cott, Twiss, _Life of Eldon_, ii., 416. For
Eldon's Speech, see Twiss, iii., 498-512.

[86] Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, i., 372-75.

[87] Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii., 54-60.

[88] Wellington to Curtis, December 11, 1828, Wellington, _Despatches,
etc._, v., 326.

[89] For the king's qualified assent see Parker, _Sir Robert Peel_, ii.,
82-85; Peel's _Memoirs_, i., 297, 298, 310.

[90] See Peel's _Memoirs_, i., 3, for his unpopularity at Westbury.

[91] Peel's _Memoirs_, i., 343-49; Greville, _Memoirs_, i., 189, 190,
201, 202.

[92] See Maxwell, _Life of Wellington_, ii., 231-36, for the incident.

CHAPTER XII.

PORTUGAL AND GREECE.

It is now time to turn to the general course of foreign policy during
the closing years of the reign of George IV. The only foreign problems
which gave serious trouble during this period were the Eastern and
Portuguese questions. The influence which the former exercised on
domestic policy has rendered it necessary to trace its course as far as
the battle of Navarino in the last chapter. We must now take up the
other question where we left it, at the recognition of the independence
of Brazil and the expulsion of the Spanish troops from the mainland of
America.

Peter I., Emperor of Brazil, though an independent sovereign, was still
heir-apparent to the throne of Portugal, and the ultra-royalists hoped
that, in spite of the provisions of the Brazilian constitution, his
succession to his ancestral crown would restore the unity of the
Portuguese dominions. The death of King John VI. on March 10, 1826,
brought the matter to a crisis. Four days before his death he had
appointed a council of regency which was to be presided over by his
daughter, Isabella Maria, but from which the queen and Dom Miguel, then
twenty-three, were both excluded. By this act the absolutist party were
deprived of power until they should be restored to it by the action of
the new king, or by a revolution. The regency wished the new king to
make a speedy choice between the two crowns; and it was anticipated that
he would abdicate the Portuguese crown in favour of his seven-year-old
daughter, Maria da Gloria. The absolutists on the other hand hoped that
the king might by procrastination avoid the separation of the crowns.

What was their surprise when they discovered that the king had indeed
determined to procrastinate, but in such a way as to displ