Mr. Stuart and lord Wellington strongly objected to this change, although they submitted to it as not wishing to appear regardless of the prince regent’s rights. Mr. Stuart, however, reflecting that a government composed of men having different views and feelings, and without any casting vote, the number being even, could not go on usefully, was at first averse to join the regency, but was finally persuaded to do so by lord Wellington, who justly considered that his presence there would give the only chance of success. Doctor Nogueras’ appointment was described, by lord Strangford, as a tribute to democracy, the object being to counteract the power of those very secretariats which lord Wellington and Mr. Stuart were labouring to preserve. But lord Strangford prided himself chiefly upon the appointment of the principal Souza, who, he said, had been recommended to him by Mr. Villiers, an avowal of great import, as shewing at once the spirit of the new arrangement: for this Souza had, in a subordinate situation, hitherto opposed every proceeding of the British in Portugal; he was the avowed enemy of Beresford, the contriver of all confusion, and the most mischievous person in Portugal; and his absence from that country was so desirable, that intimations to that effect had been formally given to him, by lord Wellesley, through Mr. Stuart. This factious person was now, however, armed with additional power, to thwart the English authorities in Portugal, and thus lord Strangford’s diplomacy tended, in effect, to ruin that cause which he had been sent to the Brazils to support. [Sidenote: See Vol. II. Appendix.] In relating these proceedings I have, following his own letter, announcing the change, described lord Strangford as acting voluntarily; but in a subsequent despatch he affirmed, that it was under Mr. Canning’s instructions, he had pressed for this incorporating of the British minister in the regency, and that Nogueras’ appointment sprang entirely from the prince regent’s own will, which he did not choose to oppose. In like manner, when lord Wellesley was intent upon assembling a cortes, lord Strangford called it “_a great and essential measure strongly and wisely urged by the government_,” and yet afterwards acknowledged that he neglected to press it, because he thought it “_useless and even hurtful_,” which inconsistency renders it difficult to determine on whom these affairs rested. As affecting Mr. Canning’s policy, however, it is to be observed that if he originally arranged this change, his object was to put Mr. Villiers in the regency, not with any view to the more complete controul of Portugal for the purposes of war, but, as the instructions to sir John Cradock prove, to ensure a preponderance to the diplomatic department over the military in that country.