118 



A VOYAGE TO 



guese empire.^ In the afternoon a boat put off for 

 the shore, and some of us took the advantage of this 

 opportunity. Our ship lay about a mile off, and we 

 had to pass the vessels of war, of which the Portu- 

 guese have a number of various sizes, but not in the 

 best order, and badly manned. The merchant ves- 

 sels lie higher up towards the fortified island, dos Co- 

 hras; on the other side of which is the inner harbor, 

 at present filled with shipping. We discovered several 

 American flags, and from the feelings which they excit- 

 ed in us, I would almost be tempted to say, that we are 

 the most rational people in existence. The circum- 

 stance of our being a solitary republic, and therefore a 

 continual tacit censure on monarchy, perhaps induces 

 us to believe that kings can have no cordial feeling to- 

 wards us; and for this reason we cling more closely 

 together. It would be useless to conceal the truth; 

 every American who goes abroad, has a contempt 

 for royalty and its attendants, and he is only restrain- 

 ed by prudence or good manners from expressing it. 



The harbor of New-York alone can bear any com- 

 parison to this place, in indications of commercial pros- 

 perity. A noble spectacle is exhibited by the number 

 of vessels, a great proportion English, lying at the 

 wharves or anchored in the stream. Great numbers 

 of small boats were continually moving about, rigged 

 in a very awkward, clumsy manner, or rowed with a 

 slow and solemn stroke, as if to the tune of the dead 

 march in Saul. The watermen seemed to be chiefly 

 Indians; they wore very broad straw hats like the 



* Rio Janeiro became the capital of Brazil in the year 1763, Ba- 

 liia, or San Salvador, being then stripped of that honor. 



