Manuel Maria da Silva Bruschy

File:Manuel Maria da Silva Bruschy - Retratos de portugueses do século XIX (SOUSA, Joaquim Pedro de).png

Engraving of Manuel Maria da Silva Bruschy, by Joaquim Pedro de Sousa (c. 1860's)

Manuel Maria da Silva Bruschy (15 December 1813 – 12 September 1873) was a Portuguese journalist, writer, military officer, politician and jurist.

Biography

Manuel Maria da Silva Bruschy was born in Rio de Janeiro, Colonial Brazil, the son of João Carlos Bruschy. Belonging to a family linked to the court of the Royal Palace, which at the time was in Brazil, he was born in its then capital and came to mainland Portugal in 1821, accompanying King John VI.

In 1830 he began his academic studies at the University of Coimbra. Soon afterwards he enlisted as a supporter of King Miguel, taking part in the Portuguese Civil War, serving as an engineering lieutenant, and then in the Legitimist Party. In 1834 he left Portugal, to be exiled because his political position had been defeated, and went to Rio de Janeiro to study medicine and then to Paris, where he switched to natural sciences.

Then, to continue defending his traditionalist ideals, Bruschy took part in the Carlist War on 6 May in Spain, enlisting in 1837 and taking part in the Royal Expedition with his 4th Castile Battalion, falling prisoner. Regained by Ramón Cabrera, he joined his command where he was assigned to the engineer corps of the Army of Aragon and Valencia, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel of infantry. However, he was again taken prisoner at the fall of Canhete and was expelled from that country.

On his return to the ruined Kingdom of Portugal, he was met by Commander José Pereira Palha, who offered him the chance to be his children's preceptor at the University of Coimbra, which opened the door for him to finish his studies there too.

At the time, he published in the literary newspaper A Semana and in the Revista Académica in Coimbra. Back in Lisbon, he collaborated in founding and directing the legitimist newspapers of the time, A Nação and Almanaque Português, as well as writing various works on law, history and a historical drama.

Manuel Maria da Silva Bruschy died in poverty in the early hours of 12 September 1873 at Conceição Nova, Lisbon. His family had been helped in their most distressing and final hours, with exemplary delicacy, by a neighbour and benevolent Brazilian citizen, the Baron of Marajó, a sincere admirer of Bruschy's talents.

Private life

Married for the first time to his cousin Francisca de Paula. Married a second time, on 20 February 1860, in Santa Maria de Belém, Lisbon, to Maria da Luz de Sousa Castelo Branco (1843–1878), daughter of Emília Rita Adelaide de Lacerda and José de Sousa de Castelo Branco (born 1821), 16th lord of Guardão. 10th lord of the Lagar d'El-Rei estate. Administrator of the morgados of Alecrim, Moinho-Novo, Banda de Além and decorated with the Medal of the Royal Effigy of King Miguel. The couple had a son:

• Manuel Maria Augusto da Silva Bruschy (1864–1951), Director General of the Public Treasury and Secretary General of the Ministry of Finance, married Francisca Amélia Salinas Figueira Freire Caldeira de Mendanha on 23 February 1895 in Anjos, Lisbon. With issue.

Works

• D. João primeiro: drama histórico em 5 actos (1841; with José Maria da Silva Leal)
• Annotações ao Compendio de direito romano de Waldeck (1846)
• Portugal e o seu Exército (1867)
• Manual do direito civil portuguez, segundo a novíssima legislação (1868)

References

• Bettencourt, Manuel de (1943). Dom Miguel II e o Seu Tempo: Notas Biográficas sôbre o Senhor Dom Miguel de Bragança. Lisboa: Edicões Gama.
• Mónica, Maria Teresa (1997). Errâncias Miguelistas (1834–43). Lisboa: Cosmos.
• Pinho Leal (1874). Portugal Antigo e Moderno, Vol. 4. Lisboa: Mattos Moreira & Companhia, pp. 340–43.