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Inhabitants of Lisbon! Tranquillize yourselves: I will never be wanting in the love which I consecrate to you; I sacrifice myself for you, and, in a short time, your dearest wishes will be satisfied.

Experience, the wise instructress of People and Governments, has demonstrated, in a manner very afflicting to me, and fatal to the Nation, that the existing Institutions are incompatible with the will, the customs, and the persuasions of the greater part of the Monarchy; the evidence of facts confirms these assertions: Brazil, that interesting part of the Monarchy, is divided into factions; in the Kingdom, civil war has caused Portuguese blood to be shed by the hands of their Countrymen; the danger of foreign War is imminent; and the State, thus agitated, is threatened with total ruin, unless the most prompt and efficacious measures are immediately adopted. In this afflicting crisis, it behoves me, as the King and Father of my Subjects, to save them from anarchy and invasion, by conciliating the Parties which are hostile to each other.

To attain this desirable end, it is necessary to modify the Constitution; if it had produced happiness to the Nation, I would continue to be its first guarantee; but, when the majority of a Nation declares itself so openly and hostilely against its Institutions, those Institutions require reform.

Citizens! I do not desire, nor ever did desire, absolute power, and I this day reject it; the sentiments of my heart are repugnant to despotism and to oppression. I desire only the peace, the honour, and the prosperity of the Nation.

Inhabitants of Lisbon! Do not fear for your liberties, they shall be guaranteed in a manner which shall secure the dignity of the Crown, and shall respect and maintain the rights of the Citizens. In the meantime, obey the Authorities; forget private revenge; stifle the spirit of party; avoid civil war; and, in a short time, you shall see the bases of a new Code, which, securing personal safety, property, and employments duly acquired in any period of the existing Government, shall give all the guarantees which Society requires, unite all wishes, and cause the prosperity of the whole Nation. Villa Franca de Xira, May 31, 1823.

JOHN.

Published by an order, written and signed by His Majesty, transmitted to the Minister of Finance this day. The original is in my hands. JOSE XAVIER MOUSINHO DA SILVEIRA.

Lisbon, May 31, 1823.

PROCLAMATION of the King of Portugal, on the Dissolution of the Constitution of the Cortes.-3rd June, 1823.

PORTUGUESE !

(Translation.) INSTEAD of a Constitution that might sustain the Monarchy, and instead of Representatives chosen by yourselves; you have seen, under

that sacred title, a tissue of maxims promulgated, with the view of disguising subversive and inconsistent principles, which had for their secret purpose the destruction of the reigning dynasty and of the Portuguese Mcnarchy; you have seen Representatives almost all of whom were elected by intrigue and subordination.

Virtuous Citizens have been oppressed by the yoke of the factious; and fidelity to the King, according to the principles which corrupt Men in exalted stations held, and rashly followed, was branded as a crime.

A structure composed of such materials could not long endure; experience condemns it, and if its Authors for some time maintained their power in spite of your wishes, it was by virtue of promises which they could not realize by the course they adopted. Recovered from their errors, they have dissolved themselves de facto, as they had assembled de facto, and I dissolve them de jure.

Solicitous for your interest, I determined to save my Royal dignity by restoring the Monarchy, which should be the foundation, and not the sport, of every Constitution. Portuguese fidelity has shone with the brightest lustre even among those who were the Authors of all these evils; since they have, in a great measure, voluntarily acknowledged their delusion.

Portuguese! your King, freely seated on the Throne of his ancestors, is about to secure your happiness: he is about to give you a Constitution, in which will be proscribed the principles which experience has proved to be incompatible with the durable tranquillity of the State. Your Sovereign can only consider himself happy, when he sees all his Subjects united. He forgets past opinions, and only requires fidelity in your future conduct.

Villa Franca de Xira, June 3, 1823.

JOHN.

JOAQUIN PEDRO GOMEZ DE OLIVEIRA. [See Decree of the King, annulling the Constitution of 1822, &c. dated 18th June, 1823. State Papers, 1823, 1824, Page 852.]

CORRESPONDENCE between Portugal and France, relative to the Invasion of Spain by the latter Power.— February and April, 1823. (Translation.)

SIR,

(1.)-Instruction to the Portuguese Chargé d'Affaires at Paris. Lisbon, February 13, 1823. M. THOMAS WANCELLER, attached to His Majesty's Legation in London, arrived here, yesterday, with the important speech of His Most Christian Majesty, on the Opening of the French Chambers.

It is impossible to describe the indignation that has been excited here by the manifestation of the projected War against Spain; and the

imprudence with which the Government declares to France, and to all Europe, its intention of compromising the Peace of the World, to enable Ferdinand VII. to govern Spain after his own way, for no other reason than because he belongs to the Bourbon Family.

It was resolved at the Congress of Verona, that it belonged to France to decide how far she could exercise an armed interference in the internal affairs of Spain, admitting the hypothesis that the state of Spain was or could be prejudicial to the safety of France. Thus the French Government was fully empowered to declare War, if the evils which it apprehended could not be otherwise avoided.

So long as the French Ministry could deduce its principles, whether true or false, from the internal disorders of Spain, these disorders formed its motive for opposing a barrier to the torrent with which it is believed France to be threatened: the reality of the fact might then have been doubted; but no one disputed the principle of the right.

But now that the French Ministry proclaims as the ground of the War, the fact that Ferdinand VII. received from the Nation the Constitution with which he accepted the Spanish Crown, no Government in Europe can authorize by its silence a principle so subversive of all States.

