Colonel Evanssaid, that before the House resolved itself into a Committee upon the Order of the Day, he felt it his duty to put a question to the noble Lord upon the state of the kingdom of Portugal, and of the political relations between Great Britain and that country. It must be in the recollection of the House that six or seven years ago Don Miguel had rebelled against his father, the sovereign of Portugal, who had been obliged to fly for safety and to take refuge on board of an English ship of war then lying in the Tagus. In consequence of this he had been enabled to recover his power, and Don Miguel had applied for leave to go into exile to Vienna. On the death of Don John, the father of Don Miguel, the title of Don Pedro was acquiesced in by the kingdom, and to that acquiescence he believed, that no sort of disagreement was intimated by any of the powers of Europe. Don Pedro, in consequence of his situation in the Brazils, had abdicated, conditionally, his right to the succession to the throne, on the understanding that his daughter Donna Maria should succeed him. In that conditional abdication all the Powers of Europe had acquiesced, and a Regency had been established on the basis of it. One of the princesses of the royal family of Portugal had been appointed to that office, and, upon an understanding between the different Courts of Europe, Don Miguel had come over to England, and had pledged himself to support the rights of his niece and uphold the Constitution, and upon faith in those pledges he had been allowed to return to Portugal. A body of English troops was then in Lisbon, under orders to embark for England, but a private order was given to the commanding officer that, whatever might take place, under any circumstances whatever, the royal family was to be protected. Don Miguel availed himself of this, and shortly after his return, while the British troops were yet at Lisbon, he overthrew that constitution which he had so solemnly sworn to defend both in London, Vienna, and Lisbon. This conduct had been denounced by different Courts, and Don Miguel had been referred to by this Government and the past Government of England as a perjured usurper, and spoken of in every term of opprobrium. The usurpation of Don Miguel had not been acknowledged by any Power, and Donna Maria had not only been treated by the European Courts as the Queen of all Portugal de jure, but as the Queen de facto 304 of a part of Portugal, as well as of the Azores and of the seas of Portugal. He had hitherto abstained, upon grounds of expediency, from putting any question to his Majesty's Ministers on this subject, in consequence of the distressing state of the relations with Belgium. Now, he was glad to say, that a treaty had been most satisfactorily entered into by Government, and this relieved him from any embarrassment upon the subject of questioning Ministers upon the matter of Portugal. He trusted that the noble Lord, whom he saw in his place (Lord Palmerston), would put the House into possession of some information upon a subject of such great importance to the country. Both in a political point of view, and with respect to the commercial interests of the community, it was of the highest consequence that the connexion between Great Britain and Portugal should be restored, and that the rights of Donna Maria should be recognized. He wished to know if those rights had been duly recognized by the Court of England and by the different Courts of Europe.
§ Viscount Palmerstonsaid, that he should not answer in detail several of the points of the hon. Gentleman's speech, because they were well known to the House already. He was well aware that the suspension of relations between England and Portugal, and the present condition of the latter country, must be attended with very great inconvenience and positive injury to the mercantile interests of Great Britain. He could only say, that his Majesty's Ministers wished that the day might speedily arrive when the large body of the merchants and manufacturers might be relieved from the inconvenience which they at present suffered. The House well knew, that Donna Maria had been acknowledged as queen of Portugal de jure, not by the present Administration, but by the Administration which they had succeeded, and that a correspondence had taken place on the subject between the Duke of Wellington and Donna Maria's ministers, the Marquess Barbacena and the Marquess Palmella, in which Donna Maria had been recognized, de jure, as queen of Portugal. But the nature of the hon. Member's question went less to the recognition of the right than to ascertain whether his Majesty's Ministers were prepared to take measures to seat Donna Maria on the throne. As soon as she had established herself in her dominions the British Government was. 305 ready to acknowledge her; but his Majesty's Ministers had not yet seen any reason to induce them to depart from that line of strict neutrality which they had adopted from the first, and which they had rigidly observed throughout the contest. With respect to the other branch of the question the House would see that, although Donna Maria's authority was acknowledged throughout the Azores, in a part of Portugal, and in the Portuguese seas, it could not be said that her possession of only those parts of her dominions made her, in point of fact, the reigning sovereign of Portugal. Whenever events should place her in that situation it would follow, as a matter of course, that those powers which had recognized her rights de jure should recognize her right de facto.