The French Invasions of Portugal 1807-1811: Rebellion, Reaction and Resistance
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The French Invasions of Portugal 1807-1811: rebellion, reaction and resistance Anthony Gray MA by Research University of York Department of History Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies June 2011 Abstract Portugal’s involvement in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars resulted in substantial economic, political and social change revealing interconnections between state and economy that have not been acknowledged fully within the existing literature. On the one hand, economic and political change was precipitated by the flight of Dom João, the removal of the court to Rio de Janeiro, and the appointment of a regency council in Lisbon: events that were the result of much more than the mere confluence of external drivers and internal pressures in Europe, however complex and compelling they may have been at the time. Although governance in Portugal had been handed over to the regency council strict limitations were imposed on its autonomy. Once Lisbon was occupied, and French military government imposed on Portugal, her continued role as entrepôt, linking the South Atlantic economy to that of Europe, could not be guaranteed. Brazil’s ports were therefore opened to foreign vessels and restrictions on agriculture, manufacture and inter-regional trade in the colonies were lifted presaging a transition from neo-mercantilism to proto-industrialised capitalism. The meanings of this dislocation of political power and the shift of government from metropolis to colony were complex, not least in relation to the location and limits of absolutist authority. The immediate results of which were a series of popular insurrections in Portugal, a swift response by the French military government and conservative reaction by Portuguese élites, leading to widespread popular resistance in 1808 and 1809 and, subsequently, Portugal’s wholesale involvement in the Peninsular War with severe and deleterious effects on the Portuguese population and economy. Ultimately, these events would lead to demands for constitutional reform and civil war but not, as yet, the dismantling of mercantilism, the abolition of slavery or the separation of Portugal and Brazil as independent states. Ironically, the forces for change in this regard, in the years immediately following the Napoleonic Wars, would appear stronger in the metropolis and weaker in its former colony. List of contents Preface i Acknowledgements xii Author’s declaration xiii Orthographical note xiv Dedication xv Chapter one Bibliographical essay 1 Chapter two The origins of the French invasions of Portugal 21 Chapter three The invasion and occupation of Portugal 1807-1808 55 Chapter four The invasion of 1809 - the onset of total war? 102 Chapter five The effects of the French invasions on Portugal 138 Chapter six The French invasions of Portugal - a recapitulation 184 Appendix 209 Bibliography 211 Preface The idea for this dissertation arose out of a determination to set the French invasions of Portugal in context with particular reference to economics, politics, government policy, diplomacy and their various and profound effects on Portugal and Portuguese society. As the research and writing progressed, it became increasingly apparent that the origins and effects of the French invasions were not only highly complex and multifaceted they were also either poorly recognised or misrepresented within the existing literature in English. In comparison, much has been made of the contradistinction and complementarity of continuity and change in the long eighteenth century within other European countries, for example the routes of transition from absolutism to democracy and the development of the modern European state. Similarly, the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars have received substantial attention. This period has often been represented as a disconnected and well-defined discontinuity shaped by (and itself shaping) political-military events and, in some cases, the coalescence of ideology and violence impacting on and shaping more gradual longer term, social, economic, cultural and political developments. That there is a need to combine aspects of these various approaches within historical studies of Europe in both the early-modern and modern periods is incontestable. The purpose and method of this research, i therefore, was to build upon these approaches and locate Portuguese experiences of the Peninsular War within a broader contextual framework encompassing both pan-European and extra-European perspectives. 1 There were three defining moments in drafting. The first came with the recognition that the transfer of the Portuguese court to Rio de Janeiro was the result of much more than the mere confluence of external drivers and internal pressures in Europe, however complex and compelling they may have been at the time. The consensus is as follows. On the one hand, Napoleon demanded compliance with the Continental System and threatened invasion to impose his will. On the other, Britain sent a fleet and a strongly worded ultimatum to Portugal: accede to the request to re-locate the court to Brazil or face the possible bombardment of Lisbon, the loss of the Portuguese fleet and isolation from her Empire. Meantime, relations between Portugal and Spain vacillated between military and economic conflict, both on the continents of Europe and South America, often involving one or other of these two European super-powers. However, although it is indisputable that small countries can often depend, or become dependent upon, larger and more powerful countries, they are often, also, capable of self-determinism and of having a specific trajectory, 1. Stuart Woolf, The construction of a European world-view in the Revolutionary-Napoleonic years, Past & Present, vol. 137, no. 1, 72-101, esp. pp. 73-81. ii economically, politically, socially and ideologically, for transition. 2 I argue here that in order to understand these external drivers, internal pressures and seminal events correctly, they need to be re-examined critically, not just in relation to other European powers but also in the context of north and west Europe’s relations with the world’s other continents and, in particular, the Atlantic and the political economy of Empire. 3 The second moment came with the identification of interconnections between state and economy in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century that have not been acknowledged fully within the existing literature. In earlier periods, war had been driven by struggles of a religious nature and to preserve or challenge royal lines and, throughout the long eighteenth century, dynastic succession and the defence of absolutism. But the defining characteristics of conflict in the Seven Years War and after, the period often referred to as that of enlightened despotism, were economic, political, ideological and, increasingly, global in nature as well as military. In this, the French invasions of Portugal, Britain’s response, and Spain and Portugal’s involvement in the Peninsular War, were symptomatic of the convergence of highly complex developments in relation to commerce and trade - for example capital 2. Barrington Moore jnr. Social origins of dictatorship and democracy: lord and peasant in the making of the modern world, (London : Allen Lane, The Penguin Press, 1967 - pbk version, 1973). 3. John H. Parry, Trade and Dominion: the European overseas empires in the eighteenth century, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971) iii accumulation and investment, expertise in finance, shipping and insurance - and their interconnection with imperialism and military conflict. Suffice to say that the scale and costs of the latter for major European powers had become the single largest item of state expenditure. 4 The interactions of state, ideology and political economy therefore must therefore be taken into account and critically assessed. Viewing these developments in the two decades spanning the eighteenth century fin de siècle in these ways, and accepting economics as an increasingly important component of ideology, if not ideology in its own right, allows us to establish the links between mercantilism and the theory of free (or free-er) trade, within and between cores and peripheries, that defined and shaped this new age of global imperialism. 5 The examination of these shifting and unpredictable contingencies, political and diplomatic relations, and complex alliances, helps us to understand why Portugal ultimately aligned with Britain, rather than France, and why the Portuguese court transferred to Brazil. But we also need to consider 4. C.A. Bayly, ‘The first age of global imperialism, c. 1760–1830’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 1998, vol. 26, no. 2, 28-47 (especially pp. 29-33) and George Modelski, The Long Cycle of Global Politics and the Nation-State’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 1978, vol. 20, no. 2, 214-235. 5. For a review of the impact of state policy on economic development, trade and Empire see Ralph Davis, The rise of the Atlantic economies, (London : Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973) and for the origins and ideology of classical political economy and imperialism see Bernard Semmel, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism: Classical Political Economy the Empire of Free Trade and Imperialism 1750-1850, (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1970 - pbk version, 2004). iv these issues were mediated through multifaceted and often competing ideologies, for example the development of political economy as a science and form of discourse and the fundamental