PROVINCE OF RIO DE JANEIRO. 



33 



assistance of his nephew, visiting, as before, the intervening capitanias, and 

 offering to convey, gratuitously, all families who might wish to people the future 

 colony; and, in consequence, a great many did accompany him. He arrived 

 on the 18th of January, 1567, but deferred the attack till the 20th, that day 

 being St. Sebastian's, under whose auspices he meant to begin and carry on the 

 enterprise. Two years had previously passed in useless and indecisive conten- 

 tion, which, in two days, Mendo de Sa brought to a successful termination, by 

 possessing himself of the forts Urussumiri and Paranapucuy, not, however, 

 without his followers feeling the effect of the arrows of the Tamoyos, which 

 often transfixed the shield to the arm that supported it. Amongst others, 

 Estacio de Sa received a wound from one of them, of which he expired a few 

 days afterwards. The French escaped in four ships which they had in the har- 

 bour ; and Mendo de Sa did not allow much time to elapse before he removed 

 the first establishment to thp situation now forming a ward or district of the 

 present capital, denominated Misericordia, and there marked out its commence- 

 ment. In honour of his patron saint, he gave it the name of St. Sebastian, which 

 has given way to that of Rio de Janeiro now more generally used. The 

 governor assigned to the celebrated Jesuit, Nobrega, ground, in the midst of the 

 city, for a college, which he endowed for the support of fifty brethren. Having 

 occupied himself near a year and a half in arranging every thing necessary for 

 the continuation and security of the new city, he returned to the capital in 

 June, 1568. He left for governor his nephew, Salvador Correa de Sa, whose 

 administration was short, as well as that of Christovam de Barros, who succeed- 

 ed him by royal patent, and whose jurisdiction over the affairs of the capitania 

 terminated in 1572, when King Sebastian divided the state into two govern- 

 ments ; the city of St. Sebastian becoming the capital of the southern division, 

 which was delivered to Dr. Antonio Salema, with power over the capitanias 

 from the river Belmont, southward. The same sovereign, becoming sensible 

 of the inconvenience resulting to the crown from this partition, ordered that 

 the general executive government should revert to its anterior state ; and nomi- 

 nated, as successor to Salema, the said Salvador Correa de Sa, with patent of 

 captain-general, dated the 10th January, 1576, and who remained in this 

 situation until the year 1598. None of those who followed him governed 

 during so long a period, with the exception of Sandozo Gomes Freyre d'An- 

 drade, who discharged the duties of the appointment from the year 1 733 to 

 1 763, and which expired only with his life in the course of the latter year. 

 This province, which acquires its name from the magnificent port of ita 



