Some new despatches on the Portuguese Question, published in the
Gazette of Friday week, contribute much to the discussion. One shows conclusively that the Portuguese have been warned for two years, and therefore attacked British dependants with full knowledge of what they were doing. Another contains a masterly statement of the case against arbitration, which is always inapplicable after one side has employed force ; and a third disposes for ever of the Portuguese historic claim. That claim rests on an allegation that an Emperor of " Monomotapa " in 1630 ceded certain districts to Dom Nuno Alvarez Pereiria, Governor of Mozambique. In all probability the Empire is a fiction ; but at all events it is certain that no such treaty exists, and that the person named was not Governor of Mozambique in the year stated. Moreover, in the Constitu- tional Charter of 1826, in which the territory of Portugal is described with great exactness, she claims in East Africa only, "on the Eastern Coast, Mozambique, Rio de Lena, Sofala, Inhambane, Quilimane, and the Islands of Cape Delgado." What is the answer to that
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