Lusitania
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Growth of the Empire (1783-1799)
Growth of the Empire (1783-1799)
[1]
At the time of Marquis Pombal’s death King Joseph II was 21 and had reached the age of majority. After 1 month of mourning with the country besieged by war with both France and Dutch Republic King Joseph II was forced to choose a new Prime Minister who would help him govern the country and continue on with the growth and modernization of the country. There were several candidates who were well suited for the position. Foremost was Duke John but in private discussions with the young king Duke John requested that he stay in the position he was in, he felt the education system and sciences were just then beginning to grow and the department needed a firm hand guiding it. The second individual also considered was Ambassador Castro or also known as Martinho de Melo but when the king met with Ambassador Castro and they discussed the needs of the country and the work he was doing managing both the navy and colonial affairs it was decided that the best place for Ambassador Castro was to continue in his role but with a new title Count of Almada.[2]
The third candidate that king Joseph II interviewed, was one of the newest members of the cabinet but one who had been providing invaluable service to the kingdom, both before as Vice-Roy of Brazil and recently as Minister of Internal Affairs, the Marquis of Lavradio.
[1] The 50 cent bill shown here was the first printed paper money after the centralizing of Portuguese banking and, thus, together with the representation of Lady Justice in the left, symbolized the post-Three-Years-War period, known for its contributions to the Justice and Economic departments.
[2] iOTL Martinho de Melo was considered one of Portugal best ministers who excelled as Minister of Navy and Colonies. By time of his death he had rebuilt Portugal’s navy to be the 4th largest in Europe even with Portugal’s limited resources, a fact that was not lost on Napoleon, who coveted the Portuguese navy as part of his fight against the British.
This post starts the Post Post Pombaline era, we now start a new period of the Portuguese Empire with Pombal gone the government and people start benefiting from all the developments over the last 30 years. But it is also a time where the country tries to chart a new path and also try to make sense of how it had got to where it was. The important thing was that those in power were respective of what had been accomplished Questions/ Comments???
Join us on February 28 ,2021 as we start post the next section.
Note: with Thrudgelmir2333 stopping his writing TL stories and no other reader stepping forward to help I need to have time to write so I will only be posting once a month to allow time for new stories to be written and the TL not to stall. thanks.