104 THE BRAZILS. 
line, he unexpectedly fell in with the coast of South America, 
about the sixteenth parallel of latitude, where, after expe- 
riencing much squally weather, he discovered a tolerably 
good bay, on which, finding a safe anchorage for his ships, 
he conferred the name of Porto Seguro ; and, conformably 
to the custom of those days, he called this part of the newly 
discovered continent Santa Cruz^ or the Holy Cross. But 
his government afterwards changed it to that of Brazil, on 
account of the valuable wood so called which, for a consider- 
able time after the discovery, was the only important article 
of produce exported from thence to Europe. 
In those days, indeed, the accession of territory, merely as 
such, was held to be only a secondary consideration; the 
conversion of the natives to Christianity was the grand and 
ostensible object : and all conquests were avowedly under- 
taken under this sacred banner. How far the Portugueze 
were sincere in their views of enlarging, by the addition of 
Brazil, the dominion of Christendom, may partly be inferred 
from the description of people which they selected to be the 
settlers of this newly acquired country. All persons con- 
victed of crimes not immediately punishable with death, all 
such as were accused of witchcraft and heresy, all kinds of 
vagrants who had no ostensible means of gaining their sub- 
sistence, all persons who were in any way obnoxious to the 
church, but particularly such of the Jewish and Mahomedan 
persuasions as were not in circumstances to pay for protection 
against persecution ; in short all those, whom at any time it 
was deemed expedient to get rid of, were banished to the 
7 
