the Cortes of Lisbon, from whom it would be absurd to expect just measures suited to the situation of Brazil, or tending to the real welfare of the whole Portuguese nation. I should be ungrateful to the Brazilians-I should be false to my promises, and unworthy the name of Prince Royal of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil, and Algarves, if I had acted otherwise. But I protest before God, and in the face of all friendly and allied nations, that I by no means wish to separate the bonds of unity and fraternity, which are calculated to render the Portuguese nation one single political and well-organized whole. I also protest, that, saving the due and just union of all the parts of the monarchy under one single sovereign, as supreme chief of the executive power of the whole nation, I will defend the lawful rights and future constitution of Brazil (which I hope will be good and prudent) with all my power, and even at the expense of my blood, if such should be necessary. I have explained with sincerity and conciseness to the governments and nations to whom I have addressed this manifesto, the causes of the final resolution of the people of this kingdom. If king Don Joam VI., my august father, were now in Brazil enjoying his liberty and lawful authority, he would doubtless concur in the wishes of this loyal and generous people; and the immortal founder of this kingdom, who, in February, 1821, convoked Brazilian Cortes at Rio de Janeiro, would not fail to con voke them in the same manner as I now do. But our king being a prisoner and a captive, it behoves me to rescue him from the degraded situation to which he is reduced by the factious of Lisbon-it is my duty, as his delegate and heir, to save not only Brazil, but the whole Portuguese nation. My firm resolution, and that of the two nations which I govern, being lawfully promulgated, I hope that sensible and impartial men, all over the world, and that the governments and nations friendly to Brazil, will render justice to such honest and noble sentiments. I invite them to continue to maintain relations of mutual interest and amity. I shall be ready to receive their ministers and diplomatic agents, and to send them mine, so long as the king, my august father, shall remain in captivity. The ports of Brazil shall continue open to all pacific and friendly nations, for lawful trade not prohibited by the laws. European colonists who emigrate hither, may rely on being protected in this rich and hospitable country. Philosophers, artists, capitalists, and speculators, will also experience a friendly reception. And as Brazil will respect the rights of other legitimate governments, she hopes, as a just return, that her unalienable rights will be by them respected and acknowledged, and that she may not, in the opposite case, be placed under the painful necessity of acting contrary to the dictates of her generous heart. PRINCE REGENT. Palace of Rio de Janeiro, Aug. 6, 1822. HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. MEMOIR of the Marquis of LONDONDERRY. OBERT STEWART,second marquis of Londonderry, was born at the mansion of his ancestors, Mount-stewart, in the county of Down, on the 18th of June, in the year 1769. He was the eldest son of Robert, the first marquis of Londonderry; and the lady Sarah Francis Seymour, sister to the late marquis of Hertford. Robert, the first marquis, had represented the county of Down, in the Irish parliament, during many successive sessions -until the year 1789, when he was promoted to the peerage by the title of baron Londonderry. He was advanced to the degree of viscount, in 1795; and finally raised to the rank of marquis, in 1816. He was twice married. The subject of this memoir was the only child of his first marriage, who arrived at full age; but by his second marriage (with Frances Pratt, daughter of the great lord Camden), he had eleven children; of whom survive, the present marquis and five others. The family of Stewart, of Mountstewart, was a junior branch of the illustrious house of Lenox, and removed to Ireland in the great emigration from Scotland, promoted by James the first. Robert, the second marquis, reecived his carly education at the free grammar school of Armagh, over which Mr. (afterwards archdeacon) Hurrock presided with some reputation. Of the future minister's literary rank at Armagh, or at St. John's-college, Cambridge, to which he removed in 1786, nothing has been told. It is therefore probable, that much could not be found of which to boast; for his age is an assurance that many of the companions of his youth must survive-and his rank and power afford a pledge, that no opportunity of flattery would have been neglected. But, though no testimonials of his early intellectual superiority are to be found, an interesting example of the ardour of friendship and cool contempt of danger, which remained through life, the most prominent traits of the