184 NARRATIVE. 



injury, and we were enjoying a little quiet, when a vessel arrived 

 with prisoners from St. Jago, who had mutinied for want of pay, 

 having been ten months without receiving a farthing, and being 

 nearly reduced, with the rest of the Portuguese force at that place, 

 to starvation. This was the real motive for the Governor's flight 

 to Bona Vista, for he deemed his Ufe in danger while at St. Jago, 

 and so distant was the hope of relief from the mother country, 

 and his last specvdation in orchil having failed, he thought it wise 

 to shelter himself under the protection of Senhor Martins. 



After some months the insurrection was quelled, and the ring- 

 leaders seized, who were the prisoners in question. They were 

 put in irons immediately on arrival, stripped of all clothing, except 

 a linen shirt and trowsers, and crowded with their wives and 

 children into a low room, under those we occupied. Our comfort 

 at home was destroyed by their conversation, intermingled with 

 cries and complaints, and our compassion strongly excited when- 

 ever we went out, by their sickly and dejected appearance, as they 

 hovered round the grating to breathe the fresh air''. This event 

 was too important not to cause some commotion in the island ; the 

 guards (consisting of sentinels with no other covering than an old 

 drab coat with a red collar, and the remnant of a cap, bearing a 

 halberd staff on the right shoulder) were doubled'', and the cracked 



■= The greater number of them were afterwards banished. We had at one time a 

 chance of sailing with them, and 1 entertained great apprehension of their seizing the 

 vessel, a circumstance which had taken place on a previous occasion ; the convicts 

 afterwards proceeding to Brazil. 



^ The valour of these military heroes is such, that, during the absence of Senhor 

 Martins at the Cortez, an English man-of-war anchored outside the bay, undiscovered 

 by those on shore, and sent an officer and boats crew in to ask for a little water. 

 The appearance of the English uniform so appalled the residents of Bona Vista, that, 

 the sentinels having given the alarm, soldiers, captain, whites, blacks, and mulattoes,, 

 all fled to the interior of the island, and left the town to the mercy of the supposed 

 invaders ; Senhora Martins only packing up as many of her valuables as were portable 

 at the moment. 