In consequence, His Majesty commands you, as soon as you shall have received this Despatch, to address a protest to that Government, conceived in the most decorous, but at the same time energetic and positive terms, against the above principle, specifying that His Most Faithful Majesty's hopes that the Government of His Most Christian Majesty will desist from it, since it cannot escape his penetration how incalculable would be the result of a War which would terminate by setting all Europe in a blaze.

But if the hopes of His Most Faithful Majesty be disappointed, and the French Army enter the Spanish Territory, your Excellency has orders to withdraw immediately from that Kingdom, in order to make it known to the whole World that the Portuguese Nation and its August Chief hold in abhorrence principles as contrary to the safety of Governments, as they are destructive to the tranquillity of Nations.

His Majesty, however, not wishing to contribute by any positive act to the disasters of the fresh combustion which is about to blaze throughout Europe, unless the safety of the Nation should be directly compromised, does not wish to interrupt the commercial relations existing between the two Nations.

Consequently, even in the event of the Diplomatick relations being suspended between the two Courts, M. de Lesseps may remain here, notwithstanding, in quality of Consul-General; the other French Consuls will also remain at their respective Posts, as long as that Government does not order them to suspend the relations of commerce, or does not oblige them to adopt measures which will place His Majesty's

Government under the disagreeable necessity of embracing the cause of Spain.

So long as the principle declared by His Most Christian Majesty is not put into execution, His Majesty will confine himself to a simple protest against it, in His Royal name, and that of the Nation: but in case of the aggression taking place, His Majesty orders you immediately to demand your Passports, and to quit the Kingdom with all your Mission, bringing with you the Archives of the Legation, and forwarding orders to the different Consuls to continue to exercise their functions until they receive the further Commands of His Majesty. SILVESTRE PINHEIRO FERREIRA.

M. Juan Ferreira da Costa Sampayo.

(2). The Portuguese Minister to the Chargé d'Affaires of France. (Translation.) Lisbon, 20th April, 1823.

Ir being ascertained that a French Army has entered the Spanish Territory, with the intention of assisting the Bands of Factious, who, being scattered over the Peninsula, have spread the horrors of Civil War throughout its whole extent; and the Chargé d'Affaires of Portugal having, in consequence, necessarily ceased from the exercise of his functions at the Court of Paris, in conformity with the eventual instructions transmitted to him to that effect, the Undersigned, &c. has received His Majesty's Orders to signify to M. le Chevalier Lesseps, &c. that for the reasons above set forth, he can no longer continue his Diplomatick Functions at this Court. As, however, His Majesty, at the same time that he has ordered all relations to cease between Portugal and France, during these circumstances, except such as are purely commercial, between the subjects of both Nations, has directed that the Portuguese Consuls in France should continue, for the benefit of mutual commerce, in the exercise of their employments, so long as they shall not receive orders to the contrary, or as they shall not be prevented therefrom by the Government of the Country; he has been likewise pleased to cause it to be declared to M. le Chevalier Lesseps, that, inasmuch as he is also invested with the character of Consul-General of the French Nation in this Kingdom, he is at liberty to continue therein, and to exercise his functions in that capacity.

The Undersigned, having thus fulfilled the painful duty of making to the Chargé d'Affaires of the French Government this communication, as commanded by His Majesty, renews, &c.

SILVESTRF PINHEIRO FERREIRA.

The Chevr, de Lesseps.

1034 SPAIN AND AUSTRIA, FRANCE, RUSSIA, AND PRUSSIA.

DECREE of the Cortes of Spain, relative to the Trade of Foreign Nations, with Spain and its Colonies.

31st January, 1823.

(Translation.)

THE Extraordinary Cortes, in virtue of the power vested in them by the Constitution, have decreed,

ART. I. That the Government is hereby authorized to suspend, while it shall think advisable, the admission into the Peninsula and adjacent Islands, of the Foreign Vesseis and effects belonging to those Nations which shall interrupt their friendly Relations with Spain and its Constitutional Government.

II. That the Government is hereby authorized, likewise, to deprive of the benefit of the Decree of the 27th January, 1822, relative to the Commerce of the Island of Cuba, the Vessels and effects belonging to the Nations indicated in the preceding Article, limiting in such case the said benefit solely to those Nations which the Government shall think proper; in the same manner as has been done with respect to all the ultramarine Provinces by the Decree of the 9th instant.

III. The provisions of the preceding Articles shall be immediately made known to all the Envoys and Consuls of Spain in Foreign Countries, in order that the Resolution of the Nation may be made publick; and publicity shall likewise be given to the use which the Government shall make of these faculties, with respect to those Nations which interrupt the just Relations of Amity which Spain endeavours to maintain with all. XAVIER DE ISTURIZ, President.

DECREES of the King of Spain, prohibiting the Commerce of Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia, with Spain and its Colonies.-March, 1823. (Translation.)

(1.)-Decree. Trade with Spanish Colonies, 5th March, 1823.

DON FERDINAND the 7th, by the Grace of God, and by the Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy, King of the Spains, to all to whom these presents shall come:

The Extraordinary Cortes have decreed:

[Here follows the preceding Decree of 31st January, 1823.] We therefore order all the Tribunals, Justices, Chiefs, Governors, and other Authorities, Civil, Military, and Ecclesiastic, of whatever class and dignity, to observe and cause to be observed, fulfilled and executed, the present Decree; it being well understood that, exercising for the present only the authority granted to my Government in the 2d Article of the above Decree, the Vessels and effects belonging to France, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, shall be deprived of the benefits

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