josé da silva carvalho - DSpace CEU

ever-to-be-lamented Majesty the Duke of Braganza, I take this
opportunity of expressing to Your Excellency my unfeigned regret
at any expression used by me, having in any way caused you pain.
I wrote the «Narrativo» under excited feelings of disappointment and
ivounded professional pride, and though I have been at a loss how
to explain myself, I now freely confess that I have for a considerable
time felt sorry for having so severely commented on the characters
of Public men, whose political career since I had the honour of being
connected with them, has been of that patriotio and self-sacrificing
nature as to convince me that my opinions were too harshly formed
and erroneously conceived.
With those impressions, I have considered it my duty to address
a letter to His Excellency the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Freiré,
on this subject, and I should fain hope, that I have so expressed
myself as to satisfy the feelings of that gentleman, in so much as
relates to the remarks which I am now convinced were unjust.
I must also alinde to another transaction connected with my
retirement from the Portuguese Service, namely, that of my having
returned the order of the Tower and Stoord conferred upon me by
the late Emperor. As I returned that decoration through the Duke
of Palmella, I purpose to take the liberty of addressing His Excellency
apologising for the impropriety of that act, and expressing those
feelings which I entertained then as well as now, that I never conceived
the most remote want of deference for the person of that
distinguished Prince, ever oonsidering it a proud distinction having
served under his orders.
I may truly say that either in public or prívate, I have ever
spoken of the Emperor with feelings of veneration for his public
services to Portugal and oivilized Europe, as well as in regard to
his prívate virtues, for which ali classes of persons in this country
so justly and highly appreoiate him. In writing of the Duke of
Braganza as an author, but with an unpractised pen, I would even
now hope that I said nothing that could give offence. His Imperial
Majesty was above flattery, and would have thought but little of the
individual who would presume to offer it.
As for the Portuguese nation, from my earliest commencement
in professional Ufe I have been closely connected with it, having
served in the year 1811 as a Captain in the 7th Regiment of their
Infantry. I have from that period to the present opposed both at
home and abroad the enemies of the constitutional liberties of Portugal.
Your Excellency witnessed the zeal and ardour I evinced at the
commencement of the great struggle, when hope of success was but