to incur the inevitable expense of these belligerent interventions? We have taken the trouble of extracting from the official Navy List for January, the amount of British force on the Lisbon station, and we find it as follows: 20 Ringdove 16 Maquenne 24 Pembroke 74 10 6 Pearl With the Phoenix, Pluto, Comet, and Salamander steam vesselsin short, 7 sail of the line, 5 frigates or corvettes, 4 brigs, and 4 armed steam ships*. To which, we believe, we may add a couple of battalions of royal marines; and this powerful fleet and its more than proportionate cost-nearly a fourth, we believe, of the whole naval force and expense of the country-is the price we pay for the mortification of seeing the two queens we had crowned, and the two constitutions we had guaranteed, made the puppets and playthings of a mutinous and licentious soldiery. Our limits do not allow us to enter into the deplorable details of our military intervention in the Biscayan contest, which, whatever be its result, has already inflicted indelible discredit on England, and prolonged calamity on Spain. We cannot-who can that knows anything of the question?-who can that reads Lord Carnarvon's able summary of the case?—we cannot be indifferent to the fate of the Basques and Navarrese. We anxiously wish them success in their endeavours to maintain their distinctive rights and national liberties; we feel towards them as our ancestors did towards the Dutch and the Swiss of old, under analogous circumstances; and we grieve that England, forgetful of all her old principles, should be now in league against what in better times would have commanded, at least, our sympathies. This, we confess, is the only point of the whole Peninsular contest in which we feel the slightest interest. Two nations of such lofty pretensions as Spain and Portugal, who have suffered their dearest rights and interests to be decided by a handful of foreigners, can excite in us no feeling but indifference or contempt; and we should not have taken the trouble of writing these lines on the subject, if our government had not contrived to implicate our national reputation in these disgraceful transactions. But while our military character and our political influence are thus lowered, our commercial interests are assuredly not advanced by this course of policy. The government which our costly intervention has forced upon Portugal has shown its gratitude for our efforts and its sense of our influence, by promulgating It is probable that the whole of this force was not in the Tagus at once, but we suppose the line-of-battle ships and frigates were, and the whole force have certainly been employed in this Irish species of non-intervention. a new a new tariff of duties, highly detrimental to British trade, and in direct contravention of all the policy of the two countries since the days of Charles II. We do not say that our fleet should have battered the town of Lisbon because the Portuguese government is mad enough to do such things; but we do say that the fleet ought not to have been employed to create and to maintain that insane government, nor made to be the witnesses of the sacrifice of those interests which it is its proper duty to protect. The Portuguese government would not have dared to issue such a tariff against England-or, at least, would NOT have existed a day after it had been issued-if there had not been a British squadron in the Tagus. The countenance of that squadron gave them courage to injure and insult us. In Belgium and Spain, also, we find that our political meddling tends only to our commercial detriment. Belgium, already a de. partment of France in petto, naturally enough prepares itself for its future destination by giving France every possible advantage over us. In Spain we are told that we are negotiating a commercial treaty with what success for English interests may be prognosticated from a statement which M. Guizot lately made from his ministerial bench in the French Chamber "The French government has never lost sight of the commercial interests of France in Spain; and whenever they seemed to be in any way compromised by this or that particular arrangement between ENGLAND and Spain, we immediately took measures to prevent any such arrangements being realized.'-Speech of M. Guizot, 16th January, 1837. Mr. Villiers may-and welcome-meddle* himself in all the petty personal intrigues of the court and cabinet, but if he attempt to carry any commercial arrangement favourable to England, France tells us fairly that she takes care that it shall not be realized.' We are not amongst those who complain when British diplomatists fail in obtaining what the country with which they are treating feels that it cannot grant with justice to its own interests or engagements; but we are, and have a right to be, offended when we see a British minister, all-powerful in Spanish intrigues, but impotent when he treats for a British object—and impotent, not because Spain herself objects, but because a third power interferes imperiously, and says, I will not permit you to realize any such arrangement.' We complain of a system of intervention which renders Spain a foot-ball between two parties-whose rival interests are not to be discussed on fair inter-national principles *Take, for instance, a paragraph of news from Madrid, 21st January:-Navarez [a general who had lately resigned or been re-called from his command.] on his arrival in Madrid, waited immediately on Mr. Villiers, who has endeavoured to mediate an interview between the dissatisfied general and M. Mendizabal. It is not known whether he has been successful; but it is remarked that the British minister meddles in everything?—Gazette de France, 1st Feb. 1837. -but -but are to be decided by such arguments as- if you don't do this, we will abandon Bilboa,'-or if you do that, we shall open the passes of the Pyrenees.' Such a mode of negotiating, with a pistol at the throat of the unfortunate ally, is not only disgraceful in itself, but is in the highest degree dangerous as a precedent for this species of burglarious interference with national inde pendence. And let us observe the success of this system, compared with the old and legitimate practices of European diplomacy. Russia is supposed to be at the present juncture not over friendly to British trade or British policy-yet Lord Durham has, we are told, concluded a commercial arrangement-advantageous we hope to Russia, but at all events satisfactory to England, at a moment when our belligerent negotiators at Madrid and Lisbon have not merely failed, but have, in the instance of Lisbon, been the attesting witnesses of unprecedented fiscal aggression on British commerce. Nor is it only with great public calamities-a profligate