cessful; but it was rendered useless by the adoption of steam power in the navy.
During the first two years of her commission the Galatea was twice sent to the West Indies, and once, in August 1830, to Lisbon, where Napier was instructed to demand the restitution of certain British vessels which had been seized by Dom Miguel, at that time the de facto king of Portugal. In the summer of 1831 he was sent to watch over British interests in the Azores, where the partisans of the little queen, the daughter of Dom Pedro, had established themselves in Terceira in opposition to Dom Miguel. The queen's party gained strength, and ultimately organised an invasion of Portugal. Napier came into close intercourse with the chiefs of the party, and took a lively interest in Portuguese affairs. The Galatea was paid off in January 1832, and after a year on shore, during which he unsuccessfully contested the borough of Portsmouth in the general election, in February 1833 he was formally offered the command of the Portuguese fleet in the cause of Dona Maria and her father, Dom Pedro. After some negotiation he accepted it, on the resignation of Admiral Sartorius [see Sartorius, Sir George Rose], and, to avoid the penalties of the Foreign Enlistment Act, went out to Oporto under the name of Carlos de Ponza. He wrote to his wife on 30 April: ‘If nothing unexpected happens, in one month I hope either to be in Lisbon or in heaven.’ But it was 28 May before he sailed from Falmouth, and 2 June before he arrived at Oporto. He was accompanied by a small party of English officers, mostly old shipmates, including his stepson, Charles Elers Napier, a lieutenant in the navy, and by a flotilla of five steamers, carrying out about 160 officers and seamen, and an English and Belgian regiment.
On 8 June Napier received his commission as vice-admiral, major-general of the Portuguese navy, and commander-in-chief of the fleet, and on 10 June he hoisted his flag. The force at his disposal consisted of three vessels of from 40 to 50 guns, 18-pounder and 32-pounder carronades, and two corvettes, besides some small steamers, the aggregate crews of which numbered barely more than one thousand, but were mostly English, with a large proportion of old men-of-war's men; all the superior officers were English. On 20 June the little squadron sailed from Oporto, conveying a small army, under the command of Count Villa Flor, afterwards Duke of Terceira. The troops were landed at the south-eastern corner of Portugal, near the mouth of the Guadiana, and, marching along the coast, secured the several southern ports without difficulty. At Lagos the sea and land forces separated. Villa Flor went north, and captured Lisbon; Napier with the squadron put to sea on 2 July, and on the 3rd sighted the squadron of Dom Miguel off Cape St. Vincent. In material force this squadron was very far superior to that of the queen, although in fighting efficiency it was inferior. After waiting two days for favourable weather the action began. Napier's flagship grappled with one of the enemy's two line-of-battle ships, boarded, and hauled down her flag; the other tried to make off, but was chased, and struck after a merely nominal resistance. Two 50-gun ships were also captured; the smaller craft escaped. The victory was creditable to Napier and his officers; but Napier's statement ‘that at no time was a naval action fought with such a disparity of force’ implies more than the fact: the disparity was only apparent. The Miguel officers were incompetent, the crews untrained, and both officers and men bore so little goodwill to the cause that most of them volunteered immediately for the queen's service.
Napier returned to Lagos, and there organised his force, now nearly treble what it was on the morning of 5 July, and, with his flag on board one of the captured line-of-battle ships, put to sea again on the 13th. The next day he received official news of his promotion to the rank of admiral, and of his being ennobled in the peerage of Portugal as Viscount Cape St. Vincent. At the same time a virulent attack of cholera broke out in his squadron, and in the flagship worst of all. In five days she buried fifty men, and had two hundred on the sick list. As the best chance of shaking off the deadly infection, Napier steered away to the westward, and the ship ‘had not proceeded many leagues ere the disease most suddenly disappeared.’ By the evening of the 24th the squadron was off the mouth of the Tagus, when Napier learned that Lisbon had surrendered to the Duke of Terceira the night before. He entered the river the next day, and paid a visit to Rear-admiral Parker, commanding the English fleet then lying there [see Parker, Sir William, (1781–1866)], when he was much gratified at being received according to his Portuguese rank. ‘When I came on shore,’ he wrote to his wife, ‘I was hailed as the liberator of Portugal, was cheered, kissed, and embraced by everybody.’ Dom Pedro conferred on him the grand cross of the order of the Tower and Sword. In England his victory had been considered an English success, and at a large public meeting, with the Duke of
