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CONSTITUTION.

is so little division of political opinion among thePortuguese at Madeira. They are nearly all con-stitutionalists, as it is called; the fidalgos espe-cially ; and there was so strong an expression oftheir opinion on this head, at the period of thefall of the Cortes, that the restored governmentthought it proper to send out a commission for thepurpose of repressing, by exemplary severities,this revolutionary tendency among the people.This period of the constitution is still looked backto as one of general jubilee and holiday; thoughtheir exaltation must have depended, as much asany thing, I think, upon the triumph of the ab-stract principle; as I really cannot see that thegovernment interferes much with the habits orhappiness of its subjects in this corner of its do-minions *.

* The present governor and captain-general (1826) Don ManueEde Portugal e Castro is universally liked and respected, and by allclasses, whether English or Portuguese . He is a man of very highbirth; a brother of the Marquess of Valencia, whose family is saidto be of the same origin with the royal house itself, though I believethey are not in the order of the succession to the throne. It is the

practice of the Portuguese government—a very absurd one to

change the governors of its settlements after every third year. Whenwe left, the period of Don Manuel’s administration had nearly expired,and people looked forward with so much regret to his departure, thatthere was a purpose of petitioning the government at home for a pro-longation of his term. The salary is not high, but the indirect,