THE BRAZILS. 105 
Erazils. The Jews, against whom a pretext was seldom 
ivanting when the object was to get at tlieir property, and 
who, on all occasions, were the devoted victims of the Holy 
Inquisition, had not much reason to regret the adoption of 
a measure which was to remove them out of the reach of a 
systematic persecution, and to confer on them the exercise of 
their liberty in a new country, where industry and skill could 
not fail to raise them to prosperity. Banishment was to them 
a sanctuary from injustice and rapacity. Immediately on 
their landing, they began to consider of the most likely 
means of ingratiating themselves with the natives. These un- 
suspecting creatures, on finding themselves kindly treated, 
made no objection to the strangers occupying lands wherever 
they might chuse to fix. They even diverted themselves at 
the folly of the white men, vvho could leave their own coun- 
try and their friends for the piu'pose of digging the ground in 
a strange land, and of rearing a few sickly plants, whose seeds 
they had brought with them for the purpose, when the 
native forests of the Brazils yielded spontaneously an inex- 
haustible supply of delicious fruits. 
All these people, however, who had been considered at 
home in no other light than as the dregs of society, found 
their condition in their new country infinitely improved. 
They had taken the precaution of carrying witii them a few 
cuttings of t^ie sugar-cane from the island of Madeira, to 
which place the Portugueze had already transplanted it from 
the ]\Iediterranean ; and this valuable plant was cultivated in 
the Brazils with so much success that, from an article of 
medicine, it became, in the course of a few years, an object 
