INTRODUCTION.

SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF BRAZIL.

I judged it necessary to prefix the following sketch of the history of Brazil to the journal of my voyage thither, in order that the political events to which I was an eye-witness might be the better understood.

The early part of the history is almost entirely taken from Mr. Southey. It would have been easy for me to have referred to the Portuguese authors, as I have read nearly all that are to be found in print of Mr. Southey's authorities, and some that he does not mention; but Mr. Southey had been so faithful as well as judicious in the use he has made of his authors, that it would have been absurd, if not impertinent, to have neglected his guidance. From the time of the King's arrival in Brazil, or rather of his leaving Lisbon, I am answerable for all I have stated: it is little, but I hope that little is correct.

The circumstances of Spanish and Portuguese America were very different in every stage. In Mexico, in Peru, in Chili, the conquerors encountered a people civilised and humane; acquainted with many of the arts of polished life; agriculturists and mechanics; knowing in the things belonging to the altar and the throne, and waging war for conquest and for glory. But the savages of Brazil were hunters and cannibals; they wandered, and they made war for food: few of the tribes knew even the cultivation of the mandioc, and fewer still had adopted any kind of covering, save paint and feathers for ornament. The Spanish conquests were more quickly made, and appeared more easily settled, because in states so far advanced in civilisation the defeat of an army decides the fate of a kingdom, and the land already cultivated, and the mines already known and worked, were entered upon at once by the conquerors.

In Brazil the land that was granted by leagues was to be won by inches from the hordes of savages who succeeded each other in incalculable multitudes, and whose migratory habits rendered it a matter of course for one tribe immediately to occupy the ground from which its predecessors had been driven. Hence the history of the early settlers in Brazil presents none of those splendid and chivalresque pictures that the chronicles of the Corteses, and Pizarros, and Almagros furnish. They are plain, and often pathetic scenes of human life, full of patience, and enterprise, and endurance; but the wickedness that stains even the best of them, is the more disgusting as it is more sordid.

But the very circumstances that facilitated the settling of the Spanish colonies were also likely to accelerate their liberation. A sense and a remembrance of national honour and freedom, remained among the polished Mexicans and Peruvians. Their numbers indeed had been thinned by the cruelties of the conquerors, but enough were left to perpetuate the memory of their fathers, to hand down the prophecies uttered in the phrenzy of their dying patriots; and the Peruvian, when he visited Lima, looked round the chamber of the viceroys, as he saw niche after niche filled up with their pictures, till the fated number should be accomplished, with no common emotion[1]; and many a dreamer on the Peruvian coast, when he saw the Admiral of the Chilian squadron, was ready to hail him as the golden-haired son of light who was to restore the kingdom of the Incas.[2]

But in Brazil, what was once gained was not likely to be lost by the efforts of the natives, or at least by any recollection of their's, pointing to a better or more glorious time. They have been either exterminated, or wholly subdued. The slave hunting, which had been systematic on the first occupation of the land, and more especially after the discovery of the mines, had diminished the wretched Indians, so that the introduction of the hardier Africans was deemed necessary: they now people the Brazilian fields; and if here and there an Indian aldea is to be found, the people are wretched, with less than Negro comforts, and much less than Negro spirit or industry. Hence, while the original Mexicans and Peruvians form a real and respectable part of the assertors of the independance of their country, along with the Creole Spaniards, the Indians are nothing in Brazil; even as a mixed race, they have less part among the different casts than in the Spanish colonies; and therefore jealousies among the Portuguese themselves could alone at this period have brought affairs to their present crisis. These jealousies have taken place, and though they did not arise principally out of the causes of the emigration and return of the Royal family, they were at least quickened and accelerated by them.

In 1499, Brazil was discovered by Vicente Yañez Pinçon, a native of Palos, and one of the companions of Columbus. He and his brothers were in search of new countries, and after touching at the Cape de Verd Islands, he steered to the south-west, till he came to the coast of Brazil, near Cape St. Augustine, and coasted along as far as the river Maranham, and thence to the mouth of the Oronoco. He carried home some valuable drugs, precious stones, and Brazil wood; but had lost two of his three ships on the voyage. He made no settlement, but had claimed the country for Spain.

Meantime Pedro Alvarez Cabral was appointed by Emanuel, King of Portugal, to the command of a large fleet, destined to follow the course of Vasco de Gama in the east. Adverse winds, however, drove the expedition so far to the westward, that it fell in with the coast of Brazil, and the ships anchored in Porto Seguro on Good-Friday of the year 1500. On Easter-day the first Christian altar was raised in the new continent under a large tree, and mass was performed, at which the innocent natives assisted with pleased attention: the country was taken possession of for the crown of Portugal by the name of the land of the Holy Cross, and a stone cross was erected to commemorate the event. Cabral dispatched a small vessel to Lisbon to announce his discovery, and then, without making any settlement, proceeded to India.

On the arrival of the news in Europe, the King of Portugal invited Amerigo Vespucci from Seville, and sent him with three ships to explore the country. After a long and distressing voyage they arrived, and very early in their intercourse with the natives they discovered that they were cannibals, but nevertheless they established a friendly intercourse with some of the tribes; and after coasting along South America as far as lat. 52°, finding neither port nor inhabitants, and suffering from intolerable cold, they returned to Lisbon in 1502.

Early in the next year Amerigo sailed again with six ships; but having stood too near the coast of Africa, after passing the Cape de Verds by the orders of the commander, four of the vessels were lost, but Amerigo with the other two reached a port which they called All Saints.[3] There they remained five months, in friendship with the natives, with whom some of the party travelled forty leagues into the interior. They erected a small fort, and left twelve men with guns and provisions, and having loaded their two ships with Brazil wood, monkeys, and parrots, they returned to Lisbon early in 1504.

But as Brazil, as it now began to be called, did not promise that ample supply of gold which the Spaniards had discovered in their new countries, and which the Portuguese gained with less hazard from Africa, and from the East, the country ceased for a time to excite the attention of government, and the first actual settlements were made by private adventurers, who, on account of their trade, were desirous of having some kind of agents among the people. The first persons employed for this purpose were criminals, a sort of settlers that may do well in an unpeopled country, where there is nothing to do but to reclaim the land, but that must do ill where there are many and savage natives, because they either become degraded to the savage level themselves, if they continue friends, or, if not, they are apt to practise such cruelties and injustice as disgust the natives, render colonisation difficult, and if they teach any thing, it is all the worst part of the life of civilised nations.

But in 1508, Amerigo Vespucci having returned to the service of Spain, the King resolved to take possession of the new land which had been discovered; and founding his claims on the grant of Alexander VI., he sent Vincent Yañez Pinçon and Juan Diaz de Solis to assert them. They made Cape St Augustine's, which Pinçon had discovered, and coasted along to lat. 40° south, erecting crosses as they went; but some disputes having arisen between them, they returned to Spain: and it appears that the remonstrances of Portugal against the voyage, as an interference with her discoveries, had some weight, for it was not until 1515 that Solis was dispatched on a second voyage, and then it was with the avowed purpose of seeking a passage to the Great Pacific Sea, which had been sought and seen by Balboa in 1513.

That extraordinary but unfortunate man was the first European whose eyes rested on the broad Pacific. He had heard from the Indians of its existence, and resolutely set out to discover it, well aware of the dangers and difficulties he had to encounter. After twenty-five days of suffering and fatigue, he saw the South Sea; he heard of Peru, its mines, and its llamas, its cities and its aqueducts, and he received pearls[4] from the islands that lay in front of St. Miguel's bay, where he walked sword in hand up to his middle into the water and took possession for the King of Spain. No one in Europe now doubted that the western way to the East Indies was discovered.

Great hopes were therefore entertained from the expedition of Solis. That able navigator made the coast of Brazil far to the southward of Cape St. Augustine, where he had been with Pinçon; and on the 1st of January 1516 he discovered the harbour of Rio de Janeiro; thence he sailed still to the southward, and entered what he hoped at first would be a sea, or strait, by which he might communicate with the ocean; but it was the river La Plata, where Solis and several of his followers were murdered and devoured by the natives. The ships then put back to St. Augustines, loaded with Brazil wood, and returned to Spain.

But the King Don Emanuel claimed these cargoes, and again remonstrated against the interference of Spain so effectually, that three years afterwards, when Magalhaens touched at Rio de Janeiro, he purchased nothing but provisions.

Meantime several French adventurers had come to Brazil, and had taken in their cargoes of Brazil wood, monkies and parrots, and sometimes plundered some of the weaker Portuguese traders. In 1616, two of these adventurers entered the bay of All Saints, and had begun to trade with the Indians, when the Portuguese commander, Cristovam Jaques, sailing into the port, and examining all its coves, discovered them, and sunk the ships, crews, and cargoes. About the same time, a young Portuguese nobleman, who had been wrecked on the shoal off the entrance of the harbour[5], and who had seen half his companions drowned, and half eaten by the Indians, had contrived to conciliate the natives. He had saved a musket and some powder from the wreck, and having taken an opportunity of shooting a bird in the presence of the inhabitants, they called him Caramuru, or the man of fire; and, as he accompanied them on an expedition against their enemies the Tapuyas, he became a favourite, married at least one Indian wife, and fixed his residence at the spot now called Villa Velha, near an excellent spring, and not far from the entrance to the bay.

