Brazil (a name signifying the holy cross) was discovered for the King of Portugal, by Alvarez Cabral, Ann. Dom. 1501 extending almost from the equinoctial to 28° south. The air is temperate and cool, in comparison of the West Indies, from stronger breezes and an opener country, which gives less interruption to the winds.
The northernmost part of it stretching about 180 leagues, (a fine fertile country,) was taken from the Portuguese by the Dutch West India Company, Anno 1637 or thereabouts; but the conquerors, as is natural where there is little or no religion subsisting, made such heavy exactions on the Portuguese, and extended such cruelty to the natives, that prepared them both easily to unite for a revolt, facilitated by the Dutch mismanagement: for the states being at this time very intent on their India settlements, not only recalled Count Morrice their governor, but neglected supplies to their garrisons; however, though the others were countenanced with a fleet from Portugal, and had the affection of the natives, yet they found means to withstand and struggle with this superior power, from 1643 to 1660, and then was wholly abandoned by them, on articles dishonourable to the Portuguese, viz.
That the Dutch, on relinquishing, should keep all the places they had conquered in India from Portugal. That they should pay the states 800,000 £ and permit them still the liberty of trade to Africa and Brazil, on the same custom and duties with the King of Portugal’s subjects. But since that time, new stipulations and treaties have been made; wherein the Dutch, who have been totally excluded the Brazil trade, have, in lieu thereof, a composition of 10 percent for the liberty of trading to Africa; and this is always left by every Portuguese ship (before she begins her slaving) with the Dutch general of the Gold Coast, at Des Minas.
There are only three principal towns of trade on the Brazil coast, St. Salvadore, St. Sebastian, and Pernambuco.
St. Salvadore in the Bay of los Todos Santos, is an archbishopric and seat of the Viceroy, the chief port of trade for importation, where most of the gold from the mines is lodged, and whence the fleets for Europe generally depart. The seas about it abound with whale-fish, which in the season they catch in great numbers; the flesh is salted up generally to be the victualling of their slave ships, and the train reserved for exportation, at 30 and 35 millraies a pipe.
Rio de Janeiro (the town St. Sebastian) is the southernmost of the Portuguese, the worst provided of necessaries, but commodious for a settlement, because nigh the mine, and convenient to supervise the slaves, who, as I have been told, do usually allow their master a dollar per diem, and have the overplus of their work (if any) to themselves.
The gold from hence is esteemed the best, (for being of a copperish colour,) and they have a mint to run it into coin, both here and at Bahia; the moidores of either having the initial letters of each place upon them.
Pernambuco (though mention’d last) is the second in dignity, a large and populous Town, and has its rise from the ruins of Olinda, (or the handsome,) a city of a far pleasanter situation, six miles up the river, but not so commodious for traffic and commerce. Just above the town the river divides itself into two branches, not running directly into the sea, but to the southward; and in the nook of the island made by that division, stands the Governor’s house, a square plain building of Prince Maurice’s, with two towers, on which are only this date inscribed, Anno 1641. The avenues to it are every way pleasant, thro’ vistas of tall coconut trees.
Over each branch of the river is a bridge; that leading to the country is all of timber, but the other to the town (of twenty-six or twenty-eight arches) is half of stone, made by the Dutch, who in their time had little shops and gaming houses on each side for recreation.
The pavements also of the town are in some places of broad tiles, the remaining fragments of their conquest. The town has the outer branch of the river behind it, and the harbour before it, jetting into which latter are close keys for the weighing and receiving of customage on merchandise, and for the meeting and conferring of merchants and traders. The houses are strong built, but homely, latticed like those of Lisbon, for the admission of air, without closets, and what is worse, hearths; which makes their cookery consist all in frying and stewing upon stoves; and that they do till the flesh become tender enough to shake it to pieces, and one knife is then thought sufficient to serve a table of half a score.
The greatest inconvenience of Pernambuco is, that there is not one public-house in it; so that strangers are obliged to hire any ordinary one they can get, at a guinea a month: and others who come to transact affairs of importance, must come recommended, if it were only for the sake of privacy.
The market is stocked well enough, beef being at five farthings per l. a sheep or goat at nine shillings, a turkey four shillings, and fowls two shillings, the largest I ever saw, and may be procured much cheaper, by hiring a man to fetch them out of the country. The dearest in its kind is water, which being fetch’d in vessels from Olinda, will not be put on board in the road under two crusados a pipe.