marquis Londonderry's character, is related of his youth upon such evidence as it is impossible to question. While enjoying the amusement of a boating excursion upon Lough Coyne, accompanied by his tutor only, Mr. Stewart was, by a sudden squall which upset their skiff, plunged into the lake with his companion, at a distance from the shore of more than a mile. Himself an expert and fearless swimmer, he could with little difficulty have reached a secure resting place, notwithstanding the roughness of the water; but his friend being unable to swim, must have perished, had not the brave and affectionate youth promptly resolved to attempt his preservation by the most perilous succour which one man can render to another. By exertions which it is difficult to conceive, he brought him within call of the shore, but did not resign his task until both were taken in a state of complete exhaustion, into a boat hastily pushed by some peasants from the beach, in consequence of their cries. The promotion of his father to the peerage, in 1789, created a vacancy in the representation of the county of Down, of which Mr. Stewart, though under age, availed himself to seek a seat in parliament. He succeeded, though not without a severe contest and a sacrifice, as it is said, of 30,000l. with some abandonment of the political principles of his family. Such, however, was the state of politics in Ireland, at the period of Mr. Stewart's entrance upon public life, that it is unnecessary to offer his youth in extenuation of the desertion of the pledge to support parliamentary reform, which he gave upon the hustings at Downpatrick, in 1789, and on some subsequent occasions at Belfast ; or to explain that pledge as sufficiently redeemed by the extension of the elective franchise to half a million of Catholic cottagers. The provisional arrangement between the British and Irish parliaments, in 1782, was anything but a final adjustment. The fanciful scheme of two federal legislatures, mutually independent, but not co-ordinate, was perfectly repugnant in practice; and the practical demonstration afforded by the regency question, must have proved to every man not blinded by faction or personal interest, that in the stipulations of 1782, were sown the seeds of absolute separation or a legislative union. One expedient, indeed, promised to secure the dependency of Ireland, at least for a season, and it did not escape the penetration of Mr. Pitt. The revolution of 1782, had been effected by the Protestant population, acting under the direction of the landed aristocracy. The Catholics, the majority of the nation, excluded by law from political power, and by poverty divested of political influence, were, by the constitution of 1782 (Yelverton's act), expressly excepted from any share in the advantages of the recovered national independence. The sagacious but unscrupulous British minister, saw the power which this anomaly placed in his hands. By raising the Catholics to the level of the Protestants, a measure recommended by its abstract justice and plausible generosity, he, in the first place, would create an interest to balance the power of the Protestant aristocracy, and more Protestant corporations, which had wrested the commercial sceptre from England, and more than once embarrassed his own government, by high pretensions and extravagant stipulations-and, in the second place, by multiplying the candidates for court favour, Catholic emancipation would extend the sphere of influenceand, lastly, in the event of his liberal proposition failing, the dissention which its agitation must create, would render much more easy the government of force, and compel the kingdom, as in effect it did compel it, to embrace his darling scheme of Union. Lord Charlemont, Mr. Barry, Mr. Ogle, Mr. Brownlow, and the great majority of the authors of the revolution of 1782, were as zealous in the cause of parliamentary reform, as they were averse from the emancipation of their Catholic countrymen ; and it scarcely needed the terrors of the French revolution, to detach these statesmen and the vast majority of the Irish gentry who thought with them, from the cause of reform, after the act of 1793, by conferring the elective franchise on Catholics, had made that measure an inevitable step to a complete Catholic ascendancy. It is therefore clear, that independently of the effect of the French revolution which determined such men as earl Fitzwilliam, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Windham, to retrace their efforts in the cause of reform, there arose in Ireland between 1792 and 1794, ample motives for viewing this great question in a new light. Mr. Stewart was not long in Ireland a silent senator, his maiden speech has not been preserved, but it is said to have obtained the approbation of lord Charlemont, a man of profound judgment and exquisite taste. During the three or four first years of his parliamentary