the approbation of the king. The cortes is to consist of two chambers-peers and deputies. The powers of the cortes are.

It is the prerogative of the cortes

1st. To receive the oath of the king, the prince royal, and the regents.

2d. To elect the regent or regency, and mark the limits of their authority.

3d. To recognise the prince royal as heir to the throne, in the first session after his birth.