Câmara Leme (Dom Luís da)

Dom Luís da Câmara Leme, one of the most illustrious Madeirans of the 19th century, was born in this city on 26 March 1817, the son of Dom João Frederico da Câmara Leme and Dona Maria Carolina Correia Pinto. He belonged to an old and noble family of this archipelago and descended in a direct line from Garcia Homem de Sousa, one of the four noblemen whom Afonso V sent to Madeira to marry the daughters of the discoverer João Gonçalves Zarco.

He enlisted in 1836 and was promoted to second lieutenant (alferes) the following year. In 1883 he reached the high rank of general of division, in which he retired in June 1884. He was one of the most distinguished army officers of his time. As head of department (repartição) at the Ministry of War, as a military writer and as the officer entrusted with important missions abroad, he rendered the most notable services to the Portuguese army. He took part in the reform and reorganisation of many military services, and his opinion on such matters was always heeded as that of a consummate authority on the subject.

He wrote Elementos da Arte Militar, in two volumes, which ran to two editions; Considerações gerais ácerca da reorganização militar de Portugal; Relatorio apresentado ao ministro da guerra ácerca da aquisição de novas armas portateis; and Relatorio ácerca dos objectos militares mais notaveis apresentados na exposição universal de Paris de 1867, besides other works and reports that he drafted but that were never published. Elementos da Arte Militar was regarded as a work of extraordinary merit, which at once earned him the standing of a distinguished military writer, not only in our country but also abroad.

Although his career as an army officer was remarkably distinguished, it seems that the most marked feature of his personality was that of the parliamentarian and politician. He was elected deputy without interruption for various constituencies from 1857 until 1878, when, by royal letter (carta régia) of 2 December of that year, he took his seat in the upper house as a life peer. He represented Madeira in the Cortes (Portuguese parliament) in the legislatures from 1857 to 1864 and in the legislative session from 1875 to 1878, always defending the most vital interests of his homeland with unalloyed dedication.

In 1870 he was minister of the navy and public works, and he later refused several times to join certain ministries.

Although he did not possess the gifts of a great tribune, he was nonetheless a speaker of easy and correct diction and sober language, with a profound knowledge of the subjects he addressed, and his words were always heard in the national assembly with the respect usually paid to great politicians and parliamentarians. The campaign he launched in parliament on ministerial responsibility, and sustained for years on end, became well known and notable. In it he displayed the lofty qualities of his exceptional intelligence and, perhaps even more, the dauntless independence of his character. For years in succession, bowed under the weight of advanced age and tormenting ailments, the old general and peer of the realm would still go to the upper house to defend his bill on ministerial responsibility, delivering speeches that became celebrated, some of which were published in a volume entitled Incompatibilidades Politicas.

Dom Luís da Câmara Leme received many Portuguese and foreign honours, and was a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Sciences (Academia Real das Sciencias) and a member of various literary and scientific societies. Besides the writings listed above and his contributions to various reviews, he wrote an interesting monograph on the district of Lourenço Marques, which he entitled Lourenço Marques. Estudo syntetico sobre o aspecto historico, politico e moral.

As a tribute to his merits and in recognition of his services to the country and especially to the army, a subscription was opened among the military officers to acquire a commandery insignia or decoration to be presented to General Dom Luís da Câmara Leme in the name of the Portuguese army. The subscription raised eight contos de réis (conto: one million réis), and Câmara Leme asked that only half of this sum be applied to the purchase of the decoration and that the other half be used to help the poor widows of army officers.

As is well known, General Câmara Leme married first the celebrated actress Emília das Neves, whose fortune he inherited, and secondly Dona Ana de Albuquerque, a writer and also an actress. He died in Lisbon on 27 January 1904, at the advanced age of 86.