Soriano also wrote several obituaries since, given his own long life, he witnessed the passing of many friends and acquaintances.

In his brief passage through the Chamber of Deputies, he made a speech about the need to rapidly occupy the port of Ambriz in the north of Angola (12/7/1853) which caught the public’s attention and was translated into English as part of the British government’s publications on the slave trade. This made him feel very proud. The British government was sounded out about not opposing the occupation, which was successfully accomplished in May 1855 (Revelações da Minha Vida…, pp. 431-432).

In all his works, Soriano shows great difficulty in accepting the inevitable rupture with the historical past that occurs in revolutions. This creates a great tension in him, evident in his narrative, between his liberal convictions that were cemented in his youth and to which he seems to have remained faithful all his life and the historical reality of the process to establish the liberal regime in Portugal that started with the 1820 revolution and ended in 1834. In this process he condemns the “general dismantling of the old institutions” (História da Guerra Civil… tomo XVII, p.366), in line with the conservative criticism of liberalism. He even admits there was no alternative in 1820. However, he believes the Vintista politicians went too far, finding their support in the “rabble” as opposed to “the more moderate voices of the Cortes”. Soriano mistrusts, above all else, the revolutionary mentality which believes in the need to break with the old in order to build a new society. While Herculano, Garrett and José Liberato looked at the past with horror, given the abuses committed by absolutism, and considered the revolution essential in order to bring down all the structures of the hated regime, Soriano understood that the absolute regime had simply become “incompatible with the lights of the 19th century and with the social status of the middle class” (História da Guerra Civil…, 1866-90, vol. XI, p. IX). Nothing more than this. The revolution, on the other hand, should have proceeded with caution to avoid unnecessary destruction. The opposite happened: the new liberal elite demolished the old without looking back.

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