Caramuru, however, felt some natural longing to see his native land, and accordingly seized the opportunity afforded by the arrival of a French vessel, and taking his favourite wife, he went with her to France, where they were well received by the court, the king and queen standing sponsors at the baptism of the Brazilian lady, whose marriage was now celebrated according to the Christian form. Caramuru, however, was not permitted to go to Portugal; but by means of a young Portuguese student at Paris[6], he communicated his situation to the King Joam III., and pressed him to send an expedition to the bay of All Saints. Shortly afterwards, Caramuru returned to Bahia, having agreed to freight two ships with Brazil wood as the price of his passage, of the artillery of the ships, and of the articles necessary for trading with the natives.

Still, however, as Brazil furnished neither gold, nor that rich commerce which the Portuguese derived from their Indian trade, it was pretty much left to itself for the first thirty years after its discovery; and then the regulations adopted by the court were not, perhaps, the most advantageous for the country. The coast was divided by Joam III. into captaincies, many of which extended fifty leagues, and each captaincy was made hereditary, and granted to any one who was willing to embark with sufficient means in the adventure; and to these captains an unlimited jurisdiction, both criminal and civil, was granted.

The first person who took possession of one of these captaincies was Martim Affonso de Souza, in 1531, who sometimes claims the discovery of Rio de Janeiro as his, although it had been named by Solis fifteen years before. Souza was probably deterred from fixing on the shores of that beautiful bay, by the number and fierceness of the Indian tribes that occupied them. He therefore coasted towards the south, naming Ilha Grande dos Magos on twelfth-day, when

St. Sebastian's on the 20th, and St. Vincent's on the 22d; but having proceeded as far south as the La Plata, he returned to the neighbourhood of San Vincente, where he ultimately founded his colony, and whence he named the whole captaincy.

Martim Affonso de Souza was no ordinary man: his cares for his colony did not relax even after he had been recalled, and sent as governor-general to India, where he had before highly distinguished himself. He introduced the sugar-cane from Madeira into his colony, and in it also the first cattle were bred. Thence they have spread all over the continent of South America, and have proved of more real value to it than its mines.

Pero Lopes de Souza, the brother of Martim Affonso, had his fifty leagues of coast in two allotments; one part, St. Amaro, was immediately to the north of San Vincente, and the other was Tamaraca, between Pernambuco and Paraiba.

About the same time the Fidalgo Pedro de Goes attempted a settlement at Paraiba do Sul; but after two years tolerable prosperity, he was attacked by the native tribe of Goaytacazes, and five years of warfare reduced him to the necessity of sending to Espirito Santo for vessels to remove his colonists.

Vasco Fernandez de Coutinho began to settle Espirito Santo in the same year (1531) in which the former colonies had been begun. He had amassed a great fortune in the East, and expended most of it in collecting volunteers for his new colony; sixty fidalgoes and men of the royal household accompanied him. The adventurers had a prosperous voyage. On their arrival they built a fort, which they called N. S. da Victoria, and established four sugar-works. Coutinho returned to Lisbon for recruits and implements for mining, the settlers having now obtained some indications of gold and jewels to be found in the country.

The adjoining captaincy of Porto Seguro was given to Pedro de Campo Tourinho, a nobleman and a navigator. He sold his possessions at home, and raised a large body of colonists, with which he established himself at Porto Seguro, the harbour where Cabral had first taken possession of Brazil. The history of the settlement of Porto Seguro, like that of all the others, is stained with the most atrocious cruelties; not such as soldiers in the heat of war commit, but cold calculated cruelties, exterminating men for the sake of growing canes, so waiting patiently for the fruit of crime.[7]

Ilheos, so called from its principal river, which has three islands at the mouth, was settled by Jorge de Figueredo Correa, who had a place in the treasury, under Joam III., between 1531 and 1540, and speedily became flourishing, being remarkably favourable to the sugar cultivation.

Bahia de Todo os Santos was, with its adjacent territory, given to Francisco Pereira Coutinho, a fidalgo who had made himself a name in India. He fixed his abode at Villa Velha, where Caramuru had formed his little settlement, and two of his followers married the daughters of Caramuru.

The bay, or reconcave of All Saints, is a magnificent harbour: the entrance appears to be a league in breadth; but on the right hand, on entering, there is a shoal dangerous to large vessels, called that of St. Antonio da Barre; and on the left, coral reefs running off from Itaporica. The country that surrounds it is so fertile, that it must always have been an object of desire whether to savage or civilised inhabitants; and it is not surprising that three revolutions, that is, three changes of indwellers, driven out by each other, should have been, in the memory of the Indians, before the settlement of Coutinho.

That nobleman, whose early life had been passed in the East-Indian Portuguese wars, imprudently and cruelly disturbed the peace of the rising settlement, by the murder of a son of one of the chiefs. The consequence was, that after a most disastrous warfare, in the course of which the already flourishing sugar-works were burnt, he and Caramuru were both obliged to abandon the settlement and retire to Ilheos. Soon afterwards, however, he made peace with the Indians; but on his return to the Reconcave, he was wrecked on the reef off Itaporica, where the natives murdered him, but spared Caramuru, who returned to his old dwelling.

In the settlement of Pernambuco, the first donatory, Duarte Coelho Pereira, was opposed not only by the natives, but by numbers of French, who having carried on a desultory though profitable trade on the coast, now joined the Indians in retarding those regular settlements which were likely to put an end to their commerce. The colony, however, had been planted at Olinda,[8] a situation as strong as it is beautiful, and Pereira contrived to engage some of the Indian tribes in his favour. The war was but of short continuance, and nothing farther, except the seizure of the little settlement of Garussa, in the woods and near the creek which separates Itameraca from the main land, occurred to impede the prosperity of the captaincy.

The last colony which was founded during these ten eventful years was that of Maranham. Three adventurers undertook this settlement jointly. The most celebrated was Joam de Barros, the historian; the others were Fernam Alvares de Andrada, father of the writer of the Chronicle, and Aires da Cunha.

Aires da Cunha, Barros's two sons, and nine hundred men, sailed in ten ships for their new possession, but were wrecked on the shoals of Maranham; so that it was long before any success attended the undertaking. Da Cunha was drowned, the sons of Barros slain by the Indians, and the rest of the people with difficulty survived in a very wretched condition.

Meantime the passage through Magellan's Straits had been discovered, and the Spaniards, first under Sebastian Cabot, and afterwards under Don Pedro de Mendoza, who founded Buenos Ayres, had begun to settle on the shores of the Plata, not without opposition from the Portuguese, and a more obstinate and fatal resistance from the Indians. The tribes in this neighbourhood appear to have been more civilised than those of the coast of Brazil, and consequently more formidable enemies to the rising towns. Orellana had also made his daring voyage down the mighty river that is sometimes called by his name. He had afterwards perished in an attempt to make a settlement on its shores, and nearly the same fate had attended Luiz de Mello da Silva, who made a similar attempt on the part of Portugal.

Cabeza de Vacca had also made his adventurous overland journey from St. Catherine's, and after settling himself in the government of Assumption, had conducted various expeditions of discovery, always in hopes of finding an easy way to the gold countries. In one of these he found traces of the adventurer Garcia, a Portuguese, who, under the orders of Martim Affonso de Souza, had, with five companions, undertaken to explore the interior of South America. This man had by some means so conciliated the Indians, that he was followed by a very considerable army, and is said to have penetrated even into Tarija. He is believed to have perished by the hand of one of his own followers, but no particulars were ever known of his fate.

During the next ten years, nothing remarkable occurred with regard to Brazil, except the founding of the city of St. Salvador's, by Thome de Souza, the first Captain General of Brazil, who carried out with him the first Jesuit missionaries. For the site of his new town De Souza fixed upon the hill immediately above the deepest part of the harbour of Bahia, which is defended at the back by a deep lake, and lies about half a league from the Villa Velha of Coutinho and Caramuru.

The temporal concerns of the new colony, derived inestimable advantage from the friendship and assistance of the patriarch Caramuru: as to the spiritual, it was indeed time that some rule of faith and morals should find its way to Brazil. The settlers had hitherto had no instructors but friars, whose manners were as dissolute as their own, and who encouraged in them a licentious depravity, scarcely less shocking than the cannibalism of the savages. These latter are said to have eaten the children born by their own daughters to their prisoners of war,—a thing so unnatural, that it only gains credit because the Portuguese sold as slaves even their own children by the native women. The apostle of Brazil, as he may in truth be called, and chief of the six Jesuits who accompanied Souza, was Nobrega, the cotemporary and rival in the race of disinterested services to his fellow creatures of St. Francis Xavier; and, with regard to his steady attempts to protect as well as to convert the Indians, another Las Casas.

Brazil was becoming an object of importance to the crown of Portugal. The new settlement of Bahia was established on the king's account, and at his expense 1000 persons had been sent out the first year, 1549. In four months there were 100 houses, six batteries, and a cathedral: a college for the Jesuits, a palace, and a custom-house were begun; the whole was defended by a mud wall. The next year supplies of all kinds arrived from Lisbon, and the year after that several female orphans, of noble family, were sent out as wives for the officers, with dowries in negroes, kine, and brood-mares.

