Lord Palmerston's intervention in Portugal rests on the modest defence
of being apis alter. The publication of the ponderous blue book—nearly four hundred pages thick—cannot be said to throw any new light upon the subject; but it renders the chain of events more clear to the view, and is upon the whole favour- able to the present Foreign Secretary. He derives some excuse from the incapacity and the =iodides of those with whom he had to deal.
To make the actual situation intelligible, the reader should call to mind the state of Portugal when Costa Cabral and the repre- sentatives of " Liberal " opinions mistook arbitrary conduct for energy. The Palmella Government, on the other hand, mistook weakness for mildness : it attained no grasp of power, was even more unsuccessful than its predecessors in rubbing on with the embarrassed finances of the kingdom ; insomuch that the Court actually felt the want of money; and remembered the more ener- getic Cobra's. Hence the Court patronage of the Counter-revo- lution against those who had ousted the more efficient Admuue- tration..
