This Portugal
knows already - or at least some part of it. There was the
administration of Soult in Oporto, so entirely satisfactory to the
people that it was no inconsiderable party was prepared, subject to
the Emperor's consent, to offer him the crown and settle down
peacefully under his rule. There was the administration of Junot
in Lisbon. I ask you: when was Lisbon better governed?
"Contrast, for a moment, with these the present British
administration - for it amounts to an administration. Consider
the burning grievances that must be left behind by this policy of
laying the country waste, of pauperising a million people of all
degrees, driving them homeless from the lands on which they were
born, after compelling them to lend a hand in the destruction of
all that their labour has built up through long years. If any
policy could better serve the purposes of France, I know it not.
The people from here to Beira should be ready to receive the French
with open arms, and to welcome their deliverance from this most
costly and bitter British protection.
"Do you, Messieurs, detect a flaw in these arguments?"
Both shook their heads.
"Bien!" said the major of Portuguese Cacadores. "Then we reach one
or two only possible conclusions: either these rumours of a policy
of devastation which have reached the Prince of Esslingen are as
utterly false as he believes them to be, or - "
"To my cost I know them to be true, as I have already told you,"
Samoval interrupted bitterly.
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