About this time, a Spanish expedition destined for the river Plata miscarried; one of the ships was wrecked off St. Vincent's, and to Hans Staade, one of the crew who survived and after various adventures fell into the power of the Indians, we are indebted for the most authentic and particular account of the Brazilian Savages.[9] It is curious that the Indians of the new world, should so very far exceed all the savage tribes of the old in barbarity. But it is certain that no authentic accounts of cannibals have ever been brought from Africa; whereas, none of the early writers on Brazil and its inhabitants have failed to dwell upon their love of human flesh, as characteristic of the people.

The year 1552 is distinguished by the arrival of the first bishop in Brazil. His see was fixed at St. Salvador's, or, as it is generally called, Bahia. In the next year, Thome de Souza retired from his government, and was succeeded by Don Duarte da Costa, who was accompanied by seven jesuits, among whom was the celebrated Anchieta.[10] The chief of the order, Loyola, was still alive, he erected Brazil into a new province, and appointed Nobrega and Luis de Gran, who had been principal at Coimbra, joint provincials. From that moment the labours of the fathers for the real good of the country commenced. And whatever may be the opinions entertained, as to their politics and ultimate views, there is not a doubt but that the means they employed to reclaim and civilise the Indians, were mild, and therefore successful; that while they wrought their own purposes, they made their people happy; and that centuries will not repair the evil done by their sudden expulsion, which broke up the bands of humanised society which were beginning to unite the Indians with their fellow creatures.

In 1553, the first school was established in Brazil, by Nobrega, in the high plains of Piratininga, about thirteen leagues from the colony of San Vicente. Anchieta was the school-master. The school was opened on the feast of the conversion of St. Paul, and the establishment, and the infant colony rising round it, received the name of the saint. St. Paul's has since grown to be one of the most important towns in Brazil. Its rich minerals, its iron-works, and other manufactures, but, above all, the high and free spirit of its inhabitants, who have taken the lead in every effort for the good of the country, distinguish it above all the southern towns of Brazil.

Anchieta, while he taught Latin to the Portuguese and Mamalucos,[11] and Portuguese to the Brazilians, learnt from these last their own tongue, and composed a grammar and dictionary for them. He had no books for his pupils, so that he wrote on separate leaves, in four different languages, the daily lesson for each. He served as physician, as well as priest and school-master, and practised and taught the most useful domestic arts. But the colony had, like all the others, to fight for its early existence; it was attacked by the Mamalucos of the neighbouring settlement of St. André, who regarded the instruction of the Indians as a step towards abolishing their slavery, and exclaimed against it as an infringement of what they called their right to the services of the natives. They engaged by other pretences some of the neighbouring tribes to assist them, but they were met and defeated by those of St. Paul's.

Meantime some disputes having arisen between the Governor and the Bishop, the latter resolved to return to Lisbon, but was wrecked on the coast at a place called the Baixos de San Francisco, and there seized, and with one hundred other white persons put to death by the Cahetes. The revenge of the Portuguese was horrible, the Cahetes were hunted, slaughtered, and all but exterminated.

In the year 1557, Joam III. died. His appointment of Mem de Sa, before his death, to the government of Brazil, prevented the country from immediately feeling the evils which a regency generally entails even in an established government, but which are sure to fall with tenfold weight upon a rising colony.

Mem de Sa was a man of more enlightened mind, and more humane principles than most of those to whom the government of the Brazilian provinces had been intrusted. He arrived at Bahia in 1558, and earnestly applied himself to learn the relations in which the Portuguese, the Creoles, the Indians, and the mixed race stood to each other.

His first acts were directed towards reclaiming the allied Indians from some of their most brutal practices, and to induce them to form settlements near those of the Jesuits. The selfish planters, interested in keeping up the feuds of the Indians, in order to procure slaves, exclaimed against these proceedings as violations of the freedom of the natives, and they were equally displeased at the orders issued, to set at liberty all the Indians who had been wrongfully enslaved. One powerful colonist alone refused to obey: Mem de Sa ordered his house to be surrounded and instantly levelled with the ground. Such an act was certainly calculated to inspire the Indians with confidence in his good intentions towards them, at the same time that his vigorous measures to punish them for any infraction of their engagements kept them in awe.

Meantime an adventurer of no ordinary stamp, had formed a settlement in the finest harbour of Brazil, namely, that of Rio de Janeiro. Nicholas Durand de Villegagnon was a native of Provins en Brie, and a Knight of Malta. In 1648, he had been employed by Mary of Guise, at the entreaty of the French court, to convey her daughter the young Queen of Scots to France: in 1651 he was engaged in the defence of Malta, against the Pacha Sinan and the famous Dragut Reis, and two years afterwards published an account of that campaign. Having visited Brazil in 1558, Villegagnon could not be insensible to the advantages that must arise to France from having a settlement there; and, on his return to Europe, he made such representations at court of these advantages, that Henry II. gave him two vessels, each of 200 tons, and a store ship of 100 tons, to convey the adventurers who might wish to leave France, and who at that time were numerous. Villegagnon, wishing to make use of Coligny's interest, gave out that the new settlement was to be a refuge for the persecuted Hugonots, and this answered the double purpose of securing the Admiral's friendship, and gaining a number of respectable colonists. With these he reached Rio de Janeiro, and made his first settlement in a low rock at the mouth of the harbour, where there is now a small fort called the Laje, but finding it not sufficiently elevated to resist the high tides, he pitched on an island within the harbour, where there is only one landing place, and whose form and situation is singularly adapted for safety, especially against such enemies as the Indians. Those, however, of the Rio had been long accustomed to trade with the French, who, if they had not taught them, had at least encouraged them, to hate the Portuguese, whom Villegagnon flattered himself that he should be able to keep aloof by the assistance of the Savages.

Meantime Coligny had exerted himself to send out assistance of every kind; provisions, recruits[12], and protestant ministers. But Villegagnon now imagined himself secure in his colony, and threw off the mask of toleration. He behaved so tyrannically that many of the Hugonots were obliged to return to France, and of them he made the most malicious complaints, and concluded by saying, that they were heretics worthy of the stake.

But nothing is so short-sighted as wickedness. Villegagnon's treachery was the cause of the ruin of his enterprise. Ten thousand protestants were ready to embark for Coligny, as the island, now called Villegagnon, was then named: but the report of those who had returned, stopped them, and the colony was left in a defenceless state.

At length the attention of the court of Lisbon had been drawn towards the French settlement, and orders were sent to the Captain General to examine into its state first, and then, if possible, to take it.

Accordingly, Mem de Sa, accompanied by Nobrega and two other Jesuits, attacked it in January, 1560, while Villegagnon was absent in France, and demolished the works, but had not sufficient force to attempt forming a settlement; and had Villegagnon succeeded in returning with the recruits he expected, he would have found it easy to re-establish and perhaps revenge himself. But his bad faith deterred the Hugonots from joining him, the civil war prevented the government from assisting him, and the French colony was lost.

In 1564, Estacio de Sa, nephew of Mem, was sent out from Portugal to form a settlement in Rio, but finding his means inadequate to contend with the Indians, led on by the few remaining French, he went to San Vincente for reinforcements; these, however, only enabled him to keep up the war, and to maintain himself in a post he had fortified[13], not far from the entrance of the harbour, and near the Sugar-loaf mountain, a bare and inaccessible rock, which, from a base of about four hundred feet, shoots up to a thousand in perpendicular height, on the west side of the bar. He therefore applied to his uncle for succour, who, collecting what force he could, led them in person, and arrived in the harbour on the 18th of January, 1567. On the 20th, St. Sebastian's day, the Indians and French were attacked in their strongest hold, then called Uraçumiri, and having obtained a decisive victory, the French embarked in the four ships they still possessed, and fled to the coast of Pernambuco, where they attempted to form a settlement at Recife, but were dislodged by the Portuguese of Olinda.

Mem de Sa now founded the city of St. Sebastian, more commonly called the city of Rio; and for its security the Jesuits, with their Indians, fortified both sides of the entrance to the harbour, which is about four miles distant from the city across the bay. Before these works, however, or the walls of the town were completed, the French made a vigorous effort to disturb the rising colony; but it ended in their defeat, and their guns were made use of to fortify the mouth of the harbour.

Driven from Rio, the French attempted to form a settlement at Paraiba the next year; but the Indians, with the Jesuits at their head, and a very few troops, under the commander Martim Leytam, expelled them.

Under Mem de Sa the state had been so prosperous, that though he had been Captain-general far beyond the term of his original appointment, Don Sebastian, on assuming the crown, continued him in office for two years longer, and then named Luiz de Vasconcellos to succeed him. That nobleman never reached Brazil. With him sailed a fleet of seven ships, bearing, besides the governor, sixty-nine Jesuit missionaries, and a number of orphan girls, whose parents had died of the plague, and whom the government was sending out to settle in Brazil. The fleet, in different divisions, fell in with French and English ships, and the Jesuits, save one, to use their own expression, received the crown of martyrdom, and the new governor was killed in action off Tercera. As soon as his death was known at Lisbon, Luiz de Brito de Almeida was appointed to his vacant office; and Mem de Sa just lived long enough to witness the arrival of his successor. Nobrega, who had begun that system, on which the singular government of the Jesuits in Paraguay was conducted, had died a few months before, so that Brazil was deprived nearly at once of the two ablest men that had yet been concerned in its government.

