pediment to conversion than their hatred to Europeans.

"The religion, the pride, and the joy

of the Brazilian savages were in their cannibal feasts; and it was the more difficult to abolish this custom, because the Europeans had hitherto made no attempt to check it among their allies. It has been seen how the French interpreter advised the Tupinambas to eat Hans Stade as a Portuguese; and the Portuguese in like manner permitted their allies to consider their enemies as beasts whom they were to destroy and devour. Nay, as these banquets made the feud more deadly, they conceived it to be good policy to encourage them; and for this policy, the common shudderings of humanity were, as usual, repressed and ridiculed; and the holiest injunctions of religion set at naught. Priests, warriours, women, and children, regarded the practice of cannibalism with equal delight and equal interest. It 'was the triumph of the captor; it was an expiatory sacrifice to the spirits of their brethren who had been slain; it was the publick feast in which the old women displayed their domestick mysteries; and it was the day of merriment for the boys." page 217.

Many curious details of the ceremonies on this accursed occasion are given in the account of Hans Stade's adventures; to abridge them, however, would be to spoil their interest, and we refer our readers to Mr. Southey's work. The Indians had learnt to consider human flesh as the most exquisite of all dainties; but delicious as these repasts were accounted, they derived their highest flavour from revenge.

"It was this feeling, and the sense of honour connected with it, that the Jesuits found most difficulty in overcoming. The native Brazilians had made revenge their predominant passion, exercising it upon every trifling occasion, to feed and strengthen a propensity which is of itself too strong. If a savage struck his foot against a stone, he raged over it and bit it like a dog; if he were wounded with an arrow, he plucked it out and gnawed the shaft. When they took a beast of prey in a pit-fall, they killed it by little wounds, that it might be long in dying, and suffer as much as possible in death." p. 223.

Such were the people whom the Jesuits went to convert; nor were the Indians themselves their only opponents. The Portuguese and men of colour united in an outcry against every measure for the improvement or liberation of the savages. The missionaries experienced the same persecution and violence from the planters, as the united brethren have received from the Dutch boors at the cape; and were assailed by all the arguments which ignorance, selfishness, and infidelity have urged in our own times against the conversion of Hindoostan. "Such proceedings," said the slave-owners, "were violations of the liberty of the Indians; it was absurd to dream of forbidding tigers to eat human. flesh; the more they warred with each other, the better it was for the Portuguese; and to collect them in large settlements, was to form armies with which they should soon have to contend." The governour, however, supported them, and they themselves had every possible qualification of zeal and benevolence to make their endeavours successful. They began with winning the affections of the children by trifling presents, and, in this intercourse, obtained some use of the language themselves, and soon qualified these little ones for interpreters. They visited the sick, reconciled enemies, prevented drunkenness and polygamy; but cannibalism remained incurable. Like hope, it traveiled on with the savages, through life, and in death it hardly quitted them.

"A Jesuit one day found a Brazilian woman in extreme old age, and almost at the point of death. Having catechised her, instructed her, as he conceived, in the nature of Christianity, and completely taken care of her soul, he began to inquire whether there was any kind of food which she could take: 'Grandam,' said he, (that being the word of courtesy by which it was usual to address old women) ' if I were to get you a little sugar now, or a mouthful of some of our nice things which we get from beyond the sea, do you think

you could eat it? Ah, my grandson,' said the old convert, my stomach goes against every thing. There is but one thing which I think I could touch. If I had the little hand of a little tender Tapuya boy, I think I could pick the little bones; but wo is me, there is nobody to go out and shoot one for me'" Note, p. 223.

Of course the Payes, or priests of the country, were the warmest against these new magicians; bap tism was thought fatal to children, and to spoil the taste of human flesh; and the prayers of the missionaries were supposed to engender knives and scissars in their hearer's bowels; still, however, they made a progress.

"When the Jesuits succeeded, they made the converts erect a church in the village, which, however rude, fixed them to the spot; and they established a school for the children, whom they catechised in their own language, and instructed to repeat the paternoster over the sick: every recovery which happened after this had been done, both they and the patient accounted a miracle. They taught them also to read and write, using, says Nobrega, the same persuasion as that wherewith the enemy overcame man; ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil; for this knowledge appeared wonderful to them, and they eagerly desired to attain it. Good proof, how easily such a race might have been civilized. Aspilcueta was the aptest scholar among the missionaries; he was the first who made a catechism in the Tupi tongue, and translated prayers into it. When he became sufficiently master of the language to express himself in it with fluency and full power, he then adopted the manner of the Payes, and sung out the mysteries of the faith, running round the auditors, stamping his feet, clapping his hands, and copying all the tones and gesticulations by which they were wont to be affected. Nobrega had a school near the city, where he instructed the native children, the orphans from Portugal, and the Mestizos, or mixed breed, here called Mamalucos. Reading, writing, and arith metick were taught them; they were trained to assist at mass, and to sing the church service, and frequently led in procession through the town. This had a great effect, for the natives were passionately fond of musick, so passionately, that Nobrega began to hope the fable of Orpheus was a type of his mission, and

that by songs he was to convert the Pagans of Brazil. He usually took with him four or five of these little choristers on his preaching expeditions. When they ap proached an inhabited place, one carried the crucifix before them, and they began singing the litany. The savages, like snakes, were won by the voice of the when he departed with the same ceremocharmer; they received him joyfully, and ny, the children followed the musick. He set the catechism, creed, and ordinary prayers to sol fa. And the pleasure of learning to sing was such a temptation, that the little Tupis sometimes ran away from their parents, to put themselves under the care of the Jesuits." p. 256, 257.