career, he voted with the Opposition, but it was with the aristocratic Opposition; and his speeches were qualified by the dignity of the party to which he more particularly adhered, and by the natural gentleness of his temper. They do not, therefore, accord well with the spirit of most of the harangues of the Irish Opposition leaders during the same period. The excited ambition of the Catholics, acted upon by the conta gion of the French revolution, raised, in 1794, an enemy much more formidable to the Irish gentry than the supremacy of English councils, of which they had lately been jealous, and the ranks of Opposition were suddenly and extensively deserted. Among others, Mr. Stewart passed to the side of the government. The mission of earl Fitzwilliam to Ireland, in 1795, and his recall in a few months afterwards, exasperated still more the fears of the Protestants, and the resentment of the Catholics. At this time we find lord Charlemont acknowledging the amiable qualities of Mr. Stewart, and lamenting his devotion to the principles of Mr. Pitt,* to which he adhered during the remainder of his life, with a firmness and consistency, such as few public men can boast of, with regard to principles taken up at the age of twenty-five years. In October, 1795, Mr. Stewart as a member of the British parliament, seconded the address to the throne in a speech, which, in respect to his high reputation, was thought a grievous failure. The inexplicable mission of earl Fitzwilliam, was terminated by his equally inexplicable recall on the last day of March, 1795. The new viceroy, earl Camden, wisely determined against agitating the country by any violent change of system, resolved to consummate as far as he was permitted, all the more moderate measures com "I have seen Robert, and can give him but little comfort as to his Hardy's Lord Charlemont, ii, 351. menced by his predecessor; farther privileges were extended to the Catholics, and all the moderate Oppositionists were solicited to give their support to the administration. The earl of Charlemont, the patriarch of Irish freedom, was all but gained by the courtesy and apparent good disposition of the lord lieutenant, and it is not surprising that his sister's husband, lord Londonderry, and that nobleman's son, openly joined earl Camden's administration. When the lord lieutenant met the parliament in 1796, the Opposition was, to borrow Mr. Hardy's phrase,* "shrunk within a very narrow stream, its numbers seldom consisting of more than sixteen." The last effort in favour of parliamentary reform in the Irish parliament, was a motion by Mr. (afterwards lord) Ponsonby, shortly before the dissolution in 1797. The motion was of course rejected, and the opposition declined exposing their weakness by a division. Mr. Stewart, now, by his father's promotion, lord Castlereagh, was again returned for the county of Down, and continued to support the measures of the government; but the task had become light, Mr. Grattan and the more ardent oppositionists having, in imitation of the English whigs, seceded from parliament. During the year 1797, lord Castlereagh, in the occasional absence of Mr. Pelham (now lord Chichester), frequently discharged provisionally, the duties of chief secretary; and in the commencement of 1798, upon Mr. Pelham's retirement, he was placed in abso • Life of lord Charlemont, ii, 364. lute possession of the office. It is but justice to the memory of the minister, whose career is hastily sketched here, to observe, that his acceptance of office was three years subsequent to the time when we find lord Charlemont regretting his adoption of the opinions of Mr. Pitt: it is impossible, therefore, to imagine any connection between the dereliction of his early opinion, and his promotion to the station of a minister. The session of parliament which opened on the 15th of January, 1798, was, on many accounts, the most important in the history of Ireland, save that in which the national legislature was extinguished; but it was not very remarkable from the questions agitated. Mr. Plunkett (now attorneygeneral for Ireland), who had but just entered parliament, assumed the station of Opposition leader abdicated by Mr. Grattan, but without rivaling his talents or his violence. Not absolutely justifying the rebellion as the latter had done upon more than one occasion, he urged the necessity of concession to the insurgents: to a suggestion of this nature on the 5th of March, lord Castlereagh replied in a sentence, which, with the most explicit candour, described the policy of the government, "The United Irishmen," he said, in open rebellion, and therefore only to be met by force." are The scenes which followed during that disastrous year, presented but too faithful a commentary upon this text. They are such as the friend of mankind would willingly pass unmarked; but the activity of slander renders absolute silence upon this topic, |