But Luiz de Brito did not succeed to the government of all Brazil. It was judged proper to divide the colony into two captaincies, Rio de Janeiro being the capital of the southern division, which included Porto Seguro and every thing to the south of it; while Bahia remained the capital of the northern districts. There Luiz de Brito fixed his residence, and Doctor Antonio Salerna was appointed governor of the south. But this division was soon found inconvenient, and the two parts were re-united[14] about 1578, the year in which a new governor, Diego Laurenço da Viega, arrived.

This was the year when the loss of Don Sebastian in Africa threw Portugal into the hands of Spain. King Philip, eager to annex that kingdom for ever to his crown, offered Brazil, with the title of King, to Braganza if he would give up his claim to the crown of Portugal. But it was reserved for his descendant to achieve the independence of Brazil, and he refused it.

The colony was at this period most flourishing, though not altogether able to do without occasional supplies from the mother country. But already the original mud-cottages, supported by frame-work and thatched with palm-leaves, of the first settlers, had given way to well built and handsome houses of stone and brick, covered with tiles as in Europe. The reconcave of Bahia had sixty-two churches, and upwards of seventy sugar-works: the land was well stocked with cattle, all the kinds of orange and lime trees introduced by Europeans had flourished. The country abounded in excellent native fruits, and the mandioc furnished never-failing stores of bread. Olinda partook of all these advantages, and was itself the best built and most populous town in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro had become a place only inferior in importance to the other two, its natural advantages being still greater, and the climate milder; nor were the other captaincies less prosperous.

But the transfer of the crown into foreign hands changed the aspect of affairs in Brazil. Inferior to the Spanish American countries in mines, it was considered only of consequence as being occupied by Spanish subjects, and so forming a barrier against the intrusion of other nations.

By this time the English had begun to trade on the coast of Brazil, and in 1577 Drake had passed through the Straits of Magellan in his memorable voyage round the world. His appearance in the southern seas alarmed Philip the Second, now King of Portugal as well as of Spain, and consequently Lord of Brazil. He attempted to form a colony and maintain a fort in the Straits, in order to prevent future navigators from passing; but of it nothing is left but the name, Port Famine, which attests the miserable fate of the colonists. The English commerce was also cut off in Brazil. Some vessels trading peaceably at San Vincente were attacked in the harbour by the Spaniards in superior force; one of the latter was sunk, and the English escaped next day. In 1686, the Earl of Cumberland fitted out an expedition, in which Raleigh served and Witherington was admiral, which entered the reconcave of Bahia and plundered it, remaining there six weeks, the city being only saved by the Indian archers. Baretto, the governor of Brazil, died the next year, and was succeeded by D. Antonio Barreiros the bishop, and Christovam de Barros as joint governors; and they were soon superseded by Francisco Giraldes: he, however, never arrived in the country, and Don Francisco de Souza was appointed in his stead.

During his captaincy some search was made after mines by a descendant of Caramuru, who offered to discover where he had found the silver of which he had services in his house and chapel, on condition of receiving the title of Marques. This Philip refused to grant, and the secret, if indeed the man had one, died with him.

Meantime the celebrated Cavendish had made one voyage round the world, and had committed such ravages on the coast of Spanish America, as not even the atrocious habits of naval warfare in those days can excuse. In 1591, he embarked in a second expedition, arrived in December on the coast of Brazil, and took Santos and burned San Vincente. The ships then sailed for the Straits, but were baffled in their attempt to pass, and returned to the coast of Brazil to obtain provisions. Cavendish, who had many great and good qualities, and who might certainly think it allowable to supply himself on an enemy's coast, made an attempt on Espiritu Santo, but by a mistake in executing his orders it failed, and he sailed for England, but died of a broken heart on the passage.

The most remarkable expedition of the English to the coast of Brazil was that of Sir James Lancaster to Pernambuco. He had the command of three small vessels of 240, 120, and 60 tons. At Cape Blanco he learned that a rich carrack from India had been wrecked near Olinda, and that her cargo was safely stowed at Recife. He therefore fitted five out of near thirty small prizes to accompany him, and built a galley frigate to land with. He was also reinforced by Captain Vernon with two ships, a pinnace, and a prize, and then sailed direct for Recife, where they arrived in March, 1595. On Good Friday of that year the town was taken with little resistance, and Lancaster permitted not the slightest disorder after the place was taken. He fortified the sandy isthmus which connects Recife with Olinda, and then proceeded at leisure to stow his ships with the goods found in the town, and hired the Dutch vessels lying in the port as store-ships. Some French privateers coming in, he also hired them with part of the booty to assist in the defence of the place, till the lading of the vessels should be completed. The Portuguese made several attempts to burn Lancaster's ships, which were all baffled by his prudence, and after remaining in possession of Recife twenty days he prepared to sail. However, on the very last day of his stay, some of his people, both English and French, having advanced too far in a sally against the Portuguese, were killed, and the enemy claimed a victory, which Lancaster being now ready for sea had no inclination to dispute. And this was the last attack made by the English on the coast of Brazil.

But the French had renewed their attempts, and under Rifault and his successor De Vaux had succeeded in forming a settlement in the island of Maranham, 1611. And shortly afterwards Henry IV. sent Daniel de la Touche, Lord of La Rivardière[15], to examine the country, in order to form a permanent colony. His report was favourable; and though on his return to France Henry was dead, an expedition of three ships, containing 500 men, was fitted out, and in 1612 they arrived on the island, speedily conciliated the natives, and the colony promised to thrive. But the court of Madrid quickly sent out orders to the governor of Brazil to attack the intruders. Various accidents prolonged the warfare, and it was not until 1618 that they were dislodged, and a permanent Portuguese colony formed. Its distance from the seat of government determined the court of Madrid to erect Maranham and Para into a separate state, of which the capital was fixed at San Luiz, a town and fort built by the French on the island.

Meantime the Dutch had formed a West Indian Company, trusting that they would thereby be able to annoy the court of Spain in their American possessions, as they had already done in the East Indies. In 1624, a fleet under Jacob Willekins and the famous Peter Heyne was fitted out for that purpose. The ships having been separated in a gale of wind, Willekins made the Morro de San Paulo, about forty miles south of Bahia, where he waited for the rest of the convoy. When it arrived he sailed boldly into the reconcave, and St. Salvador was taken almost without a struggle. Vandort, the Dutch general, immediately began to fortify the place, and proclamations being issued promising freedom and redress of wrongs to all who should submit, many Indians, negroes, and Jews instantly joined him. But the Portuguese, who had hoped that the Dutch had only come to plunder the city, seeing that they were sitting quietly down as in a permanent establishment, roused themselves, and after some little disagreement as to who should command them, pitched on the Bishop Don Marcos Texeira. He fixed his head-quarters on the Rio Vermelho. The Dutch were weakened by the departure of Willekins for Holland, and of Peter Heyne for Angola, the plan of the West India Company being to secure that settlement, in order to have a certain supply of slaves for their new conquests in Brazil. Dort had been killed, and there was no competent commander. The Bishop's troops harassed those of the city in every direction, and the Dutch were prepared to become an easy prey to Don Fadrique de Toledo, who had been sent from Spain with a strong force to recover the capital of Brazil. They capitulated, therefore, in May, 1625, and conditioned for being sent to Holland with sufficient arms and their personal baggage, leaving the city and forts as they were.

The next year, however, Peter Heyne returned to the reconcave. Every precaution was taken against him by the governor. Four large ships with men and artillery were placed to intercept him; but in his single ship, the rest of his squadron not being able to come up with him, ran in between two of them, sunk one, and compelled several others to strike: his own ship, however, grounded, and he burnt her. He added four ships to his own fleet, loaded four others with prize-goods, and burnt the rest. Nor was this his only success; for although the Dutch had been baffled in several attempts on the coast, they sent home prizes enough to be of national importance.

But a conquest of infinitely more consequence was shortly made; that of Olinda, which, in 1630, was taken after a feeble resistance on the part of Matthias de Albuquerque. The Dutch general-in-chief was Henrik Loncq, the admiral was Peter Ardian, and Wardenburg commanded the troops. The latter landed at Pao Amarello, three leagues to the north, while the ships kept up a regular fire opposite to the place; consequently the Portuguese were surprised, and the towns and forts easily taken.

But the country around continued to be the theatre of a most cruel predatory war, during which atrocious cruelties were committed by both parties, but chiefly by the Dutch; and while these things were going on, a number of negroes had escaped from time to time into the great palm-forests, about thirty leagues inland, and had multiplied so that they are said to have amounted to upwards of thirty thousand. These men were governed by a chief whom they called Zombi: they had some laws, a shadow of the Christian religion, and were agriculturists. They harassed the Portuguese, and added by their depredations to the general misery.

At length the Dutch government sent out Count Maurice of Nassau, to take the command at Pernambuco. He arrived in 1537, and carried on the war so vigorously that the Portuguese retired out of the province. He also set about reforming the abuses which existed among the Dutch themselves at Recife, and having established himself firmly there, he sent one of his officers, Jan Koin, over to the coast of Africa, who took possession of St. Jorge da Mina, by which a supply of slaves was secured, and leaving a garrison there, returned to Recife. The next year, Maurice made an unsuccessful attack on St. Salvador. His fleet anchored in the bay of Tapagipe; but though he obtained at first some important posts, he was finally repulsed and returned with loss to Pernambuco. There he occupied himself in building a new town, and making the two first bridges that had yet been built in Portuguese America, besides planting trees, and improving the fortifications. In 1640 he sent the famous sea-warrior Jol into the reconcave, to lay it waste; and he accordingly burnt the whole of the sugar-works in the bay, while the Indians who were friendly to the Dutch, fell on the land-side of the captaincy, and harassed the unhappy settlers in an equal degree.

