pression which prejudiced persons will probably attempt to create, and, on the other, expose the real motives which induced these two Ministers to take advantage of so weak a pretext for quitting their posts, without awaiting the Instructions or Orders from their respective Courts. If the Government had required of them to illuminate, contrary to their own private wishes, or if, leaving it to their own option either to illu-' minate or not, it had given them reason to apprehend that no precautions would be taken to guard their houses from insult, should they refuse compliance with the public opinion, they certainly would have had just reason to withdraw, and in so doing they would have acted consistently with their manner of thinking.

But, confining itself solely to the maintenance of the universal principle, that, in cases of general illumination, the Foreign Ministers are supposed to illuminate, from a duty of civility and respect towards the Government and Nation, no less than from motives of prudence, in order to prevent any interruption of the public tranquillity, (without exacting from those Foreign Ministers that they should conform to this rule, but, on the contrary, assuring them in the most positive manner, that the Government would, in either case, put in force all suitable precautions for their protection), the Ministry may observe, that persons so circumspect as the two Ministers abovementioned, ought not, in consequence of a panic terror, to have taken a step, which is usually the result only of long discussions, and the abandonment of all hope of preserving peace and harmony between two Countries;—a step, I repeat, which ought alone to be adopted in consequence of positive orders, or after the commission, not from the remote apprehension, of some grave offence against the respective Government, the precursor of an immediate suspension of amicable relations.

The scrupulous care with which this Court has always endeavoured to preserve with all Governments, the relations of peace, friendship and reciprocal interests, authorizes us to hope that these proceedings on the part of the two above-mentioned Ministers, even though they may have been in compliance with their Instructions, will be productive of no ulterior consequences, capable of disturbing the good intelligence which happily subsists with the States which they represent.

With this impression, His Majesty has been pleased to direct me to recommend to your Excellency, that you should communicate these particulars to the Government at which you reside, and endeavour to convince it of their truth; continuing to assure it how much he has at heart to draw closer those political and commercial relations which are best calculated to consolidate the harmony subsisting between the two Countries. SILVESTRE PINHEIRO FERREIRA. Palace of Queluz, 21st August, 1821.

4

Correspondence inclosed in the preceding Circular.

(1.) The Austrian Consul-General to the Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs.

(Translation.)

Lisbon, 29th April, 1821. NOTWITHSTANDING the most positive assurances which your Excellency was pleased to give to me on the 31st of March last, "that my dwelling should be respected, and should continue to enjoy, without the least alteration, all the security which was due to it for so many reasons," the Mob last night attacked the inviolability of my dwelling, by breaking with stones the windows of the house in which I reside.

Being informed, at half past 11 o'clock, by the Serjeant of the 9th Company of the Police Regiment, Joseph Mendes de Almeida, that he could no longer restrain the riotous assemblage, if I did not illuminate my windows, I had recourse to the only means left to me, since the protection upon which I had relied was wanting; and accordingly, to avoid more serious insults, I caused lights to be placed in my windows by the same Serjeant.

For the same reason I shall order my house to be illuminated this day and to-morrow.

But in order that I may be enabled to relieve myself from all responsibility towards my August Court, I must request that your Excellency will have the goodness to send me a Passport for the Baron Lewis de Vassimon, as a Courier, for the place of residence of his Highness Prince Metternich-Winnebourg-Ochsenhausen, Minister of State, of the Conferences, and Foreign Affairs, of His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, for the purpose of obtaining the supreme Orders which my August Master shall think it becoming his dignity to direct to be transmitted to me, in consequence of this occurrence, notwithstanding the step which I had already taken, on the 30th of March, in order to prevent it.

This is the only step that, consistent with the discharge of my duties towards my August Court, admits of the postponement of an application for my own Passports of departure.

I have the honour to be, &c.

LOTHAIRE DE BERKS.

H. E. the Commander Anselmo José Braamcamp.

(2).-The Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs to the Austrian Consul-General.

(Translation.)

Palace of the Regency, Lisbon, 30th April, 1821.

THE Undersigned, Secretary to the Regency of the Kingdom for Foreign Affairs, has laid before the said Regency, the Chevalier Lothaire de Berks's Note, bearing the date of yesterday. The subject of it caused the greatest grief to the Regency, not only on account of

the disagreeable event alluded to, but because M. de Berks wishes to consider as an insult, expressly directed to him, that which was the mere effect of popular commotion. The complaint of a want of attention on the part of the Public Authorities, to have due respect paid to the Dwelling of M. de Berks, appears not to be well founded, inasmuch as the Regency, anxiously wishing to maintain the public tranquillity, and to prevent any thing that might cause displeasure to the Agents of Foreign Nations, by providing against the possibility of some popular act that might disturb it, not only ordered the Police to redouble its vigilance on the evenings referred to, but also ordered that, fronting the Residence of every Foreign Agent, a strong Patrol should be posted, specially charged with keeping the said Residences free from insult; which had the desired effect with regard to the Houses of the other Foreign Agents, as none of them suffered the least insult, and that of M. de Berks was exposed to it, only in consequence of the Serjeant of Police having misunderstood his orders; for, instead of remaining stationary at that post, he thought it his duty to patrol the whole street, and, for that reason, when he was at the further extremity of the street in which is the Dwelling of M. de Berks, that disagreeable event took place. The orders were undoubtedly given, and the Commander of the Police executed them, as is proved by his own order of the 28th, already known to M. de Berks; for he showed it to him on the morning of the 29th, when he went spontaneously to offer him satisfaction for what had happened, as well as to declare to him that the said Serjeant of Police was already arrested, in order to be punished as he deserved for his want of attention; by which it is evident that the only Person to blame was the said Serjeant; and that all the other Authorities performed that which the Undersigned had promised to M. de Berks, on the part of the Regency, in his Note of the 31st of March.

