CHAPTER III.

THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE.

1830-1838.

Affairs in Greece, Italy, Germany, and Poland-Tyranny of Dom Miguel in Portugal-Satisfaction obtained by England and France -Dom Pedro's descent on Portugal-He is aided by English Volunteers Death of Ferdinand of Spain-Combination of the two Pretenders-The Quadruple Treaty-Its immediate successCoolness between England and France-Its effect on Spanish politics-The Spanish Legion-End of the Carlist war.

DURING the first years of his reign at the Foreign. Office the affairs of Belgium appear to have absorbed Palmerston's attention almost entirely. He played only a subordinate part in the negotiations which seemed for the time being to have brought the Greek troubles to a close, when in February 1833 Prince Otho of Bavaria was sent by the Powers to rule over the Hellenes, with a guaranteed loan and a considerably better frontier than that which had been offered to Leopold of SaxeCoburg. His comments, however, show a just appreciation of the worth of the settlement; the new frontier was beautiful," but he saw that the choice of a youth of eighteen to govern the distracted kingdom was to be deplored. In a similar spirit he contented himself with a mere expression of adverse opinion.

when Austria proposed to tighten her hold on Italy through the device of a confederation under her protection, and when Metternich endeavoured to persuade the Diet of Frankfort to compel the minor potentates of Germany to abrogate the free constitutions which had been granted under stress of popular discontent. With regard to the rebellion in Poland, he maintained an attitude of almost ostentatious indifference, taking his stand on the ground that the Treaty of Vienna must be maintained. This appeal to a treaty which he was doing his best to convert into a dead letter, as far as Belgium was concerned, had in it not a little inconsistency; the real fact was that the British Government had no ships to send into the Baltic, and was too prudent to threaten intervention, even in concert with France, when unable to follow up its words by deeds. "God is too high,' runs a Polish proverb, "and Poland too far.' The Foreign Secretary ventured, indeed, when the gallant resistance of the Poles had been finally crushed, to try to obtain a little relaxation of their punishment, by appealing again to the Viennese compact. Under that treaty it had been declared that Poland should be attached to Russia by its constitution. It was fair, therefore, urged Palmerston, to consider that the Polish constitution existed under the sanction of the treaty. "Not in the least, was the upshot of the curt reply of the Russian minister, Count Nesselrode, "the constitution was not at all a consequence of the treaty, but a spontaneous act of the sovereign power of the Czar; it had been annulled by the fact of the rebellion." After a final remonstrance, sent through Lord Durham, who was then on a special mission to St. Petersburg, Palmerston ceased to press for better terms for the conquered race. It is difficult to see what more

he could have done, and the most bitter of critics must acknowledge that his action was at any rate straightforward. He did not, as did the French ministry, encourage the Poles during the brief hour of their success, and desert them in their despair.

While defending his Polish policy in a somewhat angry House of Commons, Palmerston pointed out that no effectual aid could be given to the insurgents without involving Europe in a general war, in which the Poles would have been crushed by the joint forces of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, long before aid could reach them from the west. There was, however, a quarter of Europe where English intervention could be employed with effect, and upon it Palmerston, the Belgian affair being practically settled, proceeded to focus his attention, waiting for an opportunity to strike. This was the Peninsula, where anarchy was rapidly gaining the upper hand, with the usual results that foreigners were being maltreated, and satisfaction was difficult to obtain. In Portugal, Dom Miguel had rapidly become unendurable. His officers imprisoned and ill-treated British subjects, and his captains seized British vessels. At first, what Palmerston termed a peremptory demand for immediate and full redress," was sufficient. The offending officials and captains were dismissed, and full compensation was paid to the victims of Miguel's tyranny and inefficiency. When, however, the French Government made similar demands, Miguel had the effrontery to ask for English protection, and to refer the French to England for satisfaction. Though Lord Palmerston sternly informed him that the British Government was not bound by its treaties with Portugal to "blindly take up a quarrel into which a Portuguese administration might, by its infatuation, plunge its country," he remained firm

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in his obstinacy, with the result that a French squadron was despatched to the Tagus, which captured his vessels one by one, and finally took the whole of the Portuguese fleet without firing a shot.

The Tory party, as usual, was highly indignant at these French successes, but, as Palmerston subsequently pointed out, it would have been absurd for England to exact reparation on her own account, and at the same time to prevent France, on her side, from obtaining redress. And the value of the good understanding with France became even more clearly evident when, on the arrival of Dom Pedro of Brazil in Europe to support the forlorn fortunes of his daughter, Dom Miguel had recourse to a fresh reign of terror, which filled the Lisbon gaols with more than a thousand additional victims. Of course, Englishmen and Frenchmen were soon involved in this wholesale persecution, and English naval officers were beaten in the streets of Lisbon. Acting in concert with his French colleague, Captain Markland, the commander of the British squadron in the Tagus, immediately sent ships up the river to protect British residents, and Palmerston, thoroughly endorsing his conduct, sent two men-of-war to his support. During the civil war which followed it was, as Peel pointed out in a spirit of censure, the "actual assistance of France and the countenance of Britain," which enabled the cause of Dom Pedro to hold its own, and ultimately to prevail. Vessels were fitted out in French and English ports without any opposition from the authorities; there was a large contingent of English volunteers in the army with which Pedro entered Oporto; it was an Englishman, Captain Charles Napier, who commanded his fleet when, on July 2nd, 1833, it annihilated Miguel's navy off Cape St. Vincent, "to the great delight," wrote

Greville," of the Whigs, and equal mortification of the Tories." A month before the Duke of Wellington had carried, in a sense condemnatory of the Government, an address in the House of Lords in favour of a policy of neutrality, which was met in the House of Commons by a resolution approving Palmerston's conduct of affairs. Speaking to the nation, Palmerston, as in duty bound, contended, with some plausibility, that the British Government had acted with perfect good faith to both of the belligerent parties. His supporters made little attempt to conceal their satisfaction at the wholesale breaches of the Foreign Enlistment Act committed by English volunteers when they joined Donna Maria's army and saved constitutionalism in Portugal.

For the moment it seemed as if Napier's victory had ruined Dom Miguel's fortunes, but when all seemed lost his cause received considerable reinforcement through the raising of the Carlist banner in Spain. On the 29th of September 1833, Ferdinand VII., the most worthless of an indifferent race, died, leaving behind. him two little daughters by his fourth wife, Christina, whom on his death-bed he had appointed Regent. Upon Spain was immediately inflicted a succession question precisely similar to that which was ruining Portugal. By the Pragmatic Sanction, or edict, of 1713, the succession of females had been limited, through a modification of the Salic law, to cases in which there was no direct or collateral male issue, and during the earlier years of Ferdinand's reign the heir to the throne had been his brother Don Carlos, in whom were centred the hopes of the Ultra-Absolutists and Clericalists. Shortly after his fourth marriage, however, Ferdinand issued a new Pragmatic Sanction repealing that of 1713, and restoring the old Castilian custom under which females