PORTUGUESE ALLIANCE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1525, 21 March 1916, Page 4

PORTUGUESE ALLIANCE.

Now that Portugal is in a state of war with Germany, it is interesting to note that the alliance between Britain and Portugal is the oldest in our history, “It has,” says the writer of a recent Oxford pamphlet, “its roots far back in the fourteenth century, lor in 1353 there was a commercial treaty between the Crown of Portugal and the merchants of London. But the connection began still earlier, for in 1147 English crusaders had played a prominent part in the capture of Lisbon from the Moors 'by the heroic King Alphonso 1,, an event which marks the real and final establishment of Portugal as an independent Power. During the period of the great discoveries in the early sixteenth century the energies of the Portuguese won a vast empire in India, Africa, and South America. By acquiring a portion of this great empire at the renewal of the Anglo-Portuguese alliance in 1661 we made one of our most important steps in the establishment of our power in India. By that treaty of 1661, Great Britain engaged to defend Portuguese independence and territorial integrity, while Portugal ceded Bombay and Tangier. The marriage contract in regard to Charles 11. and Princess Catherine of Portugal was embodied in that treaty. The alliance between the two countries endured through the vicissitudes of the eighteenth century, and the long and honourable partnership during the Napoleonic wars is one of the brightest pages in the history of the two States. For the special objects comprehended in the Peninsula War a new treaty of alliance was concluded at Rio de Janeiro in 1810, with the royal house of Braganza, which had been expelled by Napoleon from Portugal. The objects of this treaty having been attained, a new treaty was made in January, 1815, renewing the ancient compacts of alliance, friendship and guarantee. The subsequent history of Portugal, its civil wars and revolutions, have not affected this ancient alliance.