waste of public money—and a neglect of public interests, that our policy is reproachable. We have become the cause or the accomplices of the most lamentable private wrongs. The Duke of Wellington— whose long and glorious connexion with the Peninsula naturally interests him in the details of individual suffering, which to other eyes are lost in the general misfortunes-in reference to the Peninsular policy of His Majesty's ministers, said on the first night of the session : 'He objected to it, not only on account of its expense, but still more so on account of the injury which it inflicted on the parties existing in that country. To his own certain knowledge he could say, that three parties had been ruined in Spain by the intervention of his Majesty's government at different times. Individuals had been ruined, their properties destroyed, their fortunes sacrificed, by the course which his Majesty's government had pursued. Acting under the assurances of his Majesty's government, those individuals adopted a certain line of conduct. The government was obliged finally to go forward with the movement. Those persons were in consequence abandoned, their fortunes were sacrificed, and their prospects blighted for ever.'-Times, 1st Feb., 1837. How just was Vergniaud's description not only of the revolution in which he played a part, but of every revolution, that it was Saturn devouring his own children! Such has been the fate of those Spanish constitutionalists referred to by his grace, who, seduced by the countenance of England to support the Estatuto Real, find themselves sacrificed to the new revolution of La Granja, and are now deploring in exile and poverty their misplaced confidence in British intervention. But the case of the Portuguese refugees is, if we are not misinformed, still more striking. When the queen submitted to the terms terms of her besiegers, and was about to return to her betterfurnished palace and table, the councillors and companions of her flight inquired what was to become of them? They were kindly and discreetly advised to shift for themselves, and fortunately they were able to effect their escape to the British squadron. Our readers will recollect that in a former part of this article we quoted Lord Carnarvon's grateful testimony to the talents, the moderation, and the patriotism of Count Villa Flor, and the kindness of his beautiful and amiable lady. On the Miguellite revolution they thought it prudent to leave Lisbon, and embarked in an English vessel; on the turn of the tide in favour of Pedro, they re-appeared, with the title of Duke and Duchess of Terceira, and were placed at the summit both of political and social influence. Count Palmella, so well-known and respected in England, also created a duke by Pedro, was in similar circumstances. These two men―amiable in every point except their adoption of the revolutionary principles of their English protectors-began, when they had attained undisputed power, to discover that they had enough of revolution-they had opposed the military revolt-they were parties to the Belem attempt, and were amongst those left by royal gratitude to shift for themselves. In more danger from their late friends and disciples than they had been from their Miguellite antagonists, they had again to fly their native country, and again sought refuge in the English fleet, and, we presume, exile on the English shores. We have heard that the interesting Duchess of Terceira, as soon as she heard the royal sauve qui peut, ran instantly without change of dress or even an attendant, down to the shore, threw herself into the first boat, and thought herself happy to reach in that condition the rough but kind hospitality of English seamen. What has since become of her and her husband, we do not know; but the Duke of Palmella may be seen every evening still busy with kings, queens, and knaves in a rubber of whist, at the Traveller's Club. Such have been the fruits of revolutionary intervention-so powerful to disturb, so impotent to protect-which has degraded and desolated every country to which its baneful influence has been extended, with the agonies of civil war and the chaos of anarchy-with spoliation and massacre-with the ruin of individuals--the dissolution of social order-the license of the populace, and the slavery of the people. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I.-1. Germany in 1831. By John Strang, author of Tales of Humour and Romance, from the German of Hoffmann, Langbein, Lafontaine, &c."' Necropolis Glasguensis,' &c. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1836. 2. Sketches of Germany and the Germans; with a Glance at Poland, Hungary, and Switzerland in 1834, 1835, and 1836. By an Englishman resident in Germany. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1836. IN reviewing, two or three years ago, Heine's History of recent German Literature,' we took occasion to refer the ignorance of the English public regarding the subject-matter of his book, to a habit of looking to Madame de Staël as the grand authority on German belles-lettres and philosophy, in entire forgetfulness of the changes effected since she wrote. With equal justice might the ignorance of the self-same public, regarding the social and political condition of Germany, be referred to the habit of relying on Mr. Russell's Tour, which concludes with the year 1822-since which society and government have made prodigious advances, though it may well be made a question whether these advances have been towards evil or towards good. There is thus a chasm of fourteen years, in stirring and eventful times, to be filled up; and had either of the authors before us succeeded in correcting Mr. Russell's errors, supplying his deficiencies, and finishing off an accurate picture of Germany as it is, he might have reckoned confidently on soon dividing the honours of his predecessor, and eventually superseding him. But neither of them can be complimented on having succeeded to this extent; not even Mr. Strang, who, for fullness of information and general accuracy of remark, deserves to rank far before his more immediate competitor. He is evidently well skilled in the language, and thoroughly conversant with what, for the sake of distinction, may be termed the classical literature of Germany. The translations mentioned in his title-page were also the means of procuring him introductions to many of the principal living writers. But he did not stay long enough to avail himself of these advantages to the full, and many of his impressions appear to have been hastily caught up; whilst the ultra-liberal turn of his political opinions affords strong additional ground for questioning the justice of his reflections on subjects |