iv 



PREFACE. 



as may most usefully engage his attention. It allows of throw- 

 ing many things together, which would otherwise require repe- 

 titi*on, and of making one fact and event illustrative of another, 

 so that both may sometimes be rendered more clear and 

 intelligible. 



Perhaps in the very mode which he has adopted, it was 

 not always possible to avoid repetition, but where the same 

 subjects occur which have before claimed attention of the reader, 

 they will, in general, be seen in a different light, and be better 

 understood from additional circumstances. 



It has been his aim to give a fair representation of the 

 Country, of its natural advantages, and its defective Institutions 

 and modes ; not merely to gratify a reader, but with some small 

 hope, that the former may in consequence be more wisely 

 employed, and the latter improved. In the amelioration of 

 Brazil, he contemplates the benefit of mankind, and more 

 especially of the British Dominions. 



But his chief purpose is to delineate the manners and cha- 

 racter of the people ; to this more than one part of the Work is 

 professedly devoted ; yet he has not scrupled with the same view 

 to detail many accounts of events and circumstances in other 

 places, whence a strict attention to connection and order might 

 have excluded them. He is not aware that any former Work 

 relative to Brazil enters very minutely into subjects of this kind, 

 or treats them in a similar way. Readers who think with him, 

 that the most correct as well as the most interesting views of 

 character are given by anecdotes fairly detailed, will, he trusts. 



