Especial privileges claimed by the factory merchants were another cause of disquiet. They pretended to exemption from certain taxes, and from billets, and that a fixed number of their clerks domestics and cattle should be exonerated of military service. These pretensions were disputed. The one touching servants and cattle, doubtful at best, had been grossly abused, and that relating to billets unfounded; but the taxes were justly resisted, and the merchants offered a voluntary contribution to the same amount. The government rudely refused this offer, seized their property, imprisoned their persons, impressed their cattle to transport supplies that never reached the troops, and made soldiers of their clerks and servants without any intention of reinforcing the army. Mr. Stuart immediately deducted from the subsidy the amount of the property thus forcibly taken, and repaid the sufferers. The regency then commenced a dispute upon the fourth article of the treaty of commerce, and the prince, though he openly ordered it to be executed, secretly permitted count Funchal, his prime minister, to remain in London as ambassador until the disputes arising upon this treaty generally were arranged. Funchal who disliked to quit London took care to interpose many obstacles to a final decision, always advising delay under pretence of rendering ultimate concession of value in other negociations then depending. When the battle of Vittoria became known, the regency proposed to entreat the return of the prince from the Brazils, hoping thereby to excite the opposition of Mr. Stuart; but when he, contrary to their expectations, approved of the proposal they deferred the execution. The British cabinet which had long neglected Wellington’s suggestions on this head, then pressed the matter at Rio Janeiro, and Funchal who had been at first averse now urged it warmly, fearing that if the prince remained he could no longer defer going to the Brazils. However few of the Portuguese nobles desired the return of the royal family, and when the thing was proposed to the regent he discovered no inclination for the voyage.