not be expected to exclude them for ever from power; their turn may come; but to replace them just now would be to irritate and provoke a large portion of the country. With those assurances in your hand, you may be well entitled to urge the Junta to lay down their arms and submit to the Queen's authority. Of course they would say, the assurances given may be satisfactory as to the nation, but what is to become of us as individuals, and how are we to be secured?

The general basis of the conditions should, I think, be amnesty for the mass of the insurgents; precautions as to some of the chiefs and leaders. That security was wisely and liberally stated in Saldanha's Articles to consist in their temporary retirement from Portugal; the military so retiring to have halfpay for their support. For the civilians no provision was proposed by Saldanha, because, I presume, he concluded that most of them had means of their own; and I infer and take for granted, that no confiscations or sequestrations of property are thought of. The difficulty, and it is one which we in this country have no personal knowledge which would enable us to solve, is, how far these voluntary and temporary banishments are to go. There may be a certain number of men whom it would be better for their own sakes and for the peace of the country for a short time to remove from Portugal. But if the list is made large, and I think Saldanha's Articles make it much too comprehensive, the Queen will lose the services of many men who, though they have been opposed to her Government and Ministers on the present occasion, might, when the contest is over, become very useful servants of the Crown; and it must also be remembered that if all the leading men of the Liberal party are to be compelled to leave the country, though only for a time, the conduct of affairs must necessarily fall into the hands of the opposite set of men, who have been clearly proved to be hateful to a large portion of the nation; and that is not the way to restore contentment in the country.

Sir Hamilton Seymour had now succeeded Lord Howard as English Minister at Lisbon.

Carlton Gardens: Feb. 5, 1847.

My dear Seymour,-The Queen should remember that unless she shows herself to be the sovereign of the whole nation, she cannot expect the whole nation to regard and love her as their sovereign; and that a throne whose stability rests on the point of the bayonet has a very ticklish and uncertain basis.

BANEFUL INFLUENCE OF DIEZ.

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Pray preach all these things, and such others as may occur to you in the same spirit; and make the Court and the Government clearly and distinctly understand that they must expect no support from England to help them to continue a system of misgovernment; and that England will take care that no support for that purpose is given them by Spain.

Foreign Office: Feb. 17, 1847.

Moncorvo has written for full powers to conclude some fresh engagement, if necessary, in the event of Don Miguel's returning to Portugal; but pray warn the Court against giving in to the delusion that they will by such means obtain aid against the Junta and the Liberal party; we shall take uncommon good care to prevent that. If the Queen fears Don Miguel, she must make haste to make up matters with the Junta, and to be able to unite all the parties who are for constitutional government in a compact band against the adherents of Don Miguel. If Portugal is to be governed despotically and by sword and bayonet, a man is as good as a woman for such purpose, and it matters little whether the despot is called by one Christian name or another. Pray make this very civilly to be understood by the King and Queen; and endeavour also to explain to them in courtly terms that the sending off the Torres Vedras prisoners to the coast of Africa' has done the Queen irreparable injury in public opinion here; and if it turns out that they are sent to a milder destination, you may observe how unfortunate it is that the Queen should have incurred unnecessarily the odium of a severity which she did not mean to inflict.

I hope and trust that Diez will be shipped off too; but the evil that men do lives after them,' and the mischief done by Diez will continue to be felt long after he has re-crossed the Bay of Biscay. It will be something gained, however, not to have such an evil counsellor always at the Royal ear; and better advisers will have more chance of swaying decisions upon new events as they arise.

I am inclined to think that Miguel has no intention at present of going to Portugal, and that he will not do so until, and unless, there is a considerable force in the field under his banners. He came overland from Italy as servant to a Captain Bennett, and arrived here on the 2nd inst. from Calais.

They had capitulated on honourable terms, but were shipped off to Angola.

Foreign Office: Feb. 26, 1847.

I wish you to press in the strongest manner upon the Queen and King, and on any of the people about them who may be worth talking to, that it becomes every day more and more absolutely necessary for them to make overtures to the Junta, and to come to some amicable settlement, so as to put an end to the civil war. Tell them plainly that if they speculate upon a Miguelite insurrection, to bring in foreign troops to put down the Junta, they deceive themselves. We shall take good care that any measures to be adopted against Miguel, if he should return to Portugal, which he will probably not do, shall not be perverted into an interference between the Camarilla and Junta, between whom in reality the civil war is waged.

Tell them as to our guaranteeing a loan, they might as well ask us to give them a slice of the moon.