At length the court of Madrid began to be alarmed for the safety of Brazil, and fitted out a large armament for its relief. Storms and sickness diminished it, ere it arrived, to nearly one half. That half arrived at Bahia, in 1640, under D. Jorge de Mascasentras, Marques de Monte Alvam. Before he had time either to make open war, or to negociate, the revolution in Portugal, which placed Braganza on the throne of his ancestors, took place. The viceroy, unjustly suspected of adhering to Spain, was sent home, and a commission, composed of Barbalho, Correa, and the bishop, appointed in his stead.

One of the first acts of the restored Portuguese government was to make a ten years' truce with the Seven United States. But this did not prevent the continuance of hostilities in Brazil, and the other foreign possessions of Portugal. Serigipe was surprised, Maranham conquered, and Loanda in Angola and St. Thomas's taken.

Notwithstanding these successes, the Dutch government disapproved of Count Maurice's administration. Instead of sending home either to the States or the Company all the money and produce which he had gained in Brazil, he had laid out great part of it, as well as of his private fortune, in fortifying the mouths of rivers and harbours, particularly Recife, in repairing and beautifying the towns, and in other public works, which, looking forward to the permanent establishment of the Dutch in the country, he considered as absolutely necessary. He was accordingly recalled, and returned to Holland in 1644.

After the departure of Maurice the tyranny of the Dutch became so intolerable, that the Portuguese began to rise against it almost universally.

Maranham had already been wrested from their hands at the time of his returning, and that event seemed to be the signal for the long and calamitous struggle that ensued in Pernambuco and the neighbouring Captaincies. Joam Fernandes Vieyra, a native of Madeira, had, at a very early age, left his native island in hopes of bettering his fortune in Brazil. He had succeeded, and at the time we speak of, he was one of the richest Portuguese of Pernambuco, and highly esteemed by both his countrymen and the Dutch. Against the latter, however, he was animated both by patriotism and superstition. They oppressed his people, and they were heretics. After waiting for years for a proper opportunity to attempt their destruction, he seized the first months of Nassau's absence, and communicating his plans to none but to two friends, one of whom he commissioned to apply to the government of Bahia in person for succour, he waited patiently for an answer. This man, André Vidal de Negreiros, executed his commission exactly, and shortly afterwards Antonio Diaz Cardozo, and sixty soldiers, were sent to Vieyra. He concealed them in the woods in the neighbourhood of his dwelling, called the Varzea, which was on the plain to the westward of the city, and then summoned the Indian chief Camaram and the Negro chief Henrique Diaz[16], to his assistance, and communicated his designs to his neighbours.

Early in 1645 the war began in earnest. The most shocking atrocities were committed by both parties, especially towards the Indians, who themselves as they were the most faithful allies, were also the most inveterate and cruel enemies. In the course of the struggle, which lasted until 1654, several leaders on both sides were slain, but none so remarkable as the Indian Camaram. He had been educated by the Jesuits; he understood Latin, wrote, read, and spoke Portuguese perfectly, but on all occasions of ceremony used an interpreter, that he might not in public do any thing imperfectly, and thereby derogate from the dignity of his chieftainship. When a number of Indians were taken among the Dutch, at one of the strong posts of the latter, a relation of Camaram's was found among them. These men had all been condemned to death. Camaram did not intercede for the life of his kinsman, but he saved his honour: he slew him with his own hand, and buried him decently. The rest were hanged by the common executioner, and left for the fowls of the air.

At length this horrible warfare was ended. The two battles of the Gararapes[17], had decided the fate of the Dutch in Brazil: but it was the co-operation of the fleet of the new Brazilian company that enabled Vieyra, who was the real commander in this war, although several military men of reputation, had, from time to time, had the nominal chieftainship, to reduce Recife, and on the 23d of January 1654, to present the keys of the city to the Royal Commander Francisco Beretto, and to restore to the crown of Portugal the empire of Brazil, after nine years of the most cruel war, during which the private fortune, and the determined spirit of individuals had sustained the conflict, generally without the aid, and often in direct opposition to the commands of the court. But men once determined on freedom, or on national independence, must in the end overcome all obstacles and vanquish every difficulty.

While these things were going on in the northern provinces, the Jesuits had formed their singular establishments in Paraguay, and endeavoured to stop, or at least limit the slave hunting of the Portuguese in the interior, though without effect. The best part of the colony of St. Vincent's had been removed to St. Paul's, a settlement on the plain of Piratininga, and had flourished surprisingly. The people had become hardy, if not fierce. They had distinguished themselves by the courage and perseverance with which they had explored the country in search of mines, and the activity with which they had brought in slaves for the new settlements. The consciousness of their strength begot in them a longing for independence, and seizing the opportunity of the accession of the House of Braganza to the throne of Portugal, they attempted to set up a king for themselves. Their attempt was baffled by Amador Bueno de Ribiero, the very person they intended for their monarch, who, when the people shouted "Long live king Amador," cried out "Long live Joam IV." and, being swift of foot, ran and took refuge in the Benedictine convent; and the same day, as there was no alternative, Joam IV. was proclaimed by all the people.

The low state to which Portugal was now reduced, was seen in its effects on the government of Brazil. When the appointed Governors, either on their own judgment, or in obedience to the orders of the court of Lisbon, attempted to carry any new measure into execution which the people disliked, it was seldom in their power to enforce it, and they could expect little assistance from home. The Jesuits had undertaken the defence of the Indians, and endeavoured by every means to restrain the practice of making slaves of them, and to mitigate the lot of such as were already enslaved. But the Franciscans and some other orders derived equal pecuniary benefit with the hunters from the sale of slaves, and therefore they opposed them with vehemence. Interest was on the side of the Friars, and the most disgraceful scenes took place in various captaincies between the parties, the Governors being either not able or not willing to interfere with effect.

Meantime, however, the people became accustomed to canvass and to understand public questions; their governors began to respect them as a real part of the estate; and a value for independence, and a feeling that to attain it was in their own power, grew out of these disorders.

Had it been possible to have purified their religion from some of its most superstitious observances, and to reform the moral habits of the people, the prosperity of the country would soon have been equal to its means; but wherever slavery is established it brings a twofold curse with it. It degrades both parties even where the slaves are imported. How much more then, as was the case here, when they were hunted on their own grounds, where all the details, disgusting and iniquitous as they are, of the seeking, capturing, and bending to the yoke, pass under the eye till the heart grows callous to the cry of the orphan, the grief of the widow, and the despair of the parent in being torn from whatever has been dear to them?

The history of the Jesuit Vieyra's mission to Maranham is as humiliating to human nature, as his sincere exertions in the cause of the suffering Indians is creditable to himself; but neither his exertions, nor the royal authority, could baffle the selfish cruelty and avarice of the people of that captaincy; they broke out into open rebellion in defence of their detestable practices, and even when they returned to obedience, there was a compromise between humanity and avarice, to which the Indians were again sacrificed.

Rio de Janeiro had enjoyed a greater degree of tranquillity during the eighty years since its foundation than any other settlement, and its trade had increased together with its population; but the southern part of its jurisdiction was little more peaceable than Maranham, and not at all more inclined to listen to the remonstrances of the friends of the Indians. The Paulistas were the most difficult of all to manage; they had been the most active and daring of all that hunted either for slaves or for mines, and they were not willing to participate with others, far less to resign the advantages they had gained by unwearied labour and great sacrifices. Their conduct on the restoration of Portugal had evinced a desire of more than the freedom of a colony, and their neighbours were little less disposed for independence than themselves. Santos, and even Rio, had joined them, and had shewn a disposition to depose the governor appointed by the crown; and nothing but the unimpeachable character and firm conduct of Salvador Correa de Sa e Benevides (1658) prevented him from falling a sacrifice to that disposition. Bahia continued to be the capital of the Brazilian states, and its inhabitants proceeded to beautify it with churches, and convents, and nunneries, while they defied the spirit of Christianity by the importation of African, as well as the kidnapping Indian slaves. Pernambuco was still undergoing the miserable effects of the long and desultory war it had sustained; all the bands of government had been loosed during that disastrous period; law and justice had fallen into disuse; and had there not been a redeeming virtue in the free spirit that lived on in spite of the evils among which it had sprung, its very emancipation from a foreign power might have been regretted. The negroes who had escaped to the Palmares, and whose depredations had been disregarded in comparison with the evils of a foreign government, had become a real source of ill to the Pernambucans. Although they cultivated maize, and mandioc, and plaintains, they wanted every other supply. They therefore robbed the Creoles of their cattle, their sugar, their manufactured goods, and even of their Mulatto daughters and female slaves; till at length the government resolved to free the country of them, and called in the aid of a Paulista regiment for the purpose. Ten thousand of the negroes bearing arms had assembled in their chief city, which was surrounded by wooden walls, leaving the lesser ones uninhabited. But their enemies had the advantage of cannon against them, and of supplies of every kind; yet once the negroes beat off their assailants. But numbers overpowered them, and being weakened by famine, their city was forced, and the inmates seized as slaves. Zombi, however, and the most resolute of his followers, threw themselves from a high rock when they perceived their condition desperate. The Portuguese abused their victory, and murdered the rest.

