_Political state of Portugal._—In October all the evils before described still existed, and were aggravated. The old disputes remained unsettled, the return of the royal family was put off, and the reforms in the military system, which Beresford had repaired to Lisbon to effect, were either thwarted or retarded by the regency. Mr. Stuart indeed forced the government to repair the bridges and roads in Beira, to throw some provisions into the fortresses; and, in despite of Redondo, the minister of finance, who, for the first time, now opposed the British influence, he made the regency substitute a military chest and commissariat, instead of the “Junta de Viveres.” But Forjas and Redondo then disputed for the custody of the new chest; and when Mr. Stuart explained to the one, that, as the intent was to separate the money of the army from that of the civil departments, his claims were incompatible with such an object; and to the other that the conduct of his own department was already more than he could manage, both were offended; and this new source of disorder was only partially closed by withholding the subsidy until they yielded. Great malversations in the revenue were also discovered; and a plan, to enforce an impartial exaction of the “decima,” which was drawn up by Nogueira, at the desire of Wellington, was so ill received by those whose illegal exemptions it attacked, that the Souzas immediately placed themselves at the head of the objectors out of doors. Nogueira then modified it, but the Souzas still opposed, and as Wellington, judging the modification to be an evasion of the principle, would not recede from the first plan, a permanent dispute and a permanent evil, were thus established by that pernicious faction. In fine, not the Souzas only, but the whole regency in their folly now imagined that the war was virtually decided in their favour, and were intent upon driving the British away by disgusting the general.