His condescension is evident, however. The ground is being laid for democracy to soon show itself incompatible with the monarchy. In this first work by Arriaga we already find two important strands in his vision of Portuguese history: 1) a fascination with the figure of the Marquis of Pombal, his entrepreneurial spirit, his “massive plans” to raise Portugal to the “heights of glory and power”, thereby reversing the long-established climate of decline (idem, p. 473), and 2) the demonization of two countries, England and Spain.

In nineteenth-century literature hostility towards England was assiduously cultivated by, amongst others, José Liberato Freire de Andrade, a radical Liberal, who lived in England as an emigrant in the 1820s. José de Arriaga would become one of his most direct disciples (Historiografia, 1998, p. 96). In 1882 he published his book A Inglaterra, Portugal e as suas Colónias [England, Portugal, and its Colonies], in which he outlines the history of the Portuguese alliance with England, from the Middle Ages up the Treaty of Lourenço Marques. Arriaga asserts that the regeneration of the country requires its independence from the “overwhelming domination” of England, and emphasizes the importance for Portugal of the African colonies, regretting the disdain for them shown by the government. If, he says, the English are “our odious exploiters”, Spain is our second external enemy, because it “wants to annex us” (A Política Conservadora, 1880, p. 486). The Iberism (union of Spain and Portugal) supported by the likes of Latino Coelho, Antero de Quental and Henriques Nogueira, had no traction amongst the second generation of Republicans, responsible for the rise of the Republican Party. Neither Teófilo nor Arriaga was attracted to the Iberist idea, because it had little support amongst large sections of the population. However, the main reason for rejecting Iberism lay in the fact that over the previous two decades of the century a nationalist discourse had become widespread all over Europe, in all political sectors, with the exception of the Socialist movement. In Portugal, the Republican Party was the most successful in exploiting this sentiment, thanks to a strategy of national exaltation which reachad its apogee in the British Ultimatum (1890).

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | (Pdf)