It was by these beginnings, rational, pious, and persuasive, that they laid the foundation of a religion, which, though corrupted and debased, was still productive of the blessings Christianity, however disguised, confers; and of that extraordinary power and popularity among the Indians, which, till the time of the final suppression of their order, was almost uniformly exercised in the cause of justice and humanity. But, for their farther progress, and for the present state of the Indians, we look forward to Mr. Southey's second volume, and return to the more general history of Brazil. Thus much, however, we may be allowed to remark-for indeed the observation naturally forces itself on the mind that every community of men, established for a worthy purpose, has, in the beginning, been active and excellent. The Franciscans, the Benedictines, the Knights of Malta, all commenced with equal industry and virtue; and that the Jesuit's star retained its brightness longer, is to be attributed, not so much to the nature of their establishment, as to the peculiarity of circumstances which gave them a never ending scope for exertion, and by a wider field of ambition and activity, prevented their metal from rusting. It is only when establishments have outgrown the times, or the times have outgrown them, that their uti

lity begins to decay, and their influence soon follows their utility. It is, therefore, the interest of all such to seek out new fields of talent, to propose some fresh object continually to their followers, and by still fresh channels, to employ in their service those fiery spirits which would else be leagued for their destruction. If their Terminus ceases to be progressive, it is vain to hope that he will long continue stationary.

Ex illo fluere et retro sublapsa referri. In 1564, a feeble and ill concerted effort was made by the French Hugonots, in total contempt of justice, to establish themselves, though then at peace with Portugal, in Brazil; and their Calvinist teachers, in attempting the same task with the Jesuits, showed about as much bigotry and want of common sense, as our Methodists have since done in Otaheite.

But the evil days of Portugal and Brazil were now drawing on. In 1578 Sebastian fell, and a few years more saw the first a province of Spain, and the second exposed to all the enemies of that overgrown power.

The English buccaneers under Lancaster, laid waste Olinda. The French renewed, though with the same il success as before, their plans of conquest and colonization; and the Dutch, now emancipated from the yoke of Castile, and having already subverted the Portuguese empire in India, turned their arms with equal wisdom and courage to the subjugation of South America. The Hollanders of the 17th century were, indeed, a formidable enemy; and in the first burst of their naval thunders on Brazil, we recognise many actions which would not disgrace even the present lords of the ocean. Some traits are also to be met with, some foolish contempt of

their enemy, some disregard to the feelings and interests of their friends, some slackness in the very hour of victory, and indifference to every thing but the view of immediate profit, which remind us, alas! too forcibly, of the attempts we have witnessed in our own days, on a neighbouring region of South America. In two material points, however, they differed from us; their cause was somewhat less unjust, and their temper far less merciful and liberal. Their first attack was directed to the capital of Brazil, and every thing gave way before them; their sailors were hardly inferiour to the modern English, and their soldiers were tried and seasoned in the long and glorious struggle, in which they had foiled the armies of Spain and Austria. The Brazilians, on the other hand, were unused to war, and now had no expectations of it; they were under the protection of Spain, who was little inclined to favour a Portuguese colony, and the inert administration of Olivarez took away all hope of timely European succour. But the energy of the Portuguese character, warmed by a mixture of Brazilian blood, was able of itself to preserve the country. The governour being made prisoner, the bishop and inhabitants of St. Salvador retired into the woods, and exhausted their invaders by that system of warfare for which militia are best qualified; till, on the tardy arrival of forces from Lisbon, the Hollanders fell an easy sacrifice. The failure of their first expedition did not, however, discourage them; the desperate valour of Peter Heyne, their admiral, obtained the town of Recife, and a long and bloody war was maintained, with various suc cess, during upwards of 17 years.

The vices of the Portuguese were ignorance, indiscipline, and the vicissitudes of foolish confidence and

sudden panick; those of the Dutch, avarice, drunkenness, and impatience of hardship; both were brave, and the cruelty of both was equal. Both nations employed considerable bodies of Indians and negroes in their service, and there were on both sides very able partisans for the desultory warfare which such troops carried on. The Dutch had a mulatto deserter of the name of Calabar, who, after doing more mischief to his country than an entire army could have effected without him, fell into the hands of the Portuguese, and died on the gibbet resigned and penitent. On the other party, besides Souto and Enrique Diaz, two able chiefs of marauders, was Camaran, a high minded Indian cacique, who repaid the ingratitude of his masters by the most distinguished services. His uncle had been kept by the Portuguese eight years in irons. The Dutch, on obtaining possession of Rio Grande, set him at liberty.