The only way in which the Queen can make herself strong against Miguel is by rallying again round her that portion of her subjects by whose exertions, devotion, and sacrifices she was placed upon the throne; but if the Constitution on which she rode in triumph is to be abrogated, and despotism is to be set up in its stead, such of the Portuguese who are for despotism will naturally say that it is Miguel, and not Maria, who is best entitled to be their despotic sovereign.

In the following Memorandum, Lord Palmerston puts on record the views which were afterwards embodied in the formal Convention of May, made between England, France, Spain and Portugal:

Carlton Gardens: March 25, 1847.

I entirely concur in the view taken by Lord John Russell, of the nature of the present state of affairs in Portugal, and of the bearing of the letter and spirit of the Quadruple Treaty upon that state of things; and I am decidedly of opinion with him, that 'there is at present no case for interference, either by the letter or the spirit of the Quadruple Treaty.'

But it may be argued, by those who ask for interference, that there may be ground for such interference, independently of that treaty, upon general principles of policy, and not in virtue of any anterior engagements. The Quadruple Treaty itself was, it may be said, the record of a determination taken upon general grounds of policy, and was not the fulfilment of

INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS IN CIVIL WAR.

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any anterior engagement; and the question may be asked, is there now a sufficient reason for interfering by force of arms in the civil war in Portugal, on grounds of general policy, and without reference to any anterior engagements?

It is acknowledged by writers on the Law of Nations that, when civil war has been regularly established in any country, and when the nation has been divided into two contending armies, and has been marshalled in two opposing camps, foreign States may treat the conflicting parties in the same manner as if they were two separate nations; and may allowably side with one or the other party in the civil war, as they would with one or the other belligerent in a war between two independent nations. The right to do so is acknowledged to exist in all such cases; the expediency of doing so must depend on the circumstances of each particular case.

The decision of any third party in such a case must depend upon the answer which it could give to two questions-First, Is the cause of the party whose side we think of taking, a just one? Secondly, Is it for our interest to give that just cause active assistance?

Now, in the case of a civil war which originates in a disputed succession, both of these questions may generally be answered without difficulty, either one way or the other. The Government of a foreign State may easily make up its mind as to which party is right in regard to a disputed succession, because the facts upon which the decision is to turn are known as well out of the country where the dispute exists as in it; and the interest which such foreign Government may have in the matter can be easily appreciated. Such was the case out of which the Quadruple Treaty arose. The civil war arose out of a disputed succession in Portugal and in Spain; and the interest which England had in the matter was a matter of comparatively plain and simple calculation.

But it is different when a civil war arises out of a contest between political parties in a country, who differ in regard to principles and forms of government, and who, without pretending to change the reigning dynasty, stand up for different systems of internal organisation.

It is more difficult, in such a case, for the Government of another country to pronounce with certainty that either party in such a civil war is absolutely in the right; and when the struggle for conflicting systems of government is mixed up with mutual accusations of illegal or unconstitutional proceedings,

the task of judging between them is rendered still more difficult. In such a case, too, it is far less easy to answer the second of the above-mentioned questions, even after having formed an opinion on the first; for, supposing the right to be pretty clearly on one side or the other, there are a vast number of considerations to be taken into account before a foreign Government could decidedly determine that it was for its well-understood interests to interfere by force of arms. But this is the present case of Portugal; and there would be much difficulty for the English Government to answer the two foregoing questions affirmatively in favour of the Queen of Portugal. At the same time, England has a great interest in the welfare of Portugal as a State; and the present course of events seems likely to ruin Portugal for a long time to come as a European Power.

Is there, then, any way open for England by which, without violating principles on which her foreign policy has always been founded, and without taking steps which would make enemies of the majority of the Portuguese nation, she might speedily put an end to this disastrous war?

But

England has offered the Queen of Portugal mediation between her Government and the Junta; the offer has been declined, because Marshal Saldanha does not choose the war to end by negotiation and reconcilement, and because he insists upon it that what is plainly the minority of the nation shall, by aid of a Spanish force, be enabled to crush the majority. such an end would not be lasting; the defeated majority would wait their opportunity, and, whenever a party sympathising with them should rise to power in Spain, they would again try the fate of arms in Portugal. Saldanha's plan is, therefore, objectionable in policy, as well as in principle.

But might not the English Government renew its offer; but giving to its offer the character of arbitration rather than of mediation? Might some such communication as the following be made to the Queen ?-The course you are following is fatal, end as it may; for it is evident that it will not end in your Majesty's triumph over the Junta and their adherents, by your own means. England is your ancient ally, and is bound to come to your aid in times of difficulty and danger. She is ready to do so now; but you must allow her to prescribe for Portugal such remedies as her disorders require. We demand, therefore, of you carte blanche as to the offers which we require you to authorise us to make in your name to your revolted subjects. These offers, however, we intend to be generally these: General