DEC. 1768 POPULATION 35 
this one John Burrith, an officer in their customs, a man 
who has been here thirteen years, and has become so com- 
pletely Portuguese that he is known by no other name 
than Don John; he was of service to our people, though 
what he did was so clogged with a suspicious fear of offend- 
ing the Portuguese as rendered it disgustful. It is necessary 
for any one who should come here to know his character, 
which is mercenary, though contented with a little, as the 
present given to him demonstrated; it consisted of one 
dozen of beer, ten gallons of brandy, ten pieces of ship’s 
beef, and as many of pork. This was what he himself 
asked for, and sent on board the keg for the spirit, and 
with this he was more than satisfied. 
They have a very extraordinary method of keeping 
people from travelling; to hinder them, I suppose, from 
going into any district where gold or diamonds may be 
found, as there are more of such districts than they can 
possibly guard. There are certain bounds beyond which 
no man must go; these vary every month at the discretion 
of the viceroy, sometimes they are few, sometimes many 
leagues from the city. Every man must in consequence of 
this come to town to know where the bounds are, for if he 
is taken by the guards, who constantly patrol on their 
limits, he is infallibly put in prison, even if he is within 
them, unless he can tell where they are. 
The inhabitants are very numerous; they consist of 
Portuguese, negroes, and Indians, aborigines of the country. 
The township of Rio, whose extent I could not learn, but 
was only told that it was but a small part of the capitanea, 
or province, is said to contain about 37,000 whites, and 
about 17 negroes to each white, which makes their number 
629,000, and the number of inhabitants in all 666,000. 
As for the Indians, they do not live in this neighbourhood, 
though many of them are always here doing the king’s 
work, which they are obliged to do by turns, for small pay, 
and for which purpose they came from their habitations at 
a distance. I saw many of them, as our guard-boat was 
constantly rowed by them; they are of a light copper colour, 