Immediately he went to his clan; the mark of my chains, said he, are still bleeding, but it is guilt which is infamous and not punishment. The worse the Portuguese have used me, the more merit will be yours and mine in persisting faithfully to serve them, especially now that they are in distress." p. 494.

The uncle and his nephew were, perhaps, the preservers of Brazil. Nor were noble instances of magnanimity wanting among the Portuguese. Estevam Velho had fallen in an engagement between the Hollanders and Matthias de Albuquerque, near the town of Nazareth.

"He was the son of Maria de Sousa, one of the noblest women of the province. Already in this war she had lost two other sons, and her daughter's husband. When the tidings of this fresh affliction arrived, she called her two remaining sons, one of whom was fourteen years of age, the

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other a year younger, and said to them, your brother Estevam has been killed by the Dutch to day; you must now, in your turn, do what is the duty of honoura

when

ble men in a war, wherein they are required to serve God, and their king, and their country. Gird on your swords, and you girt them on, let it be not for sorrow, you remember the sad day in which but for vengeance; and whether you revenge your brethren, or fall like them, you will not degenerate from them, nor from your mother.' With this exhortation, she sent them to Mathias, requesting that he would rate them as soldiers. The children of such a stock could not degenerate, and they proved themselves worthy of it."

On the other hand, meantime, the majority of the Indians, in spite of the exertions of the Jesuits, were induced, from hatred of the Portuguese, to join with any fresh invaders, and the Jews and new Christians were ready to hail as their deliverers, any government which had not an inquisition. Great advantages these, if the Dutch had known how to use them, and if the natural bigotry of Calvanism had not, in Brazil, rendered, in a great measure, vain, the enlightened policy of their European government. But their greatest tower of strength was their possessing a general like the count of Nassau, one of those extraordinary characters who seem marked by the seal of Providence for illustrious enterprises, and for the example and improvement of the world. Just, wise, valiant, and generous, he seems to have possessed every quality which can entitle a man to head an army, or to found been proportionable to his genius, a mighty empire; and had his means there can be but little doubt that Brazil and Peru would have been added to the cluster of Batavian arrows, and that his orange standard would have been carried in a series of victories from Darien to the Straits of Magellan. But his plans were ill answered by the power or spirit of the West Indian company; his reforms were crost, his fidelity suspected, and the force which he required, directed to secondary objects. Little was won or lost by either side, and Brazilians and Dutch

were already so wearied by their endless warfare, as to have begun a sort of negotiation; when the news of the revolution, which placed Braganza on the throne of Portugal, entirely altered the relation in which they stood to each other. With this great event, and with a retrospective view of several expeditions of discovery on the Orellana, Mr. Southey concludes his volume.

Our readers cannot but perceive, we think, even from the short and imperfect sketch to which our limits have confined us, that the history of Brazil is a subject of not common interest; and that the powers of its historian are such, as will place him in a rank with the most considerable names in the department he

has chosen. To the second volume we look forward with increased expectation, both from the augmented importance of Brazil as connected with the rest of the world, and from the valuable manuscript sources of information which the author announces himself to possess, and which have enabled him to supply a period in the history of this rising empire, as utterly unknown to European readers, as the annals of China or Japan. On the present volume we have but few observations to offer. Many valuable canons of colonial policy might be laid down or confirmed from the facts here given; among which, one of the most striking is, the advantage of encouraging a mixed breed between the natives and settlers, and of indentifying these Mestizos with the colonists of purer blood, by an equality of rank and an admission to the same privileges and employments. The Portuguese alone, of all the European nations, seem, both in Brazil and India, to have pursued this policy; and if, with them, the effects have not been more striking, it is only because the Mestizos and the purer race have been sunk under equal disadvantages of religion and government. The ex

tent to which this system has been carried by the Portuguese, and the surprise with which our English sailors regarded the state assumed by the swarthy governours of their small, insular settlements, is often to be remarked in the accounts of voyagers about the beginning of the last century; and we trust that Mr. Southey will not overlook, in his second volume, the circumstances that have produced a peculiarity which appears to us both amusing and instructive.

The race of man in all his animal powers, is decidedly improved by mixture; and even in his noble faculties. if greater genius be not produced, a more ardent and restless activity is superadded, which makes the man of colour a most valuable ally, or a most dangerous enemy. The Portuguese have made him the former; and it is to this intermixture of native blood, and to the exertions of this hot and hardy race, which derive their pedigrees from the kindred of Caramuru, that the house of Braganza is indebted for that city which is now the seat of their empire, and for the treasures and resources of the finest region in the world. What has been the consequence of a different line of policy, is written in blood on the shores of Hayti; and is no less legible in the vices and ignorance of those neglected offsprings of Europeansthe disgrace and peril of our eastern and western settlements. Albuquerque encouraged his soldiers to marry native women, and settle in India with their families. Lord Valentia seriously recommends that the children of the English servants of the company should be forbidden to remain in their territories. "Which is the wiser here, justice or iniquity?"--the cruel Portuguese, or the humane and enlighted Briton ?-Another point on which we anticipate much valuable information, is, the maturing the Jesuits' scheme of instruction, and the pre