paroissent reunir tous les vices de l’ame et du corps.  II y a, au reste, entre la capitale et le nord de ce royaume, une difference marquee sous ces deux rapports.  Dans les provinces septentrionales, les hommes sont moins noirs et moin laids, plus francs, plus lians dans la societe, bien plus braves et plus laborieux, mais encore plus asservis, s’il est possible, aux prejuges.  Cette difference existe egalement pour les femmes; elles sont beaucoup plus blanches que celles du sud.  Les Portugais, consideres en general, sont vindicatifs bas, vains, railleurs, presomptueux a l’exces, jaloux. et ignorans.  Apres avoir retrace les defauts que j’ai cru appercevoir en eux, je serois injuste si je me taisois sur leurs bonnes qualites.  Ils sont attaches a leur patrie, amis genereux, fideles, sobres, charitables.  Ils seroient bons Chretiens si le fanatisme ne les aveugloit pas.  Ils sont si accoutumes aux pratiques de la religion qu’ils sont plus superstitieux que devots.  Les hidalgos, ou les grands de Portugal, sont tres bornes dans leur education, orgueilleux et insolens; vivant dans la plus grande ignorance, ils ne sortent presque jamais de leur pays pour aller voir les autres peuples.”  Time and changed circumstances have somewhat softened these traits, but their general correctness is still recognizable.

“Add hypocrisy to a Spaniard’s vices and you have the Portuguese character,” says Dr. Southey.  “They are deceitful and cowardly—­have no public spirit nor national character,” says Semple.  “The morals of both sexes are lax in the extreme; assassination is a common offence; they rank about as low in the social scale as any people of Christendom,” says McCulloch.  “Their songs are licentious:  the national dance or the toffa is so lascivious that every stranger who sees it must deplore the corruption of the people, and regret to find such exhibitions permitted, not only in the country, but in the heart of towns, and even on the stage,” says Malte-Brun.  “Portugal is a paradise inhabited by demons and brutes,” says Madame Junot—­a phrase taken probably from Byron’s description of Cintra.

My countrymen will be enraged with me for thus repeating the worst that has been said about them, but I repeat it for their own benefit, like the surgeon, who, to save the patient’s life, cruelly probes the wound or lays bare the corruption from which he is suffering.  Moreover, I shall have still darker spots to exhibit in a national character which has been stamped with centuries of feudal and ecclesiastical tyranny.

In a country possessing a fair share of the natural resources commonly in demand a free and prosperous population will double in numbers every fifteen years, an increase of about 4-1/2 per cent. per annum compounded.  The United States, a country rich in natural resources, and one whose government offers but few obstacles to freedom and individual prosperity, has doubled its population every twenty-two and a half years since 1790.  This is equal to over 3 per cent. per annum.  In that country the annual number of births in every 10,000 of population is 500,[9] of immigrants, 75; total increase, 575.  The deaths are 250, leaving 325 in 10,000, or 3-1/2 per cent. gain as the net result of the year’s growth and decay of population.