The Portuguese here are darker than those of Europe, not only from a warmer climate, but their many intermarriages with the Negroes, who are numerous there, and some of them of good credit and circumstances. The women (not unlike the mulatto generation everywhere else) are fond of strangers; not only the courtesans, whose interest may be supposed to wind up their affections, but also the married women who think themselves obliged, when you favour them with the secrecy of an appointment; but the unhappiness of pursuing amours, is, that the generality of both sexes are touched with veneral taints, without so much as one surgeon among them, or anybody skilled in physic, to cure or palliate the progressive mischief: the only person pretending that way, is an Irish father, whose knowledge is all comprehended in the virtues of two or three simples, and those, with the salubrity of the air and temperance, is what they depend on, for subduing the worst of malignity; and it may not be unworthy notice, that though few are exempted from the misfortune of a running, eruptions, or the like, yet I could hear of none precipitated into those deplorable circumstances we see common in unskillful mercurial processes.
There are three monasteries, and about six churches, none of them rich or magnificent, unless one dedicated to St. Antonio, the patron of their kingdom, which shines all over with exquisite pieces of paint and gold.
The export of Brazil (besides gold) is chiefly sugars and tobacco; the latter are sent off in rolls of a quintal weight, kept continually moistened with molasses, which, with the soil it springs from, imparts a strong and peculiar scent, more sensible in the snuff made from it, which though under prohibition of importing to Lisbon, sells here at 2 s. per l. as the tobacco does at about 6 millraies a roll. The finest of their sugars sells at 8 s. per roove, and a small ill-tasted rum drawn from the dregs and molasses, at two testoons a gallon.
Besides these, they send off great quantities of Brazil wood, and whale oil, some gums and parrots, the latter are different from the African in colour and bigness, for as they are blue and larger, these are green and smaller; and the females of them ever retain the wild note, and cannot be brought to talk.
In lieu of this produce, the Portuguese, once every year by their fleet from Lisbon, import all manner of European commodities; and whoever is unable or negligent of supplying himself at that season, buys at a very advanced rate, before the return of another.
To transport passengers, slaves, or merchandise from one settlement to another, or in fishing; they make use of bark-logs, by the Brazilians called jingadahs: they are made of four pieces of timber (the two outermost longest) pinned and fastened together, and sharpened at the ends: towards each extremity a stool is fixed to sit on for paddling, or holding by, when the agitation is more than ordinary; with these odd sort of engines, continually washed over by the water, do these people, with a little triangular sail spreeted about the middle of it, venture out of sight of land, and along the coasts for many leagues, in any sort of weather; and if they overset with a squall (which is not uncommon) they swim and presently turn it up right again.
The natives are of the darkest copper colour, with thin hair, of a square strong make, and muscular; but not so well looking as the woolly generation: they acquiesce patiently to the Portuguese government, who use them much more humanly and Christian-like than the Dutch did, and by that means have extended quietness and peace, as well as their possessions, three or four hundred miles into the country. A country abounding with fine pastures and numerous herds of cattle, and yields a vast increase from everything that is sown: hence they bring down to us parrots, small monkeys, armadillos and sanguins, and I have been assured, they have, (far inland,) a serpent of a vast magnitude, called siboya, able, they say, to swallow a whole sheep; I have seen myself here the skin of another specie full six yards long, and therefore think the story not improbable.
The harbour of Pernambuco is, perhaps, singular, it is made of a ledge of rocks, half a cables length from the main, and but little above the surface of the water, running at that equal distance and height several leagues, towards Cape Augustine, a harbour running between them capable of receiving ships of the greatest burden: the northernmost end of this wall of rock, is higher than any part of the contiguous line, on which a little fort is built, commanding the passage either of boat or ship, as they come over the bar into the harbour: on the starboard side, (i.e. the main) after you have entered a little way, stands another fort (a pentagon) that would prove of small account, I imagine, against a few disciplined men; and yet in these consists all their strength and security, either for the harbour or town: they have begun indeed a wall, since their removing from Olinda, designed to surround the latter; but the slow progress they make in raising it, leaves room to suspect ’twill be a long time in finishing.
The road without, is used by the Portuguese, when they are nigh sailing for Europe, and wait for the convoy, or are bound to Bahia to them, and by strangers only when necessity compels; the best of it is in ten fathom water, near three miles W. N. W. from the town; nigher in, is foul with the many anchors lost there by the Portuguese ships; and farther out (in 14 fathom) corally and rocky. July is the worst and winter season of this coast, the trade winds being then very strong and dead, bringing in a prodigious and unsafe swell into the road, intermixed every day with squalls, rain, and a hazey horizon, but at other times serener skies and sunshine.
