£300,000, it may be imagined that the kings of Portugal were well able to maintain a splendid court at Lisbon in spite of the loss of the Asiatic trade. No story is more interesting than this growth of Brazil into the most valuable possession of Portugal; the land, which was at first inhabited by convicts, surpassed in wealth the dominion won by the noblest sons of the country. [Illustration: text decoration] [Illustration: text decoration] XVI. PORTUGAL IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE MARQUIS OF POMBAL. The eighteenth century exhibits fewer features of interest than any other throughout the whole history of Portugal. The country remained in a political sense a mere province of England, and was bound by the Methuen treaty to take a part in all the wars in which England was engaged, and the importance of this arrangement became more and more evident, when France and Spain were united by the close connection brought about by the “Pacte de Famille.” The commercial relation was the cause of more intimacy between the people of the two nationalities than the political alliance, for it brought, as has been said, English merchants and English capital into Portugal. But notwithstanding this double bond of union the two allies remained entirely separate. The Portuguese remained a race of bigoted Catholics, and the English made no efforts to convert them. This difference of religion prevented any close alliance between the reigning houses of the two countries, such as had been brought about by the marriage of Charles II. to Catherine of Braganza, for any marriage with a Catholic princess would have been rejected by the statesmen and the people of England. While therefore existing as an independent nation under the protection of England, Portugal maintained its own national characteristics, and remained in other respects more like Spain than any other country. The little state was no longer in the vanguard of the march of European civilization; it felt that its great days were past, and was content to remain in stagnant quiet. For this reason, if for no other, the story of Portugal loses its interest in the eighteenth century, for it was illustrated by no great feat of arms, no national revolution or advance of national progress, and it was at this time that in every point of view, literary as well as political, it fell behind the other European nations. It was inevitable that it should be so; a nation which depended on another for its political independence, was not likely to produce heroes. It is strange that the influence of English example did not give rise to a movement for political freedom and representative institutions, but it was not so; the monarchy remained absolutist and was prevented from needing the support of the people by the wealth it derived from the gold and the diamond mines of Brazil, and the Cortes was not once summoned throughout the century. Yet this absolutism was not an unmixed evil, for