This being so, the criticisms made by Liberato and Carreira were aimed much more at Palmela, Saldanha, Mendizábal and Rodrigo da Fonseca than at Silva Carvalho. In fact, the few references that both Liberato and Carreira make to Silva Carvalho always seem to be respectful and friendly, if not openly eulogistic (António Viana, Op. Cit., pp. 110-111, 123 e 372-74 (and n. 1 p. 372) and Memórias da vida de José Liberato Freire de Carvalho, edition of 1855, pp. 334, 341, 343 e 375 and edition of 1982, pp. 194, 198, 199 e 216). This is not surprising as Carvalho had been the financial brain (after Mouzinho da Silveira) and the orchestrator of D. Pedro’s liberal strategy that had won in Évora-Monte but which was later defeated on 9 September 1836.

In effect, this is but one more historiographical controversy that still remains to be resolved, although it was partly taken up again by João Carlos Alvim in 1982 when he re-edited – at an opportune moment! – Liberato’s Memórias (Memories), providing them with a problematizing and enlightening introduction (see, on this, Memórias da vida de José Liberato Freire de Carvalho, 1982, pp. XIX, n. 13 e XX, n. 15).

From this and other polemical disputes, it can be concluded that the reliability of the sources made available by Liberato (in this and other works), Palmela, Carreira and Viana is not invalidated – rather, they complement each other, they complexify each other, they complete each other. And without a comparative study of their ideas and ideological, political and cultural paths, everything will seem – will continue to seem – like a simple settling of old scores between contrasting and contradictory political memoirs.

The second part of Viana’s work comprises a tetralogy, thereby succeeding the trilogy dedicated to Silva Carvalho. The series of books with the generic title Apontamentos para a História Diplomática (Notes for Diplomatic History), including the respective Introdução (Introduction), took almost six decades to be published. Three volumes were printed between 1901 and 1922 during the author’s lifetime; the fourth was published only in 1958, at the time of the centenary of his birth (and spurred on by António Baião). They cover the periods from 1789 to 1815 (the Introdução...) and from 1820 to 1828 (the remaining volumes). As is well known, it was during these eight years that Silva Carvalho and many other liberal figures went through successive periods of greatness and downfall, of brilliance and obscurity.

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