Note 5 — Letter from Fajardo to the King

Pernambuco, one of the most important of the Portuguese colonies in Brazil, was founded early in the sixteenth century. It was captured and plundered in 1593 by the English, under Sir James Lancaster, and again seized by the Dutch in 1630; but the Portuguese drove out the Dutch in 1654, after which time Brazil remained in possession of Portugal, until the peaceful revolution of that colony, and the formation of the present republic.