DETECTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CONSPIRATORS AT LISBON.

While he serenely enjoyed the blessings of prosperity, his neighbour the king of Portugal was engrossed by a species of employment, which, of all others, must be the most disagreeable to a prince of sentiment, who loves his people; namely, the trial and punishment of those conspirators, by whose atrocious attempt his life had been so much endangered. Among these were numbered some of the first noblemen of the kingdom, irritated by disappointed ambition, inflamed by bigotry, and exasperated by revenge. The principal conspirator, don Joseph Mascarenhas and Lencastre, duke de Aveiro, marquis of Torres Novas, and conde of Santa Cruz, was hereditary lord-steward of the king’s household, and president of the palace-court, or last tribunal of appeal in the kingdom, so that he possessed the first office at the palace, and the second of the realm. Francisco de Assiz, marquis of Tavora, conde of St. John and Alvor, was general of the horse, and head of the third noble house of the Tavoras, the most illustrious family in the kingdom, deriving their original from the ancient kings of Leon: he married his kinswoman, who was marchioness of Tavora in her own right, and by this marriage acquired the marquisate. Louis Bernardo de Tavora was their eldest son, who, by virtue of a dispensation from the pope, had espoused his own aunt, donna Theresa de Tavora. Joseph Maria de Tavora, his youngest brother, was also involved in the guilt of his parents. The third principal concerned was don Jeronymo de Attaide, conde of Attouguia, himself a relation, and married to the eldest daughter of the marquis of Tavora. The characters of all these personages were unblemished and respectable, until this machination was detected. In the course of investigating this dark affair, it appeared that the duke de Aveiro had conceived a personal hatred to the king, who had disappointed him in a projected match between his son and a sister of the duke de Cadaval, a minor, and prevented his obtaining some commanderies which the late duke de Aveiro had possessed; that this nobleman, being determined to gratify his revenge against the person of his sovereign, had exerted all his art and address in securing the participation of the malecontents; that with this view he reconciled himself to the Jesuits, with whom he had been formerly at variance, knowing they were at this time implacably incensed against the king, who had dismissed them from their office of penitentiaries at court, and branded them with other marks of disgrace, on account of their illegal and rebellious practices in South America: the duke, moreover, insinuated himself into the confidence of the marchioness of Tavora, notwithstanding an inveterate rivalship of pride and ambition, which had long subsisted between the two families. Her resentment against the king was inflamed by the mortification of her pride in repeated repulses, when she solicited the title of duke for her husband. Her passions were artfully fomented and managed by the Jesuits, to whom she had resigned the government of her conscience; and they are said to have persuaded her, that it would be a meritorious action to take away the life of a prince who was an enemy to the church, and a tyrant to his people. She, being reconciled to the scheme of assassination, exerted her influence in such a manner as to inveigle her husband, her sons and son-in law, into the same infamous design: and yet this lady had been always remarkable for her piety, affability, and sweetness of disposition. Many consultations were held by the conspirators at the colleges of the Jesuits, St. Autoa and St. Roque, as well as at the houses of the duke and the marquis; at last they resolved that the king should be assassinated, and employed two ruffians, called Antonio Alvarez and Joseph Policarpio, for the execution of this design, the miscarriage of which we have related among the transactions of the preceding year. In the beginning of January, before the circumstances of the conspiracy were known, the counts de Oberas and de Ribeira Grande were imprisoned in the castle of St. Julian, on a suspicion arising from their freedom of speech. The duchess de Aveiro, the countess of Attouguia, and the marchioness of Alorna, with their children, were sent to different nunneries; and eight Jesuits were taken into custody. A council being appointed for the trial of the prisoners, the particulars we have related were brought to light by the torture; and sentence of death was pronounced and executed upon the convicted criminals. Eight wheels were fixed upon a scaffold raised in the square opposite to the house where the prisoners had been confined; and the thirteenth of January was fixed for the day of execution. Antonio Alvarez Ferreira, one of the assassins who had fired into the king’s equipage, was fixed to a stake at one corner of the scaffold; and at the other was placed the effigy of his accomplice, Joseph Policarpio de Azevedo, who had made his escape. The marchioness of Tavora, being brought upon the scaffold between eight and nine in the morning, was beheaded at one stroke, and then covered with a linen cloth. Her two sons, and her son-in-law, the count of Attouguia, with three servants of the duke de Aveiro, were first strangled at one stake, and afterwards broke upon wheels, where their bodies remained covered; but the duke and the marquis, as chiefs of the conspiracy, were broken alive, and underwent the most excruciating torments. The last that suffered was the assassin Alvarez, who being condemned to be burned alive, the combustibles which had been placed on the scaffold were set on fire, the whole machine with their bodies consumed to ashes, and these ashes thrown into the sea. The estates of the three unfortunate noblemen were confiscated, and their dwelling-houses razed to the ground. The name of Tavora was suppressed for ever by a public decree; but that of Mascarenhas spared, because the duke de Aveiro was a younger branch of the family. A reward of ten thousand crowns was offered to any person who should apprehend the assassin who had escaped: then the embargo was taken off the shipping. The king and royal family assisted at a public Te Deum, sung in the chapel of Nossa Senhoro de Livramento; on which occasion the king, for the satisfaction of his people, waved his handkerchief with both hands, to show he was not maimed by the wounds he had received. If such an attempt upon the life of a king was infamously cruel and perfidious, it must be owned that the punishment inflicted upon the criminals was horrible to human nature. The attempt itself was attended with some circumstances that might have staggered belief, had it not appeared but too plain that the king was actually wounded. One would imagine that the duke de Aveiro, who was charged with designs on the crown, would have made some preparation for taking advantage of the confusion and disorder which must have been produced by the king’s assassination; but we do not find that any thing of this nature was premeditated. It was no more than a desperate scheme of personal revenge, conceived without caution, and executed without conduct; a circumstance the more extraordinary, if we suppose the conspirators were actuated by the councils of the Jesuits, who have been ever famous for finesse and dexterity. Besides, the discovery of all the particulars was founded upon confession extorted by the rack, which at best is a suspicious evidence. Be that as it will, the Portuguese government, without waiting for a bull from the pope, sequestered all the estates and effects of the Jesuits in that kingdom, which amounted to considerable sums, and reduced the individuals of the society to a very scanty allowance. Complaint of their conduct having been made to the pope, he appointed a congregation to examine into the affairs of the Jesuits in Portugal. In the meantime the court of Lisbon ordered a considerable number of them to be embarked for Italy, and resolved that no Jesuits should hereafter reside within its realms. When these transports arrived at Civita-Vecchia, they were, by the pope’s order, lodged in the Dominican and Capuchin convents of that city, until proper houses could be prepared for their reception at Tivoli and Frescati. The most guilty of them, however, were detained in close prison in Portugal; reserved, in all probability, for a punishment more adequate to their enormities.