But there was an evil that affected Brazil generally—the too much and the too little power of the governors. They had too much power, if any appeal lay from them—too little, if they were absolute for the term of their government. They were also virtually free from responsibility; their opportunities, nay, their temptations to extortion were almost irresistible; and, to crown all, the corrupt administration of the laws kept pace with the vices and the irregularity of the government. In vain had the wisest regulations been made, and the most just decrees issued. The judges were in many cases parties concerned; they were so in all cases where Indians and negroes were the objects of their judgment, for they were possessors of both. Their salaries were insufficient, their fees arbitrary. What wonder then if the administration was corrupt!

The cultivation of sugar and cotton had proceeded silently amidst all this confusion. The discovery of the gold and diamond mines assisted the government, both in Brazil and in the mother country, to make a stand in the midst of the eminent peril which threatened, in consequence of the losses sustained in the east, while at home there was a scanty and impoverished population, ruined manufactures, and, above all, a neglect of agriculture, that rendered Portugal dependent on foreigners for corn. Every thing was wanted; there was nothing to return; and at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Brazil may be truly said to have saved Portugal, by covering with her precious metals the excessive balance that was against her in every branch of commerce, in every department of government.

Yet, though absolute ruin was averted, the weakness of the crown rendered it impossible to defend its foreign possessions from the attacks of a daring enemy. In 1710, a French squadron, under Duclerc, appeared off Rio de Janeiro, but not daring to pass the forts, sailed on, and after making several attempts to land a force at the different inlets, where he was deterred by the appearance of the militia of the country, succeeded at Guaratiba, between thirty and forty miles from the city, and thence he marched upon it with about one thousand marines. The governor, Francisco Castro de Moraes, made no attempt to stop him until his arrival at the city. There the first check the enemy met was from F. Francisco de Menezes, a Trinitarian friar, who appeared every where, and did what the governor, who remained quietly intrenched in a flat space, where the place of the Rosario now is, between two hills, ought to have done. The French having divided, one party attacked the palace, but the students of the college defended it successfully; and after a short, but desperate struggle, the French were overpowered, and the victory disgraced by the inhuman conduct of the Portuguese. Duclerc and his people were imprisoned and harshly treated. Duclerc himself is said to have been murdered in his bed.

The next year drew on Rio de Janeiro a signal punishment for these proceedings. The famous Duguay Trouin undertook to inflict it; and accordingly, in August, 1711, one year after Duclerc's adventure, he arrived off the coast, and taking advantage of a fog, entered the bay, notwithstanding the fire of the forts.

The Portuguese government had notice of his design, and had sent out stores and ammunition to meet the attack, and had appointed Gasper da Costa commander of the troops. But the sudden appearance of the French actually within the harbour, seems to have palsied the understanding of every person on shore, whose business it should have been to oppose them, and the forts and the city were given up almost without a struggle.

It would, however, have been impossible for the French to maintain themselves in Rio; therefore Duguay Trouin, after refreshing his people, ransomed the city for 600,000 cruzadoes. Bad weather alone prevented him from laying waste the reconcave of Bahia, as he had done Rio: but he had fulfilled the ostensible purpose of his voyage by avenging the treatment of Duclerc and his people, and returned to France early in 1712.

These circumstances had awakened the greatest anxiety on account of Brazil in the cabinet of Lisbon: and at the peace of Utrecht, 1713, every precaution was adopted by the Portuguese ministers to avoid any expression that might seem to admit of a free trade by any power whatever to Brazil, notwithstanding the agreements to that effect actually existing at the time. Disputes without end arose between Portugal and Spain concerning the colonies adjoining to the Rio de la Plata, and it was especially stipulated that no other power, particularly England, should be allowed to form settlements there on account of the facilities such settlements might afford for smuggling the precious metals out of the country. These had now become the first object in Brazil. St. Paul's had been erected into a city, and the district of the mines had been formed into a captaincy: the inhabitants of the coast flocked to the interior, where new towns were daily springing up; all were desirous of a share in that lottery where the prizes were so enormous, that the great preponderance of blanks was overlooked. Great inconvenience must have been felt by the early adventurers to the mines: for so many hands were employed in searching for gold, that few remained to cultivate the soil, and provide the necessaries of life. Yet that insatiable thirst of gold is a stimulus which has led to useful and to honourable things: it is not the love of the metal, but the possession of it gives power, and that is the real object of most men's ambition: it is certainly that of the ambition of all nations, and this object is held legitimate: we account those base or wicked who seek the means; we admire those who attain the end. The philosophic historian and the poet are alike ready to condemn the man who first dug the ore from the mine: the panegyric in prose and in verse is lavished on the hero and the patron. But gold furnished the means for the hero's conquests and the patron's liberality, and gold, or the worth of gold, is the object of both; whether in the form of continued power, or of that fame which patronage can bring. Sad indeed has been the waste of human life in searching for gold: but have all the mines together consumed more men than the single revolutionary war? And have not the religious contests among Christians, and their persecutions and mutilations and burnings cost many more? I would not justify the gold finders; their actions were horrible, their oppressions atrocious; but let them have justice: the stimulus was great; urged on by it, they performed great things, they braved cold, and hunger, and fatigue, and persecution, and death; they persevered, they opened the way to unknown lands, they laid the foundations for future civilisation in countries which will have reason to bless their discoveries, when the effect of their evil deeds, as well as the memory of the brutal customs of the savages they so unjustly oppressed, shall have passed away.

But I have neither space nor inclination to follow their adventures, and must refer to Mr. Southey's elaborate and excellent account of them. Daniel Defoe alone could have so handled the subject as to make delightful so dull and so sad a tale. I am but a looker on to whom the actions of the present are more interesting than the past, but yet am not insensible to the influence that the elder days have had upon us.

Pernambuco had during the half century which had elapsed since the expulsion of the Dutch had time to recruit. The sugar plantations had reappeared, and the commerce of Recife had become extremely important. The merchants, and especially those from Europe, had settled there, and the town had increased till it became the second of Brazil; while Olinda gradually declined, having few inhabitants besides priests and the representatives of the old families of the province, who might be called its nobility: still Recife was but a village until, in 1710, it solicited and obtained the royal assent to its becoming a town, and having a camera or municipal council to govern its internal affairs. The jealousy of the people of Olinda and the other old Brazilians was violently excited by this concession, which they conceived would raise the plebeian traders and foreigners to an equality with themselves. After several tumultuous meetings on the subject, three of the ten parishes belonging to Olinda were assigned to Recife, and the governor, fearing to set up the pillar which marks a township openly, had it erected in the night. Fresh disturbances ensued, in which some of the magistrates were concerned, and there were not wanting voices to exclaim that the Pernambucans had shown they could shake off the strong chains of the Dutch, and that they could as easily shake off others and govern themselves. The seditious magistrates were arrested and thrown into prison. The soldiers were employed to disarm the people; but they had now advanced too far to be easily reduced. The governor was fired at and dangerously wounded, and proofs were not wanting that the judge and the bishop had at least consented to the attempt on his life. The most serious disturbances followed: the inhabitants of the whole district took up arms, some blood was shed in the course of their contentions with the soldiers, and Sebastian de Castro, the governor, weakened both in body and mind, was induced to fly to Bahia for safety. Six of the chief Pernambucans were now appointed to exercise the functions of a provisional government till orders should be received from Lisbon, and all Europeans were deprived of their offices and commissions.

But the bishop, who had been at Paraiba since the time when De Castro was wounded, now returned to claim his office as governor on the removal of the former one. He began to exercise his authority in the king's name, and his first act was to declare a general pardon. But he, however appears to have been a timid man: willing yet not daring to join the party who wished to shake off the yoke of Portugal, and by his vacillating conduct betraying both his friends in that party, and the trust reposed in him by the crown. At length, in 1711, these disturbances were quieted by a new governor, Felix Jose Machado de Mendonça. Brazil was not yet ripe for independence; nor indeed could so small and ill-peopled a state as Pernambuco have maintained its freedom even for a year unconnected with the other captaincies. While these things were going on in the captaincies of Brazil, the Jesuits were labouring in the interior to reclaim the Indians, with success far beyond the apparent means, and some towns, which have since become of importance, were built on the coast and on the shores of the Plata, particularly Monte Video, in 1733; but the border war, between the Spaniards and Portuguese, which was waged on account of these settlements, disquieted the neighbourhood for a time. Its importance, however, was soon forgotten in the disturbances caused by the treaty of division between Spain and Portugal, which forcing the Indians who had been reclaimed to emigrate, roused them to a vigorous but short and useless resistance, which only began the evils that the Jesuit missions were destined to perish under.

