Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

gree of alarm, horror, and despair, which the dreadful abuse of power produces among those of the Portuguese nation who have ever been suspected of entertaining any attachment to the constitutional charter. Suspicion is at all times sufficient to immure any man in a dungeon, on the accusation of one of the vilest even of the rabble of Lisbon."* Many thousands who now crowd the prisons of Portugal, owe their captivity to no higher offence than the hatred of some vagabond."+

"There is no gaol allowance in any part of the country. It may appear strange in England, but when a man is locked up in Portugal, if he has no money to send for food, or no one brings him any, he may absolutely starve. None of the authorities ever inquire whether he has any means of subsistence: there is neither bed, blankets, nor even straw, unless the prisoner can buy it, and then he must pay the guards to let it pass to him. Among the many thousand unfortunate beings who are now confined in Portugal, great numbers of them are without money, or any other means of subsistence; and were it not for the charity of people in general, starvation would necessarily ensue. When the food, given in charity, is distributed, the persons who accept it form a line or a circle, according to circumstances, and sing in a loud voice a prayer to the Virgin Mary; this is a ceremony never omitted in any part of Portugal."

"Every room or ward of the prison contains a juis (governor,) a mixinguero (the governor's assistant,) and a varader (a sweeper.) These men are always selected from the greatest blackguards in the prison. The adjutant and sweeper acquaint the juis with every thing that happens, and very frequently with things which never exist but in their own heads; the juis tells the secretary or the jailor. The prisoners consequently have the utmost dread of these vagabond authorities, which the latter are aware of, and exercise their influence accordingly."§

Such are the horrors of Portuguese imprisonment," that their state is described 66 as bordering on frenzy or despair." "Men confined in these prisons appear, by degrees, to become other beings." Some are driven to actual madness, or "settled melan

* Young's Portugal, p. 176.
Ibid. pp. 110-112.

+ Ibid. p. 156.

§ Ibid. p. 115.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

choly." "It was truly dreadful to witness the despair of some of those unfortunate victims of despotism. They would often be found sitting or lying in the dark passages of the prison, moaning and groaning; and when asked the reason, some would say, My father is dead of grief;' another, My poor wife is dead;' a third, My property is all confiscated, and I have nothing left; my family are begging in the streets; for myself, the only hope of subsistence is in the caridade.' There were numbers in this melancholy condition, persons of property to-day, and tomorrow not worth a farthing." When a man is put in the segrido, (or dungeon,) which is, and always has been in use in Portugal, it is usual to deprive him of all means of communication and self-destruction."+

[ocr errors]

Amidst the barbarities which ushered in the reign of Miguel," the streets of Lisbon were crowded with soldiers, day and night, authorizing the mob to insult whoever they pleased, and those who made any resistance to be conveyed to prison. Each police soldier had anginhos (little angels, or thumbscrews,) in his pocket; and I saw about this time, several respecable looking people escorted to prison with these instruments of torture affixed to them. They often screwed them till the blood started from under the nails; I have heard them crying with agony as they went along.

Even in Roman catholic countries, the time is past in which civil and religious tyranny was tamely borne; and, from the multiplicity of victims guilty against the state, or liable to such suspicion, the land of despots has the semblance of a prison-house, in a form the most appalling.

*

Young's Portugal, pp. 154, 155.
Ibid. p. 57.

+ Ibid. p. 66.

PORTUGAL.

Victims of Don Miguel's cruelty.

"A recent publication gives, with the sanction of a well informed native of Portugal, the following frightful list of Don Miguel's tyranny."-Courier, July 13, 1831.

Political offenders in the prison of Lisbon

at the fort of St. Julian

in the Reniche

Cascaes, Belem-Castle, and Trafaria

On board the hulks in the Tagus

at Oporto

In the different prisons of Tras-os-montes
In the province of Daura and Minho

Beira, including Almeida
Estremadura and Abrantis
Alerutejo, including Elvas
Algarve

Transported as convicts to Angula

In the island of Terceira

In Brazil

3,600

800

400

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

to Cati Verde and other islands 500
to Cabinda, Agonche, Mozam-
bique
Emigrants.

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

"To this number may be added near 5000 persons now concealed or wandering in different parts of the country, in order to escape persecution;-45,400 victims of political vengeance and resentment, out of a population amounting to 2,600,000, furnish the strongest proof of the government." POLITICAL LETTER.

The liberty with which Christ would set us free, and which is the glorious calling of the Christian, is the only true freedom of the soul. Without it the tyrant is a slave, and with it the bondsman is free indeed. When it is felt and enjoyed, no manacles can fetter or depress the mind, no bolts of a dungeon can shut out the hope that is heavenly. When Paul and Silas, who had suffered the loss of all things for Jesus' sake, were cast into prison, after their clothes were rent off, and many stripes had been laid upon them, and they were thrust into the inner prison, and their feet made fast in the stocks, at midnight they prayed, and sang praises unto God. They accounted it all joy to suffer in the cause of their Redeemer. In the believer's reckoning, tribulation, as a trial of faith, is more precious than gold that perisheth; and it is the privilege of the Christian to rejoice evermore. Not loving their lives unto the death, the witnesses of Jesus could cast themselves into the flames. But the love of political liberty, however precious it may be, has no power to charm away the horrors of the dungeon; and to those to whom freedom, in a human sense, is the god of their idolatry, the restraints and privations of the prison-house, without the hope of release, are the bitterest of miseries, before which the heart, unsustained by faith, is broken, and all the powers of the mind give way. stead of praying and singing praises unto God, there is "moaning and groaning," the voice of agony and despair and they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven, because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds, verse 11th.

In

CHAPTER XXIX.

SIXTH VIAL.

THE invasion of France by the armies of Russia, Prussia, Germany, Sweden, and Britain; the evacuation of Spain by the French and the entrance of the armies into France, and the abdication of Bonaparte; the restoration of the Bourbons, and the conclusion of a general peace; the evacuation of Italy, Germany, and Flanders by the French, and their restriction within their ancient boundaries, closed up, 1st, the history of the French revolution; 2d, of the greatest of naval wars; 3d, of the wars of the directory and consulate of France; and 4th, those of the empireor, in other words, the first, second, third and fourth vials of the wrath of God had been poured upon the earth. But the plagues were not at an end, nor had the judgments ceased. As these ended another began; and the same eventful year, 1814, which terminated, for a season, so many convulsions, was marked also-as even an almanack testifies-by the restoration of Ferdinand, the dissolution of the Cortes, the abrogation of the new constitution and of all laws favourable to the liberty of the press, the revival of the inquisition and of the order of the Jesuits, and the re-establishment of the pope in his dominions. The soldiers of Napoleon withdrew from Roman Catholic countries, and the priesthood reassumed its place. A system of coercion, and of the repression of liberty, was established by the sovereigns of continental Europe; and in suppressing revolution, freedom was stifled. But passive slavery was no longer the character of the time. A high and a hard hand could alone keep down freedom, or prevent the rising of anarchy. And, notwithstanding

« AnteriorContinuar »