The state of the Portuguese government at this moment requires a word of explanation. The original Regency confirmed by Sir Hew Dalrymple in 1808 had been somewhat changed in its personnel. It was now a more numerous body than at its first installation; of the original members, only the Patriarch (Antonio de Castro, late bishop of Oporto), and the Marquez de Olhão (Francisco de Mello e Menezes, the Constable or Monteiro Mor, as he is more frequently called), now survived. But four new members had been appointed in 1810. The most important of them was José Antonio de Menezes e Sousa, generally known as the ‘Principal Sousa,’ an ecclesiastic who was one of the band of three Sousa brothers, who formed the backbone of the anti-French party in Portugal. The eldest of them, Rodrigo de Sousa Coutinho, Conde de Linhares, was prime minister of the Prince Regent at Rio de Janeiro. The third, Domingos Antonio de Sousa Coutinho, afterwards Conde de Funchal, was Portuguese minister in London. Thus when the Principal entered the Regency, this busy and capable family could pull the strings alike at Rio, London, and Lisbon, in the interests of their relations and dependants. This they did without scruple and without ceasing. Domestic politics in Portugal had always been a matter of family alliances, as much as of principles. They presented, indeed, a considerable resemblance to those of Great Britain during the Whig domination of the eighteenth century. Hence there was considerable danger that the policy of the alliance against Napoleon might become identified in the eyes of the Portuguese nation with the domination of the Sousa faction. That this peril was avoided was not their fault: they did their best to keep all promotion, civil and military, for their own adherents; hence came interminable quarrels on petty personal questions both with Wellington and Beresford. Fortunately the two Marshals could generally get their way in the end, when large interests were at stake, because the Sousas were pledged to the British alliance, and dared not break with it. To do so would have brought other politicians to the front. But, meanwhile, unending controversies wasted Wellington’s time and soured his temper: more than once he is found writing in his dispatches to Lord Liverpool that the ‘impatient, meddling, mischievous’[201] Principal ought to be got out of the Regency and promoted to some foreign embassy, or great civil post, where he could do less harm. But the British government thought, and probably was right in thinking, that it was better to bear with known evils than to quarrel with the Sousa family, and thereby to break up the pro-British party in Portugal. Wellington had to endure the Principal’s small intrigues and petty criticism till the end. [201] Wellington to Lord Liverpool, _Dispatches_, vi. p. 435.