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AP

4 B63

ON THE 14TH OF JANUARY WILL BE PUBLISHED,

IN A NEAT POCKET VOLUME,

PRACTICAL NOTES

MADE DURING

A TOUR IN CANADA,

AND A PORTION OF THE

UNITED STATES,

IN 1831.

BY

ADAM FERGUSSON, Esq. of WOODHILL, ADVOCATE.

DEDICATED, BY PERMISSION,

TO

THE DIRECTORS OF THE

HIGHLAND SOCIETY OF SCOTLAND.

"VIDI."

PRINTED FOR WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH; T.CADELL, LONDON ;

AND W. CURRY, JUN. & Co. Dublin.

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THE state of our relations with Portugal has become so anxious, so much perplexed by contending factions, and likely to involve this nation in such embarrassing consequences, that we believe we shall gratify our readers by a general and fair outline of the question. In this matter we take no side. The competitors for the Portuguese throne are equally indifferent to us, the errors or crimes of the parties are not within our estimate. We have no intention of involving our readers in the mazes of Portuguese law; and as little of entangling ourselves in the web of Portuguese partisanship. Dom Miguel and Dom Pedro are to us the same. Yet we may deeply regret the circumstances, whether arising from chance, caprice, or necessity, which have placed England in all but a direct position of war with so old, so faithful, and so important an ally as Portugal.

classes of the various professions, the disbanded officers, and a few nobles speculating on the prizes of revolution. Both parties were powerful; but the party of the ancient institutions was distinguished chiefly for its passive strength. The party of change rested its hope of success on its restless appeal to popular passion, its activity in taking advantage of public reverses, and, above all, in the living and inexhaustible Jacobinism of France. But, for the purpose of accuracy, we must go a little higher.

In 1807, the King and royal family of Portugal sailed for the Brazils. Portugal had been for the last half century an object of French and Spanish intrigue, and the project of abandoning the uneasy sceptre of the House of Braganza in Europe, for the noble, secure, and flourishing empire of Portuguese America, was The state of the Peninsula, since more than once conceived. There the close of the French war, has was a strong temptation in thus rebeen marked by perpetual disturb-establishing the Portuguese name in ance. Hating the French as masters, a large portion of the Spanish and Portuguese population eagerly adopted them as teachers. The strength of public loyalty was in the proprietors of land, the nobles, gentry, and peasantry. The strength of disaffection was in the petty traders of the towns, the minor and unemployed

VOL. XXXIII. NO. CCIII.

one of the most extensive dominions in the world, a territory equal to the entire of Europe, and still more powerful by its extraordinary capabilities, its forests of rich woods, its inexhaustible fertility, its singular salubrity, its fortunate position for commerce in the centre of the New World with the Trade Winds blow

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