NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE cloud which last week hung over the prospects of Donna MARIA has been partly dissipated by the intelligence received on
Thursday from Lisbon. On the 5th instant, Marsha BOURMONT, at the head of the Miguelite army, made a vigorous attack upon that city, and was repulsed at every point. Don PEDRO'S new levies fought with great courage, as if determined not to be outdone by the more experienced troops from Oporto. The loss of the Queen's party is set down at four hundred men, that of the enemy at twelve hundred. On the 6th, not a Mignelite was to be seen from the ramparts. It seems to be apprehended that the assault will be renewed : the Queen's troops, however, were fully prepared to withstand it. Their number is about nine thousand men ; of whom more than a half are veterans, the remainder being; new levies, but generally well-disciplined ; this is exclusive of militia, who amount to nearly twelve thousand.
Previously to the attack, Lord WILLIAM RUSSELL wrote a letter to the British Vice-Consul, in which he strongly recommended the British merchants to abstain from all active interference on either side. This communication appears to have given offence to the mercantile body ; who, after stating that Mr. HOPPNER had repeatedly expressed his approbation of the conduct of the British residents in Lisbon in not interfering on either .side, required an explanation from Lord WILLIAM of what be meant by the words " active interference." That nobleman replied, that he thought
the term was a very intelligible one,—that it meant "bearing arms," and "acting as agents without public avowal." He also
stated, as a proof of the propriety of his warning, that Mr. LAROCHE, a British subject, had been ordered to quit the country in twenty-four hours, for interfering against the Queens Government.
The notorious Sir JOHN CAMPBELL was captured on the 29th of last month, on board an English brig, by one of the Pedroite cruisers. The Tory papers call upon Lord PALMERSTON not to
let this outrage pass unnoticed, and are very angry that a British subject should be taken from a British vessel by a roving cruiser. But it is stated that Sir JOHN was bound on an express commis-
sion for Don MIGUEL ; and he was attended by a spy of Viscount SANTAREM, whom he called his secretary. It may be questioned, therefore, how far his seizure was a violation of the law of nations.
One of the attaches to Don MIGUEL'S representative in Madrid has likewise been seized, with a quantity of' letters and papers, which are said to contain much curious information relative to the in- trigues of the Continental Despots with MIGUEL and the Spanish Cabinet. They will form a supplementary volume to the notorious correspondence of Don ANTONIO SARAIVA, in which our Tories and their accomplices cut so disreputable a figure. It is amusing to observe how this Wo-begone party are gulled into believing the
most improbable accounts of Miguelite successes, which the French papers, the Quotidienne and Gazette de France, fabricate for the comfort of the Carlist old women of Paris. Up toNthe very hour when the news was received of BOURMONT'S repulse, they persisted in declaring that he had taken possession of a considerable portion of the city; and gave some circumstantial details of his movements, which could only have been miraculously communicated to their French authorities for the lie.
In the Oporto correspondence of the Morning Herald, we find the following paragraph relative to the conduct of some British naval officers; which, to say the least of it, after the recognition of Donna MARIA by the King of England, is excessively indecent.
"His Majesty's ship Belvedefe, Captain Dundas, sailed on Friday (the 29th August) for Aveiro and Figueira. The officers of this frigate and the Castor, Captain Lord John-Hay, gave a grand party*the day preceding, at the Convent cf Oliveira, as remarkable for the toasts that were drunk as those which were refused or omitted altogether. - Among the former, was the health of Don Niguel; that of the gallant defenders of Oporto against the Usurper was re- jected by some, arid the health of Don Pedro was strangely forgotten altogether by the toastmaster." The garrison of Oporto have made some successful incursions into the interior, and driven the discomfited Miguelites before them in all directions. But they appear to make war in the style of savage banditti, rather than civilized soldiers. A detachment under a Colonel PACHECO entered a village of the enemy on the sea-shore under false colours, playing the Usurper's march, and shouting vivas for Don Minus'.; a body of whose militia wel- comed them without suspicion. The Pedroites then fixed bayo- nets, and charged the unarmed citizens and soldiers, who had piled up their muskets in the market-place; took 300 prisoners, and bayonetted 180 more. Judging from the accounts of the state of the country in the vicinity of Oporto, it would seem to be in the most wretched condition that it is possible to imagine. The Queen of Portugal sailed on Monday for Lisbon, in the Soho steam-packet, which had been most superbly fitted up for her accommodation. Previous to her departure, she received a most valuable present from Mr. BRISCOE, one of the Members for Surry,—DE LOLME on the British Constitution, which that gen- tleman delivered to her with an appropriate speech If her Ma- jesty ever reads the book at all, it will be very excusable in her to take all she finds in it for gospel truth; but Mr. BRISCOE, a British legislator, ought to have known better than to pass it off as a work which exhibited the actual working of the British Constitution.
