Lampreia (Francisco Joaquim de Sá Camelo)

He was born in Funchal on 27 June 1829, the son of Marshal João Lampreia, and died in Lisbon on 17 December 1876, while deputy for Moura, aged only 47. He graduated in medicine from the University of Coimbra (Universidade de Coimbra), where he always proved a student of exceptional and brilliant talent. While still very young he displayed rare gifts as an orator, which later, in Parliament, made him one of the most notable speakers of his time. He belonged to the Historic Progressive Party and was a close friend of the Duke of Loulé, the party's leader. He represented several mainland constituencies in the Cortes (Portuguese parliament) and was also deputy for Madeira in the legislative session of 1865. He was a permanent teacher at the Funchal lyceum (state secondary school) and held various public service commissions in Lisbon, in which he always revealed the high faculties of his mind.

We shall complete this brief article with the words, full of truth, that the Diccionario Popular devotes to this Madeiran: ‘He graduated in medicine from the University of Coimbra, where he acquired the reputation of a brilliant orator and a man of exceptional talent. And so he was indeed; and if he could not display the full greatness of his intellectual gifts on the political stage, if he did not show all that he was worth, it was because illness came to prevent him from playing the part for which his great mind had been fashioned.’

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Instances are cited that revealed the loftiness of his intellect and, above all, his natural gift for oratory. When he sat the examination for the 4th year of medicine, one of his examiners was a most distinguished professor who had, however, fallen into the habit of not studying his students’ theses. So, whenever he began to argue, he would always declare that the proposition maintained in the thesis was perfectly self-evident and that he was going to challenge it only out of duty as an examiner. This system produced the following result. If the student defended the thesis well, the audience concluded that nothing could be easier; if he was beaten, the professor’s glory shone with all the splendour of a difficulty overcome. Lampreia went to the examination and, hearing the professor remark that the thesis upheld a self-evident doctrine, grew irritated and replied at once: “If it is as self-evident as Your Excellency supposes, then let Your Excellency defend it, and I shall proceed to attack it.

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Challenged in this way, the professor could not back down. With him in the singular position of opponent of his own theories, Lampreia displayed such dialectical subtlety, such skill in argument and so much natural eloquence that the victory may be said to have been his.

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So brilliant a talent and such rare faculties could scarcely show themselves, because illness came to paralyse them. A disease of the larynx rendered his eloquence useless; his hoarse, rasping voice could barely be heard and spoiled all his oratorical effects. Even so, his talent was so great that he often wielded influence in the Chamber.

Councillor (conselheiro, honorary title of the royal council) Lampreia was unquestionably one of the most distinguished Madeirans of the 19th century.