The party in Portugal who advocate a return to the ancient constitution,[7] under which the country flourished--which fell into abeyance towards the close of the seventeenth century, but which it is now proposed to revive, as preferable to, and practically more liberal than, the present system--and who adopt as a banner, and couple with this scheme, the name of Don Miguel de Bragança, have not unnaturally derived great accession of strength, both moral and numerical, from the faults and dissensions of their adversaries. At the present day there are few things which the European public, and especially that of this country, sooner becomes indifferent to, and loses sight of, than the person and pretensions of a dethroned king; and owing to the lapse of years, to his unobtrusive manner of life, and to the storm of accusations amidst which he made his exit from power, Don Miguel would probably be considered, by those persons in this country who remember his existence, as the least likely member of the royal triumvirate, now assembled in Germany, to exchange his exile for a crown. But if we would take a fair and impartial view of the condition of Portugal, and calculate, as far as is possible in the case of either of the two Peninsular nations, the probabilities and chances of the future, we must not suffer ourselves to be run away with by preconceived prejudices, or to be influenced by the popular odium attached to a name. After beholding the most insignificant and unpromising of modern pretenders suddenly elevated to the virtual sovereignty--however transitory it may prove--of one of the most powerful and civilised of European nations, it were rash to denounce as impossible any restoration or enthronement. And it were especially rash so to do when with the person of the aspirant to the throne a nation is able to connect a reasonable hope of improvement in its condition. Of the principle of legitimacy we here say nothing, for it were vain to deny that in Europe it is daily less regarded, whilst it sinks into insignificance when put in competition with the rights and wellbeing of the people. [7] It is desirable here to explain that the old constitution of Portugal, whose restoration is the main feature of the scheme of the National or Royalist party, (it assumes both names,) gave the right of voting at the election of members of the popular assembly to every man who had a hearth of his own--whether he occupied a whole house or a single room--in fact, to all heads of families and self-supporting persons. Such extent of suffrage ought surely to content the most democratic, and certainly presents a strong contrast to the farce of national representation which has been so long enacting in the Peninsula.