A work which (great as the regeneration of Portugal would be) was, for the happiness, prosperity, and peace of this country, the very greatest in which any government could possibly be engaged.*

Wellington's devious conduct over the Portuguese question did not show the iron duke at his best. While never going so far as to withdraw recognition of Maria as legitimate Queen of Portugal, in practice he did everything in his power to assist Miguel. In the dying days of his government – in October 1830 – he actually offered the Lisbon Embassy to Beresford. At that time Wellington believed that Miguel could be recognized as King of Portugal in the near future; all that was needed was the proclamation of a General Amnesty for his opponents. Wellington was thus on the brink of abandoning the policy announced in George IV's message (of course really Wellington's) when Parliament rose on 28 July 1828:

Thereafter the official line was that Britain would follow a policy of non- interference, but the effect of Aberdeen's measures – clearly taken with Wellington's approval and probably on his instructions – was to favour the Absolutist cause and weaken the Liberal one.

On 25 August 1828, Lord Strangford left for Rio de Janeiro aboard the Galatea, with instructions to persuade Pedro not to waver in his decision to abdicate the Portuguese throne and to send his daughter to Vienna as quickly as possible, so that she could marry her uncle as previously agreed. The emperor refused. As Lafayette noted in a speech to the Chambre des Députés on 9 July 1829, Strangford had no chance of succeeding because he was seeking to reconcile two irreconcilable principles: ‘the alleged sovereignty of Miguel's Cortes, with the institutions that a British Ambassador, by the way, had brought from Brazil’. In fact neither the Absolutists nor the Liberals now wanted the marriage; the Absolutists wanted Miguel to rule as king, not as regent for his wife, while the Liberals now regarded Miguel with complete loathing.