I ask you: when was Lisbon better governed?
"Contrast, for a moment, with these the present British administration--for it amounts to an administration.

Consider the burning grievances that must be left behind by this policy of laying the country waste, of pauperising a million people of all degrees, driving them homeless from the lands on which they were born, after compelling them to lend a hand in the destruction of all that their labour has built up through long years.

If any policy could better serve the purposes of France, I know it not.

The people from here to Beira should be ready to receive the French with open arms, and to welcome their deliverance from this most costly and bitter British protection.
"Do you, Messieurs, detect a flaw in these arguments ?" Both shook their heads.
"Bien!" said the major of Portuguese Cacadores.

"Then we reach one or two only possible conclusions: either these rumours of a policy of devastation which have reached the Prince of Esslingen are as utterly false as he believes them to be, or--" "To my cost I know them to be true, as I have already told you," Samoval interrupted bitterly.
"Or," the major persisted, raising a hand to restrain the Count, "or there is something further that has not been yet discovered--a mystery the enucleation of which will shed light upon all the rest.