ACCOUNT OF BOOKS. 



743 



embark adequate means in the 

 adventure, with powers of juris- 

 diction, both civil and criminal, 

 so extensive as to be in fact un- 

 limited. This method was thought 

 to be the easiest, and least ex- 

 pensive to government. The dif- 

 ference between desert islands and 

 a peopled continent, had not been 

 considered. The captains of the 

 islands might easily settle lands 

 in which there could be no op- 

 position, and easily at any time 

 assist each other with supplies ; if 

 the means failed they could even 

 borrow from Portugal, those places 

 being so near that they were re- 

 garded almost as things within the 

 country. But when Joam divided 

 the coast of Brazil into great cap- 

 taincies, each extending along 

 fifty leagues of coast, large tribes 

 of savages were in possession of 

 the country ; Portugal was far dis- 

 tant, and the settlements so far 

 asunder, that one could not pos- 

 sibly afford assistance to ano- 

 ther." 



The consequences of this inju- 

 dicious plan were such as might 

 easily have been foreseen. Num- 

 bers of the grantees were ruined 

 by the expenses of fitting out, 

 while many others found them- 

 selves unable to maintain their 

 widely-extended propertiesagainst 

 the disadvantages incident to their 

 situation ; and all of them, with 

 the view of repairing their ex- 

 hausted fortunes, and making the 

 most of their dearly purchased es- 

 tates in the least possible period, 

 adopted and exercised a system 

 of the most vexatious tyranny 

 over their subject settlers. The 

 governor of every captaincy ex- 

 ercised uncontrolled authority ; 

 the property, honour, and lives of 



the colonists were at the mercy of 

 their lords; and the people groan- 

 ed under their intolerable oppres- 

 sion. At length their complaints 

 reached the king ; who, in I5i9, 

 revoked the powers of the several 

 captains, leaving them in the pos- 

 session of their proprietary grants; 

 and constituted Don Thome de 

 Sousa, governor-general, withvice- 

 regal authority. For this high 

 and important situation he was 

 every way quaUfied : he founded 

 the city of St. Salvador in the 

 Bay of All Saints, in April 

 154;9, and took out with him six 

 Jesuits, as missionaries for the 

 conversion and civilization of the 

 Brazilians. 



Previously to his narrating this 

 event, Mr. Southey, in conformity 

 with the plan announced in his 

 preface, has interrupted the series 

 of his history of Brazil, in order 

 to give minute and highly inter- 

 esting details of the discovery of 

 the river Plata, of the first settle- 

 ments formed on its banks, by the 

 Spaniards, and also on the banks of 

 the rivers Paraguay and Parana. 

 In these details our limits forbid 

 us to follow him ; as well as in 

 his interesting account of the voy- 

 age of Orellana down the river of 

 Amazons, for which we must 

 refer the reader to Mr. Southev's 

 volume. 



We now return to the principal 

 object of this work — the History 

 of Brazil. It will be recollected 

 that Don Thome de Sousa took 

 out with him a small number of 

 Jesuits : these had difficulties to 

 encounter of no common kind, 

 with a savage race of cannibals ; 

 yet, notwithstanding the impedi- 

 ments that lay in their way, they 

 did succeed in civilizing the bar- 