The Portuguese government, under the administration of Carvalho, afterwards Marquis of Pombal, had begun to attend to, and attempt to reform the abuses which existed throughout Brazil, but particularly in the newly founded captaincies and settlements, when the war with France and Spain broke out in 1762. For a time defence against a foreign enemy superseded every other consideration. The first act of hostility in the western world was the seizing of the Portuguese settlement of Columbia, in the Plata, by the governor of Buenos Ayres, before the squadron despatched by the governor of Brazil, Gomez Freyre, could arrive to protect it. That squadron consisted of the Lord Clive, of 64 guns, an English ship commanded by Capt. Macnamara; the Ambuscade, of 40 guns, in which Penrose, the poet, served as lieutenant; and the Gloria, of 38 guns. The Spanish ships retired before Macnamara, and he ran under the guns of the forts of Colonia, in order to retake the place. He had nearly succeeded in silencing the batteries, when, by accident or negligence, the ship took fire; the enemy renewed their fire; three-fourths of the crew of the Lord Clive, among which was the captain, were drowned. The other ships were nearly destroyed and obliged to retreat; but owing to the neglect of the Spaniards, they were able to refit and return to Rio. And this was the most remarkable action of the war beyond the Atlantic, and the first in which the English distinguished themselves in the defence of Brazil.

Pombal, meantime, having resolved on the suppression of the order of Jesuits, overlooked, in the ardour with which he pursued that measure, the important services they had rendered, and were daily rendering, to one of his favourite objects, namely, the improvement of the condition of the Indians. Their plan of discipline, indeed, hitherto had kept their pupils rather in a state of childish innocence than of manly improvement. Their fault was, that in order to secure obedience, they had stopped short of what they might have effected. Their dominion was an Utopia; and had it been possible to shut out every European and every wild Indian, it might have lasted. But such artificial polities can never be of long duration. Some convulsions either from without or from within must end them, and that with a more complete ruin than could befal states less curiously framed. But the well-intentioned labours of the missionaries had produced one decided good effect,—the habits of savage life were abandoned, and the advantages of agriculture and manufactures had been felt. The rock on which the education of the Indians split, was the community of goods. When a man has no property, but depends for the supply of his daily wants upon the providence of others, he has no incitement to particular exertion. The stimulus to industry cannot exist where a man has no hope of growing richer, no fear of becoming poorer, no anxiety about the provision of his family. His judgment in the portioning and disposing of his property is never called forth; all the qualities and virtues that arise out of the practice of domestic economy lie dormant, and the man remains an infant. It would have been easy to remedy this, by allowing the Indians to possess private stock, and to provide for their own families after the first generation. The newly reclaimed did require to be provided for, but the children growing up in the Aldeas might have been intrusted with their own property. They would have become men; and when the removal of their spiritual fathers took place, that wide and deep desolation would not have overwhelmed them, nor would Paraguay have gone back as it has done towards a savage state.

The Jesuits of Brazil were expelled in 1760, in the most cruel and arbitrary manner. Those of the Spanish American colonies eight years later. Whatever might have been their faults, or even their crimes, in other countries, in these their conduct had been exemplary. They had been the protectors of a persecuted race, the advocates of mercy, the founders of civilisation; and their patience under their unmerited sufferings forms not the least honourable trait in their character.

The history of Brazil, for the next thirty years, is composed of the mismanagement and decay of the Jesuit establishments; the enlargement of the mining districts, particularly in the direction of Mato Grosso; some disputes with the French on the frontier of Cayenne; and the more peaceful occupations of opening roads, and the introduction of new branches of commerce, and the improvement of the old.

This tranquillity was for a moment interrupted by a conspiracy in the province of Minas Geraes, headed by an officer named Joaquim Jose de Silva Xavier, commonly called Tiradentes. The project of the conspirators was to form an independent republic in Minas, and, if possible, to induce Rio de Janeiro to unite with it. But their measures were most inadequate for the end proposed, and their conduct so imprudent, that, although there was a pretty general feeling of discontent on account of the taxes and some other grievances, the conspirators were all seized before they had formed anything like a party capable of resistance, much less of beginning the meditated revolution.

The direct effects upon Brazil of the first thirteen years of the revolutionary war in Europe were confined to some slight disputes regarding the boundaries of the Portuguese and French Guiana, and concerning the limits of which, there was an article in Lord Cornwallis's negotiations with France, or rather the peace of Amiens in 1802.

The indirect effects were greater. Being a good deal left to themselves, the colonists had leisure to discover what sort of cultivation and crops suited best with the climate, and were fittest for the market; and some branches of industry were introduced, and others improved, to the great advantage of the province. Foreign ships, and even fleets, had also begun to resort thither[18]: so that, though the ports had as yet been closed against foreign traders, the entrance of men of war, and such merchant ships as could find no others to refit in, introduced a virtual freedom, which it would afterwards have been impossible not to have confirmed.

The court of Portugal meanwhile, as if infatuated by the negotiations of France, consented to buy a disgraceful neutrality at the price of 1,000,000 of livres or 40,000l. per month, besides granting free entrance to French woollens into the kingdom.

It was in vain that frequent representations were made to the ministry at Lisbon on the subject; that the armament at Bayonne, and the refusal of Spain to forbid the passage of French troops through her territories, were pointed out. The Portuguese forces were marched to the sea-coast, as if they apprehended an invasion from England; thus leaving the kingdom defenceless on the land side, and the ports were shut against English commerce, by a proclamation, dated 20th October, 1807. But the importance of Portugal to England, as neutral ground, or, in the event of a French government in Spain, as a point whence to attack the great enemy, was such, that the resentment which at another time would certainly have been openly declared, was suppressed; but a strong squadron was always kept up off the coast, partly to watch the proceedings on shore, partly to prevent the Portuguese vessels from coming out of port, and joining the French and Spaniards.

While this system of watchfulness was kept up in Europe, the English ministry was not less attentive to the designs of France on the South American colonies. As long as Spain and Portugal continued to pay the enormous price in money for their neutrality, which France had demanded, the views of Napoleon were better answered than they could have been by the possession of all their territory and all their colonies. But the moment in which they should become unable or unwilling to pay that price, would of course be that of aggression and invasion. So early as 1796, Mr. Pitt had contemplated the advantages that must arise to Britain from the possession of a port in South America, and particularly in the Rio de la Plata, nor did he ever afterwards lose sight of it. Some circumstances occurred in December, 1804, to draw his attention, particularly towards the subject, inasmuch as he had intelligence that France was about to attempt to seize on one of the Spanish settlements on the first opportunity. But we were then at peace with Spain, and however willing to prevent such an aggression on the part of France, and to assist General Miranda in his intended expedition to South America, it was impossible to co-operate with him, as he earnestly pressed the ministry to do, although the advantage to England of securing such a market for her manufactures was clearly perceived. Among the officers who had been most confidentially consulted by Mr. Pitt, on the practicability of obtaining a settlement on the La Plata, was Sir Home Popham; and it was probably his knowledge of the views so long entertained by that minister, that induced him to take the hazardous step, of leaving the Cape of Good Hope so soon after it had been occupied by the English forces, in 1806, and taking Buenos Ayres without orders to that effect. His immediate motive was, the intelligence he had procured, that the squadron of the French admiral, Guillaumez, had intentions of touching on the coast of Brazil, entering the La Plata, and, if possible, seizing, or forming a settlement there; and some North Americans whom he had met, encouraged the undertaking, by observing, that to throw open the ports of South America would be a common benefit to all commercial nations, but particularly to England.[19]

In 1806, the demonstrations of hostilities against Portugal on the part of France were so evident, that Lord Rosslyn was despatched thither on a special mission, in which Lord St. Vincent and General Simcoe were joined with him. His instructions from Mr. Fox, then prime minister, were to lay before the ministry of Lisbon, the imminent danger which threatened the country, and to offer assistance in men, money, and stores from England, to put Portugal in a state of defence, in case the government should decide on a vigorous and effective resistance. If, on the other hand, Portugal should think itself too weak to contend with France, the idea that had once occurred to King Don Alfonso of emigrating to Brazil, and there establishing the capital of the empire, was to be revived, and promises made of assistance and protection for that purpose. If, however, Portugal insisted on rejecting assistance in either case, the troops under General Simcoe were to be landed, the strong forts on the Tagus occupied by them, and the fleet was to enter the river and secure the Portuguese ships and vessels, taking care to impress the government and people with the feeling that this was done from regard to the nation, and by no means for the sake of selfish aggrandisement on the part of England. It appears, however, that the French preparations for the invasion were not at that time so far advanced as had been imagined, and at the earnest entreaty of the court of Lisbon, the troops and the fleet were withdrawn from the Tagus.

On the 8th of August, the next year, however, (1807) Mr. Rayneval, the French chargé d'affaires at Lisbon, received orders from his court to declare to the Prince Regent of Portugal, that if by the first of September he did not declare war against England, and send back the English minister, recalling the Portuguese ambassador from London, and did not seize all the English residents, confiscate their property, and shut the ports of the kingdom against the English; and lastly, if he did not, without delay, unite his armies and fleets with those of the rest of the continent against England, he had orders to demand his passports and to declare war.

The Conde de Barca, then prime minister, was certainly aware of the preparations of the French government. But with that obstinate blindness which sometimes seems to possess men like a fate, he persisted in regarding them only as measures to intimidate and harass England. This nobleman had been ambassador at the court of St. Petersburg, and on his recall to take the first place in the cabinet at Lisbon, he was ordered to go by sea to London, and thence to Portugal, but he chose to perform the journey by way of Paris, where he saw and conversed both with Napoleon and Talleyrand. There cannot be the least doubt but that he was duped by those able men. Many considered him as a traitor. But the vanity of the Conde, who always said he had gone to judge of these men by his own eyes, though it makes him weaker, makes him less wicked, and was, perhaps, the true spring of his actions. He it was who carried the measures for the detention of the English, the confiscation of their property, and the shutting the ports against English commerce: adopting, in short, the whole of the continental system. The very day before Junot was to reach Lisbon, however, a Paris newspaper, written in anticipation of the event, announced that "The House of Braganza no longer reigned," and that its members were reduced to the common herd of ex-princes, &c., giving no very favourable description of them, and holding out no very flattering expectations for the future. This completely opened the Prince Regent's eyes, and he consented to that step, which D. John IV. and Don José had contemplated, namely, the transferring the seat of his empire to his Transatlantic possessions.

