markets and of employment, the absence of ready money, the loss of profit, public and private, occasioned by the departure of the army while the contributions and other exactions remained the same, galled all classes, and the whole nation was ready to shake off the burthen of gratitude. In this state of feeling emissaries were employed to promulgate in various directions tales, some true some false, of the disorders perpetrated by the military detachments on the lines of communication, adding that they were the result of secret orders from Wellington to satisfy his personal hatred of Portugal! At the same time discourses and writings against the British influence abounded in Lisbon and at Rio Janeiro, and were re-echoed or surpassed by the London newspapers, whose statements overflowing of falsehood could be traced to the Portuguese embassy in that capital. It was asserted that England intending to retain her power in Portugal opposed the return of the prince-regent; that the war itself being removed to the frontier of France was become wholly a Spanish cause; that it was not for Portugal to levy troops, and exhaust her resources to help a nation whose aggressions she must be called upon sooner or later to resist. Mr. Stuart’s diplomatic intercourse with the government always difficult was now a continual remonstrance and dispute; his complaints were met with insolence or subterfuge, and illegal violence against the persons and property of British subjects was pushed so far, that Mr. Sloane, an English gentleman upon whom no suspicion rested, was cast into prison for three months because he had come to Lisbon without a passport. The rights of the English factory were invaded, and the Oporto company which had been established as its rival in violation of treaty was openly cherished. Irresponsible and rapacious, this pernicious company robbed every body, and the prince-regent promising either to reform or totally abolish it ordered a preparatory investigation, but to use the words of Mr. Stuart, the regency acted on the occasion no less unfairly by their sovereign than unjustly by their ally.