32 



PROVINCE OF RIO DE JANEIRO. 



and still retains his name, he constructed the fort of Coligni, in honour of the 

 excellent man and famous admiral, Gaspar de Coligni, his patron and warm 

 supporter in establishing this colony, to which, in the following year, he de- 

 spatched a further succour of three ships of war and near three hundred persons. 

 King John III. of Portugal, receiving intelligence of this event, ordered Duarthe 

 da Costa, then governor-general at Bahia, individually, to make himself ac- 

 quainted with the actual state of the Protestants ; but no attempts were made 

 to displace them till after the death of the King, when Dona Catharina gave 

 instructions to Mendo de Sa, the successor of Duarthe da Costa, to expel them, 

 sending him two armed ships, with some caravels, which the governor augmented 

 by some ships of war and two caravels that were in the port, and putting on 

 board all the people he could assemble, personally embarked with the squadron. 

 He visited all the intervening capitanias of the coast, and received on board all 

 those who were willing to accompany him. The French defended themselves 

 vigorously against the attacks of this fleet ; but not being able to remedy the 

 destruction and havoc which they sustained from the more powerful ships of the 

 Portuguese, they retired by night to the continent, uniting themselves with the 

 Tamoyo Indians, whose friendship they had previously conciliated. Mendo de 

 Sa collected the artillery which the French had left, and, with one of their ships, 

 which he found in the port, he returned to Bahia. 



Intelligence was received afresh that the Protestants continued to frequent 

 the bay of Rio de Janeiro, and were successively becoming more strongly for- 

 tified in the continental situations they had taken up. The crown of Portugal, 

 now discovering of how much importance it would be effectually to take pos- 

 session of and colonize this fine port, which having no donatory or forces to 

 impede the establishment of whatever enemy might think proper to proceed 

 there for that purpose, resolved to despatch Estacio de Sa to Bahia, with two 

 galliots, and there to receive from his uncle, Mendo de Sa, the governor, such 

 an accession of force as would enable him to extirpate the French. Estacio de 

 Sa, having augmented the squadron as much as circumstances would allow, 

 arrived at Rio de Janeiro in 1565, and took up a station near the Sugar-Loaf 

 Mountain, at the place now called Villa Velha ; but in various attacks, which he 

 made upon the united French and Indians, fortune was never decisively pro- 

 pitious to him. This circumstance induced Mendo de Sa to prepare, in the 

 bay of Bahia, an armament, which consisted of three galliots, commanded by 

 Christovam de Barros, two ships of the crown, which were cruizing on the 

 coast, and six caravels. This auxiliary force he accompanied in person to the 