This was in the month of November, 1807, but the events of that month, the most interesting that had occurred to Portugal since the revolution that had placed Braganza on the throne of his ancestors, will be best understood by the following extracts from the despatches received by the British ministry from Lord Strangford and from Sir Sydney Smith at the time. On the 29th November, 1807, His Lordship writes, after mentioning the Prince's departure for Brazil:—

"I had frequently and distinctly stated to the cabinet of Lisbon, that in agreeing not to resent the exclusion of British commerce from the ports of Portugal, His Majesty had exhausted the means of forbearance; that in making that concession to the peculiar circumstances of the Prince Regent's situation, His Majesty had done all that friendship and the remembrance of ancient alliance could justly require; but that a single step beyond the line of modified hostility, thus most reluctantly consented to, must necessarily lead to the extremity of actual war.

"The Prince Regent, however, suffered himself for a moment to forget that, in the present state of Europe, no country could be permitted to be an enemy to England with impunity, and that however much His Majesty might be disposed to make allowance for the deficiency of means possessed by Portugal of resistance to the power of France, neither his own dignity nor the interests of his people would permit His Majesty to accept that excuse for a compliance with the full extent of her unprincipled demands. On the 8th inst. His Royal Highness was induced to sign an order for the detention of the few British subjects, and of the inconsiderable portion of British property which yet remained at Lisbon. On the publication of this order, I caused the arms of England to be removed from the gates of my residence, demanded my passports, presented a final remonstrance against the recent conduct of the court of Lisbon, and proceeded to the squadron commanded by Sir Sydney Smith, which arrived off the coast of Portugal some days after I had received my passports, and which I joined on the 17th inst.

"I immediately suggested to Sir Sydney Smith the expediency of establishing the most rigorous blockade at the mouth of the Tagus; and I had the high satisfaction of afterwards finding that I had thus anticipated the intentions of His Majesty: for despatches (which I received on the 23d) directing me to authorise that measure, in case the Portuguese government should pass the bounds which His Majesty had thought fit to set to his forbearance, and attempt to take any further step injurious to the honour or interests of Great Britain."—

----"I resolved, therefore, to proceed forthwith to ascertain the effect produced by the blockade of Lisbon, and to propose to the Portuguese government, as the only condition upon which that blockade should cease, the alternative (stated by you) either of surrendering the fleet to His Majesty, or of immediately employing it to remove the Prince Regent and his family to the Brazils."—

"I accordingly requested an audience of the Prince Regent, together with due assurances of protection and security; and upon receiving His Royal Highness's answers I proceeded to Lisbon on the 27th, in His Majesty's sloop Confiance, bearing a flag of truce. I had immediately most interesting communications with the court of Lisbon, the particulars of which shall be detailed in a future despatch. It suffices to mention in this place, that the Prince Regent wisely directed all his apprehensions to a French army, and all his hopes to a British fleet: that he received the most explicit assurances from me that His Majesty would generously overlook those acts of unwilling and momentary hostility to which His Royal Highness's consent had been extorted; and that I promised to His Royal Highness, on the faith of my sovereign, that the British squadron before the Tagus should be employed to protect his retreat from Lisbon, and his voyage to the Brazils.

"A decree was published yesterday, in which the Prince Regent announced his intention of retiring to the city of Rio de Janeiro until the conclusion of a general peace, and of appointing a regency to transact the administration of government at Lisbon, during His Royal Highness's absence from Europe."

Sir Sydney Smith writes on the first of December the following letter to the admiralty:—

His Majesty's Ship Hibernia, 22 leagues west of the Tagus, Dec. 1, 1807.

"Sir,

"In a former despatch, dated 22d November, with a postscript of the 26th, I conveyed to you, for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, the proofs contained in various documents of the Portuguese government, being so much influenced by terror of the French arms as to have acquiesced to certain demands of France operating against Great Britain. The distribution of the Portuguese force was made wholly on the coast, while the land side was left totally unguarded. British subjects of all descriptions were detained; and it therefore became necessary to inform the "Portuguese government, that the case had arisen, which required, in obedience to my instructions, that I should declare the Tagus in a state of blockade."

(Sir Sydney then repeats part of Lord Strangford's despatch.)

"On the morning of the 29th, the Portuguese fleet came out of the Tagus with His Royal Highness the Prince of Brazil, and the whole of the royal family of Braganza on board, together with many of his faithful councillors and adherents, as well as other persons attached to his present fortunes.

"This fleet of eight sail of the line, four frigates, two brigs, and one schooner[20], with a crowd of large armed merchant ships arranged itself under the protection of that of His Majesty, while the firing of a reciprocal salute of twenty-one guns announced the friendly meeting of those, who but the day before were on terms of hostility, the scene impressing every beholder (except the French army on the hills) with the most lively emotions of gratitude to Providence, that there yet existed a power in the world able, as well as willing, to protect the oppressed.—I have, &c.

"W. SYDNEY SMITH."

Such are the public accounts transmitted by foreigners to their court of one of the most singular transactions that has occurred in the history of kingdoms and of courts. Yet such was the state of Europe at that time, so momentous the struggle between the principals in the mighty warfare that was going on, that the ancient house of Braganza left the seat of its ancestors, to seek shelter and security beyond the Atlantic, almost without notice and with less ceremony than had formerly attended an excursion to its country palaces.

The French Government had waited to invade Portugal till that unhappy country had exhausted its treasury, in the payment of the enormous sums demanded as the price of its neutrality. French influence had removed the Portuguese troops from the mountain passes, where they might have opposed the entrance of French armies, and the Prince Regent only declared his adherence to the continental system, and arrested the English on the simultaneous entrance of three Imperial and Spanish armies.

Junot invaded Algarve and passed the Zezere, at the same moment when Solano threw himself upon Oporto, and Carafa occupied Alentejo and Algarve.—Under these circumstances, the conduct of the ministry, though not courageous, was natural, and it was as natural when Lord Strangford returned to Lisbon, which, perhaps, he ought not to have left, that the last council held in that capital should decide on the emigration of the court to Brazil. Had it remained, and Portugal had become a French province, the Prince and all his family were prisoners in the hands of one who had respected no crown; and besides, England had intimated that in that case she must occupy Brazil for her own security. By emigrating to Brazil the Prince retained in his hands the largest and richest portion of his domains, and secured at least, the personal freedom and safety of his family. At the end therefore of the last meeting of his councillors the Prince called his confidential servants[22], and ordered them to prepare every thing in secret for the embarkation of the court on the next night but one. One of these had been actually ordered to provide quarters for Junot, and on the next morning to have a breakfast ready for him at a house half-way between Sacavem and Lisbon. This man had smuggled his family on board one of the ships, he had been night and day getting provisions, plate, books, jewels, whatever could be moved on board the fleet, and, remaining to the last, was again ordered to provide quarters for Junot: but he was fortunate enough to secure a boat to carry him off to the fleet, leaving papers, money, and even his hat behind him on the beach.

Such is the picture of the hasty embarkation, given by some of the attendants on the royal family.

The fleets had no sooner got off the land than they encountered a violent gale of wind, but by the 5th of December they were all collected again; on that day Sir Sidney Smith having supplied the ships with every thing necessary for their safety, and having convoyed them to lat. 37° 47' north, and long. 14° 17' west, left them to go on under the protection of the Marlborough, Capt. Moore, with a broad pennant, the London, Monarch and Bedford.[23] They proceeded without farther accident to the coast of Brazil, and landed at Bahia on the 21st of January, 1808.[24]

The Conde da Ponte was at that time governor of Bahia, and is said to have been very popular[25]: he had married a lady of high family who was not less so, and she possessed, besides the manners of the court, a considerable portion of both beauty and talent.

The reception of the royal party was rendered so agreeable to the Prince by the governor and his lady, that he remained at St. Salvador's a month, every day being a festival, and then left it with regret. In commemoration of the visit, a spot was cleared near the fortress of St. Peter's, and commanding a fine view over the whole of the beautiful bay, and there an obelisk was erected with an inscription, stating its purpose, and the surrounding ground was planted and converted into a public garden.

But, however agreeable a residence at Bahia might have been to His Royal Highness, the place is too insecure for the purposes for which he emigrated. If it is besieged by sea, and the smallest land force gets possession of the neck of land between the Cape and Rio Vermelha, it is actually without the means of subsistence. The entrance of the bay is so wide, that nothing, can prevent ships from going in when they please. Whereas, the harbour of Rio is easily defended, it not being possible for ships to enter without being exposed to the fire of the forts. Besides, it has resources which Bahia has not, being at all times able to communicate with the rich province of the Minas, which, besides the metals, abounds in corn, mandioc, cotton, coffee, cattle, hogs, and even the coarse manufactures such as cotton, &c., for the use of the slaves and for ordinary purposes.