The Portuguese, like the British nation, is essentially aristocratic.
[…] But here the parallel ends. When once men have attained that eminence in
Portugal, their energies become paralysed. […] In
Portugal […] all projects, the offspring of individual or associated
enterprise, are viewed with suspicion if carried on without the intervention of
the central government. […] If an individual, who becomes ennobled, has amassed
a fortune unusually large, his ambition assumes a higher character; he then
establishes himself in Lisbon, with a view of obtaining employments for his
family under the Crown […].
(Lord Porchester, The Last Days of the
Portuguese Constitution, 1830)
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