Moreover, it is not surprising that, on an occasion of such general and just rejoicing, to the Portuguese Nation, as that of their Monarch's adherence to the cause of that Nation, the People should desire to see all the buildings illuminated, and that some unquiet spirits, in their exultation, should fall into excesses, as it happened not only against the Dwelling of M. de Berks, but also by the breaking of the windows. of other houses, either on account of their not being illuminated, or by reason of their being so only partially: even the windows of the house inhabited by one of the Members of the Regency were broken, in consequence of a window having been accidentally left without illumination. As it is certain that the mob did not intend to insult that Member of the Regency, who on the same day had been received by them with applauses similar to the others, and that the insult was offered to a house which was not illuminated, without knowing who resided in it; it is equally clear that it was not M. de Berks, personally, whom the People intended to insult, as a private individual, much less.

as a Foreign Agent; for the House of M. de Berks could not be distinguished from that of another Person, it not having on the outside of it Arms to make it known as the residence of a Foreign Agent.

From the foregoing statement, the Undersigned trusts that M. de Berks will acknowledge that the Regency, on their part, have done all that was possible to give satisfaction to M. de Berks, and to dissipate his resentment; and, therefore, that M. de Berks will consider this disagreeable event only as the effect of popular enthusiasm, of which there are frequently examples in other Countries, particularly in England, where, on less important occasions, and for slighter causes, the People commit similar offences, and the Foreigners, who accidentally suffer in common with the Natives, do not resent them as personal attacks.

The Undersigned has, however, the honour to enclose to M. de Berks the Passport requested for the Baron de Vassimon, and he hopes that M. de Berks will render justice to the sincere wish of the Regency of the Kingdom, that the political relations which happily subsist with every Nation should be consolidated.

The Undersigned avails himself of this opportunity, &c.

ANSELMO JOSEPH BRAAMCAMP.

The Chevalier Lothaire de Berks.

(3.)—Extract from the Courier, London Newspaper, of Saturday Evening, May 19, 1821.

THE following is an extract from a private Letter:

Lisbon, May 1.

A most outrageous attack was made on the House of the Austrian Chargé d'Affaires, in consequence of his not having put up lights to celebrate the new order of things established at Rio de Janeiro. It was well known beforehand that this was meditated; but the Chevalier, trusting to the assurances of protection given by the Government, on the recent occasion of the breaking of the windows of the Nuncio, followed the line of conduct adopted by all the other Foreign Agents here, and abstained from illuminating. However, so far was the Regency from keeping their word, that not only was every pane of glass in the house shattered, but a most desperate mob, encouraged by some Military Officers, continued to surround the premises from dusk in the evening till a quarter before 12 at night, without the slightest molestation from the Police, who did not dare to interfere, on account of the Officers.

Every species of injurious language was made use of towards the Chevalier and his Royal Master, and several attempts were made to force open the door of the house, in which, if they had succeeded, most probably fatal consequences would have ensued; for the Cheva

lier is a cool and determined man, and a Lisbon mob generally carry kuives.

At the hour above mentioned, the Police insisted on admittance, and they themselves placed lights in the windows, saying "the People must be satisfied, otherwise they could not prevent the house from being sacked."

This conduct towards a Foreign Agent, living under the protection of the Law of Nations, is unheard of, and has rendered the situation of all the Diplomatic Persons here very alarming.

The Government have refused any species of satisfaction, save throwing the blame on a Sergeant of Police.

The affair has created a great sensation, for popular excesses of this nature are unknown in Lisbon.

(4).—The Austrian Consul General to the Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs.

(Translation.)

Lisbon, 20th July, 1821. THE Undersigned, Consul-General of His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, having informed his Court of the grievous insult to which he was exposed in the evening of the 28th April last, as well as of the circumstances which accompanied and followed the attack directed against his privileges, and the injury done to the respect due of his Court, has received orders to address to the Government which resided in Lisbon, at that time, the following representation :

His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, as a very natural consequence of the ties of friendship and relationship happily subsisting between him and His Most Faithful Majesty, was pleased (with the design of cementing, by every possible means, the connexions of intimacy between the two States) to invest his Consul-General in Portugal with a Diplomatic character, although his political relations with His Most Faithful Majesty are delegated to a Mission attached to His August Person.

The Law of Nations establishes the rules according to which Diplomatic Agents are to be treated, and those rules cannot be violated without the most serious reciprocal inconvenience.

An open violation of the most ordinary rules has taken place with respect to the Undersigned. His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty cannot, with any regard to his dignity, allow it to be passed over in silence; the explanations given by the Regency, in consequence of this deplorable event, are not deemed by him as satisfactory, much less to offer a guarantee that similar scenes will not be repeated. The publicity and the nature of the injury necessarily demand an analogous reparation.

The Undersigned has, in consequence, received orders to insist upon a formal reparation, by means of a complete disavowal of the