The intervention of the Foreign Powers in Portuguese affairs has
taken a more positive and one-sided character. The revolu- tionary Junta at Oporto has replied to the offers made to it by the British negotiator, with demands so insolently extravagant as to frustrate all attempts at reconcilement and place itself much in the wrong. It deserves the consequences—the probable defection of one of its own military chiefs, and the declaration that the Allied Powers will no longer mediate, but will act against it, in enfor- cing the pacification of the country.
The Portuguese, however, are not the only people concerned : the English people have a right to ask what interest of theirs is to justify their public servants, the Ministers, in going to war ? Is it to be a condition of Lord Palmerston's official incumbency that this country is always to have a campaign or an "armed peace on is hands"? is he always, in whatsoever department, to be "the Secretary at war"?
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