ARRIVAL OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. 



27 



Goes. The country betwixt the great river St. Francisco, which was the 

 southern boundary of Pernambuco, and Bahia, was allotted to Francisco Pereira 

 Coutinho. The next portion of territory, proceeding southward, was denomi- 

 nated the Capitania dos Ilheos, running north and south from the Rio dos 

 Ilheos, (River of Islands,) and granted to Jorge Figueiredo Correa. Cabral's 

 Porto Seguro Avas included in the range of coast which formed the capitania 

 of the same name, and was a donation to Pedro Campo Tourinha. Espirito 

 Santo (Holy Spirit) was the appellation given to the next in rotation, and ob- 

 tained by Vasco Fernandez Coutinho. Rio de Janeiro was not colonized for 

 some time afterwards. This mode of allotment was not calculated to maintain a 

 long duration. The captains possessed despotic jurisdiction over the colonists, 

 many of whom were degradados, or criminals, consequently less adapted to live in 

 harmony, and the whole being at the mercy of the former, complaints were fre- 

 quent ; so that, after a lapse of about seventeen years from its commencement, 

 this system was terminated by a royal revocation of the power of the captains, 

 followed by the appointment of Thome de Souza, a fidalgo, as governor- 

 general of the Brazil, who arrived at Bahia, the bay of All Saints, in April 

 1549, with instructions to build a city, which was to be called St. Salvador. 

 The fleet was accompanied by some Jesuits, who thus obtained in the Brazilian 

 regions, those means of improving the condition of the Indians, and of the 

 country in other respects, which has been so honourable to their Trans-Atlantic 

 character, and which presents so pleasing and striking a contrast to their con- 

 duct in Europe, filled as that conduct was with "treasons, stratagems, and 

 spoils." With the mother-country, this colony passed under the dominion of 

 the Spanish crown, in the year 1580, for a period of nearly sixty years. The 

 Dutch possessed themselves of Pernambuco in the year 1630, and ultimately of 

 the whole country from the great river St. Francisco to Maranham, which they 

 retained till the year 1654. The last Philip, just before the Brazil reverted to 

 the Portuguese, conferred the title of Viceroy upon the governor-general at 

 Bahia, who then was the Marquis of Montalvam, and which honour all his suc- 

 cessors enjoyed. The seat of the vice-regal government was transferred by 

 Don Joseph I. from Bahia to Rio de Janeiro, in 1773, which expired on the 

 arrival of the royal family in that country, in the year 1808. Don John IV. 

 gave the title of Prince of Brazil to his eldest son. Prince Don Theodosio, which 

 descended to all the hereditary princes of the house of Braganza, till the 17th of 

 December, 1815, when the Prince Regent, (now Don John VI.) raised that 

 country into a kingdom. 



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