He lived in his country's splendid past, refusing to recognise that the days of Henry the Navigator, of Vasco da Gama, of Manuel the Fortunate--days in which Portugal had been great indeed among the nations of the Old World were gone and done with.

He respected Britons as great merchants and industrious traders; but, after all, merchants and traders are not the peers of fighters on land and sea, of navigators, conquerors and civilisers, such as his countrymen had been, such as he believed them still to be.

That the descendants of Gamas, Cunhas, Magalhaes and Albuquerques--men whose names were indelibly written upon the very face of the world--should be passed over, whilst alien officers lead been brought in to train and command the Portuguese legions, was an affront to Portugal which Minas could never forgive.
It was thus that he had become a rebel, withdrawing from a government whose supineness he could not condone.

For a while his rebellion had been passive, until the Principal Souza had heated him in the fire of his own rage and fashioned him into an intriguing instrument of the first power.

He was listening intently now to the soft, rapid speech of the gentleman in the major's uniform.
"Of course, rumours had reached the Prince of this policy of devastation," he was saying, "but his Highness has been disposed to treat these rumours lightly, unable to see, as indeed are we all, what useful purpose such a policy could finally serve.