Every day, almost every hour, brought with it now some new mark of French protection. No sooner had troops enough been introduced into Lisbon to enforce the demand, than the merchants were called on for a compulsory loan of two million cruzados; and this at a time when their property, to an immense amount, had been seized in France, when a British squadron was blockading the Tagus, when the ships from Brazil were warned off by that squadron, and sent to England, foreign commerce utterly destroyed, and the internal trade in that state which necessarily ensued when the spring which gave motion to the whole was stopped. ♦A FRENCHMAN ADDED TO THE REGENCY.♦ M. Herman, who had been sent to demand satisfaction from the court of Lisbon in 1804, for having suffered the ambassador, General Lasnes, to depart in disgust, was added to the regency by an act of Junot’s pleasure, and made minister of finance and of the interior by an appointment of the Emperor; the date of which afforded decisive proof, if any proof had been wanting, that whatever the conduct of the Prince might be, Buonaparte had resolved to usurp the kingdom. ♦OBS. PORT. P. 44. NEVES, II. 225.♦ Another Frenchman was nominated to the new office of Receiver-general of the contributions and revenues of Portugal. It was now plainly seen upon what tenure the people of Lisbon held their remaining property; and that they might fully understand upon what tenure they held their lives, the threatening proclamation which Junot had issued at Alcantara was now reprinted and circulated in the capital. ♦DEC. 5. EDICT FOR CONFISCATING ENGLISH GOODS.♦