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PROVINCE OF RIO GRANDE DO SUL. 



In the sixty years that Portugal was subject to the court of Castile, various 

 Spanish colonies established themselves in the vicinity of the river Uruguay ; 

 and, in order to prevent a continuation of these establishments towards the 

 east, D. Manuel Lobo, governor of Rio de Janeiro, founded Colonia do 

 Sacramento, at the request of the infant Don Pedro, in 1680. 



Scarcely had seven months elapsed, when it was surprised and taken, by 

 Don Joze Garro, governor of Buenos Ayres, accompanied with circumstances 

 of much barbarity. It was restored at the end of three years, and placed in its 

 former state, by Duarthe Teixeira Chaves. It however returned under the 

 dominion of Buenos Ayres, being abandoned by the governor, Sebastian da 

 Veiga, in 1703, who, after a long and valorous resistance, retired with all his 

 people and property, in ships, to Rio de Janeiro, not having sufficient forces 

 any longer to resist the power of Don Alonso Valdez. By the treaty of Utrecht, 

 in 1713, it was restored to the crown of Portugal, but was attacked afresh in 

 1735, by Don Miguel de Salcedo, governor of Buenos Ayres, and defended 

 by Antonio Pedro, with much courage, till he could receive aid, during which 

 period, his brave garrison were reduced to the necessity of eating dogs, cats, 

 and rats. On the arrival of the expected succour, Salcedo raised the siege, 

 an auxiliary force of some thousand Tappes, brought by the Jesuit, Thomas 

 Berley, availing him nothing. In 1750, when Don Joseph ascended the throne, 

 the two courts agreed to a treaty of limits between their respective possessions, 

 the one giving up Colonia, and the other the seven missions to the east of the 

 Uruguay. The line of division commenced at the mouth of the little river near- 

 est the hill of Castilhos Grandes, and continued along the highest range of land, 

 in which the various rivers originate that run into the lake^ Mirim and Patos, 

 to the source of the river Ibicui, and along its channel to its entrance into the 

 Uruguay ; by the latter, upwards to the mouth of the Piquiri, which joins it by 

 the right bank, above the great fall, fmd by that river to its origin ; from thence, 

 by the top of the nearest mountains, to the source of the first river met with that 

 runs into the river Iguacu, proceeding downwards by the latter, to its entrance 

 into the Parana, and continued thence to the mouth of the Gatimim, and by 

 that river upwards to its origin ; from which point, to the source of the nearest river 

 that runs into the Paraguay : from this confluence, continuing upwards by the last 

 great river to the mouth of the Jauru, and from thence by a line to the left bank of 

 the Guapore ; and by it downwards, to a latitude at an equal distance between 

 its confluence with the Mamore and the entrance of the Madeira into the 

 JMaranham ; and from that latitude, by a line from east to west, as far as the 