In these southern latitudes is a constellation, which from some resemblance it bears to a Jerusalem cross, has the name of crosiers, the brightest of this hemisphere, and are observed by, as the North Star is in northern latitudes; but what I mention this for, is, to introduce the admirable phenomenon in these seas of the Magellanic clouds, whose risings and sittings are so regular, that I have been assured, the same nocturnal observations are made by them as by the stars; they are two clouds, small and whitish, no larger in appearance than a man’s hat, and are seen here in July in the latitude of 8° S. about four of the clock in the morning; if their appearance should be said to be the reflection of light, from some stellar bodies above them, yet the difficulty is not easily answered, how these, beyond others, become so durable and regular in their motions.
From these casual observations on the country, the towns, coast, and seas of Brazil, it would be an omission to leave the subject, without some essay on an interloping slave trade here, which none of our countrymen are adventurous enough to pursue, though it very probably, under a prudent manager, would be attended with safety and very great profit; and I admire the more it is not struck at, because ships from the southern coast of Africa, don’t lengthen the voyage to the West Indies a great deal, by taking a part of Brazil in their way.
The disadvantages the Portuguese are under for purchasing slaves, are these, that they have very few proper commodities for Guinea, and the gold, which was their chiefest, by an edict in July 1722, stands now prohibited from being carried thither, so that the ships employed therein are few, and insufficient for the great mortality and call of their mines; besides, should they venture at breaking so destructive a law, as the abovementioned (as no doubt they do, or they could make little or no purchase) yet gold does not raise its value like merchandise in travelling (especially to Africa) and when the composition with the Dutch is also paid, they may be said to buy their Negroes at almost double the price the English, Dutch, or French do, which necessarily raises their value extravagantly at Brazil; (those who can purchase one, buying a certainer annuity than South-Sea stock.)
Thus far of the call for slaves at Brazil; I shall now consider and obviate some difficulties objected against any foreigners (suppose English) interposing in such a trade, and they are some on theirs, and some on our side.
On their side it is prohibited under pain of death, a law less effectual to the prevention of it than pecuniary mulcts would be, because a penalty so inadequate and disproportioned, is only in terrorem, and makes it merciful in the Governor, or his instruments, to take a composition of eight or ten moidores, when any subject is catched, and is the common custom so to do as often as they are found out.
On our side it is confiscation of what they can get, which considering, they have no men-of-war to guard the coast, need be very little, without supine neglect and carelessness.
I am a man-of-war, or privateer, and being in want of provisions, or in search of pirates, put in to Pernambuco for intelligence, to enable me for the pursuit: the dread of pirates keeps every one off, till you have first sent an officer, with the proper compliments to the Governor, who immediately gives leave for your buying every necessary you are in want of, provided it be with money, and not an exchange of merchandise, which is against the laws of the country.
On this first time of going onshore, depends the success of the whole affair, and requires a cautious and discreet management in the person entrusted: he will be immediately surrounded at landing with the great and the small rabble, to enquire who? and whence he comes? and whether bound? etc. and the men are taught to answer, from Guinea, denying anything of a slave on board, which are under hatches, and make no show; nor need they, for those who have money to lay out will conclude on that themselves.
By that time the compliment is paid to the Governor, the news has spread all round the town, and some merchant addresses you, as a stranger, to the civility of his house, but privately desires to know what Negroes he can have, and what price. A Governor may possibly use an instrument in sifting this, but the appearance of the gentleman, and the circumstance of being so soon engaged after leaving the other, will go a great way in forming a man’s judgment, and leaves him no room for the suspicion of such a snare; however, to have a due guard, intimations will suffice, and bring him, and friends enough to carry off the best part of a cargo in two nights time, from 20 to 30 moidores a boy, and from 30 to 40 a man slave. The hazard is less at Rio de Janeiro.
There has been another method attempted, of settling a correspondence with some Portuguese merchant or two, who, as they may be certain within a fortnight of any vessels arriving on their coast with slaves, might settle signals for the debarking them at an unfrequented part of the coast, but whether any exceptions were made to the price, or that the Portuguese dread discovery, and the severest prosecution on so notorious a breach of the law, I cannot tell but it has hither to proved abortive.
However, stratagems laudable, and attended with profit, at no other hazard (as I can perceive) then loss of time, are worth attempting; it is what is every day practised with the Spaniards from Jamaica.