Terceira was, all of it, an encampment teeming with people. People of all species. 1820s liberals, exalted and demagogic; young graduates and students straight off the benches of Coimbra, brimming with theory and idealism; writers and poets still swept up with literary fantasies; veterans of the peninsular campaign, admirable relics of the old Portuguese army; volunteers from every corner of Europe available to give everything for the cause of liberty; die-hard legitimists who saw in Maria da Glória the symbol of dynastic legitimacy; dreamers and adventures of every possible order, those drawn from the streets of London and Paris and fitted into the warrior hosts of the most loyal queen.
Joaquim Pedro de Oliveira Martins (1845-1894), Portugal Contemporâneo.