for your Contempt of Power and Grandeur, your Love for your Country, your Passion for Liberty, and (which is the best Characteristick) your Desire of doing Good to Mankind. I can hardly leave so agreeable a Subject, but I cannot say more than all the World knows already.

Your Grace's illustrious Father has left a Name behind Him as glorious as any Person of the Age: it is unnecessary to enter into the Particulars of his Character; to mention his Name, is the greatest Panegyrick: Immediately to succeed that Great Man, must have been extremely to the Disadvantage of any other Person, but it is far from being so to Your Grace; it makes your Virtues but the more conspicuous, and convinces us the Nation is not without one Man worthy of being his Successor.

I have nothing more to trouble Your Grace with, than only to wish you the Honours you so well deserve, and to beg you would excuse my presuming to honour my-self with the Title of,

May it please your Grace, Your Grace's most Obedient, Humble Servant,
Gabriel Roussillon.

PREFACE.

mongst the Historians of the present Age, none has more justly deserv'd, neither has any acquir'd a greater Reputation than the Abbot de Vertot; not only by this Piece, but also by the Revolutions of Sweden and of Rome, which he has since publish'd.

This small History he has extracted from the[A] Writings of several French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian Authors, as well as from the Testimony of many Persons, who were in Lisbon at the time of the Revolution. And I believe that it will be no difficult matter to persuade the Reader, that this little Volume is written with much more Politeness and Fidelity than any which has been publish'd on this Subject.

And indeed there could be no Man fitter to undertake the Work than Monsieur de Vertot; not only as he was Master of an excellent Style, and had all the Opportunities imaginable of informing himself of the Truth, but also as he could have no Interest in speaking partially of either the one or the other Party; and therefore might say much more justly than Salust, de Conjuratione, Quam verissime potero, paucis absolvam; eoque magis, quod mihi a Spe, Metu, Partibus Reipublicæ Animus liber est.

Would I undertake to prove the Impartiality of my Author, I could easily do it from several little Circumstances of his History. Does he not tell us, that the Inquisition is oftner a Terror to honest Men than to Rogues? Does he not paint the Archbishop of Braga in all the Colours of a Traitor? And I am