Spanish and Portuguese South America during the Colonial Period; Vol. 2. Robert Grant Watson
excite suspicion in the breast of his fellow-deputy, he had the audacity to tell him that they were tampering with him for the betrayal of his fort, and that he pretended to listen to them in order the better to thwart them. On his return to Recife he repeated the same tale, adding that the governor merely awaited some ships from Rio de Janeiro before attacking the Dutch possessions. Two regiments were now embarked at Bahia, and were to be landed at Tamandare. They were to be escorted by the homeward-bound fleet of thirty-seven ships.
It was arranged that, on the two regiments being landed at Tamandare, their commander, Payva, should proceed to Recife with letters for the Council, in which the Governor-General should state that he had sent two officers to remonstrate with the insurgents, and that, should remonstrances fail, he would compel them to return to their duty. Whilst this farce was being enacted, the Dutch commandant at Serinhaem had received instructions to disarm the Portuguese in that district. The Portuguese, however, declined to be disarmed, and the fort being surrounded and its water cut off, was compelled to surrender, the Indian allies of the Dutch being given up to the Portuguese.
Joam Fernandes had remained for seven days upon the scene of his victory at the Monte das Tabocas, when he was informed of the arrival of the troops from Bahia. Camaran and Diaz, the two partisan leaders, likewise reached the Monte das Tabocas about the same time. On meeting the troops from Bahia, after some formal words, Fernandes was joined by the whole Portuguese force; after which his first act was to send a detachment to reduce the fort of Nazareth.
Blaar was now sent to take possession of all the Portuguese women who might be found in the Varzea or open country behind Olinda, to hold as hostages. A number were taken, and were conveyed to the headquarters of Haus. This intelligence was speedily conveyed by a chaplain to Fernandes, and the army, being naturally roused by a desire to rescue the women, was put in motion for this purpose. By midnight they reached some sugar-works. Remaining there for three hours, they were roused by Fernandes, who announced that the wonderful St. Anthony had appeared to him, and had reproved him for his ill-timed delay. Once more being put in motion, the troops at daybreak reached the Capivaribe, which they crossed with considerable difficulty.
Having accomplished this passage without opposition from the enemy, they ere long came in sight of the headquarters of Haus, when they sent forward a party who succeeded in capturing some Dutch sentinels. From those they learned that the officers were at their morning meal, on the conclusion of which they were to march off with their prisoners. They were roused by the dread signal by which Camaram summoned his Indians. Their men were driven in, and no way of retreat was left to them, whilst the Portuguese poured in a steady fire upon them from their shelter. In this emergency the Dutch brought out the Portuguese women, and exposed them at the windows to receive the fire. This artifice brought a flag of truce from the assailants; but the besieged were so confident in their newly-found resource that they fired upon the flag, killing the ensign who bore it; they at the same time took aim at the Portuguese general, Vidal, who had approached under the protection of the flag. Enraged at this conduct, the Portuguese forgot the women, and proceeded to set the whole place on fire; which brought the enemy to their senses. It required all the authority of Vidal to induce his soldiers to spare the cowards who had so nearly taken his life.
The enemy now surrendered on the bare condition that their lives should be spared; they were not, however, able to procure the same terms for their Indian allies. More than two hundred Dutch were made prisoners in this affair, which, according to the Portuguese writers, was, of course, not accomplished without the aid of miracles. Joam Fernandes was now master of the field; and he conducted a triumphal procession to one of his own chapels to return thanks to his patron saint. The prisoners were sent to Bahia, Blaar being assassinated on the way. About the same time Olinda fell into the hands of a party of Pernambucan youths; whilst the traitor, Hogstraten, was as good as his word in delivering Nazareth to the patriots. The Dutch regiment which had garrisoned it entered the service of the Portuguese.
Whilst the troops sent from Bahia, nominally to aid in suppressing the insurrection, were thus taking an active part in extending it, the farce which the governor had commenced to play was continued by the Admiral Correa, who, according to his instructions, proceeded to Recife with the homeward-bound fleet. The Dutch authorities at that place, who may be excused for preferring to judge of the Governor-General’s intentions by acts rather than by words, were naturally not a little alarmed at the arrival of a fleet of such formidable dimensions. Correa, however, who was unaware of the recent occurrences on land, proceeded to execute the instructions which had been given him at Bahia, and with the utmost courtesy not only placed his own services at the disposal of the Council, but likewise offered them those of Vidal and his troops, which were at that moment most actively employed against them.
The Council, naturally enraged at this transparent duplicity, at first proposed to arrest the messengers of Correa; but, on the reflection that their own fleet was not in a condition to meet that of the enemy, they wisely sent a courteous reply, declining the services of the Admiral; on receiving which Correa, still wholly unaware of what was passing on shore, immediately set sail for Europe. Relieved from this danger, the Council lost no time in ordering Lichthart to get his ships ready with all speed, and to do the utmost damage to the Portuguese, an order which he obeyed to the letter.
Meanwhile Payva was with his two regiments on board of eight ships in the Bay of Tamandare. Letters had been written to advise him to put into the port of Nazareth, since it was known that the Dutch fleet was in search of him; but these warning despatches were intercepted, and he fell an easy prey to the squadron of Lichthart. Of his eight vessels one reached Bahia; two were abandoned and set on fire; two others ran aground, whilst three were taken by the enemy. The Portuguese are said to have lost seven hundred men in the action.
Whilst these events were passing in Pernambuco, the Portuguese were not less active in the other ceded provinces. Fernandes and Vidal sent officers to Paraïba to head the insurgents; whilst the Indians and Negroes were headed by officers sent respectively from the regiments of Camaram and Henrique Diaz, the result being that the Portuguese were soon masters of the captaincy. The Dutch were likewise in turn compelled to abandon Fort Mauritz on the San Francisco. It was soon razed to the ground, there being then no obstacle to prevent the free passage of the Portuguese from Bahia into the province of Pernambuco.
Fernandes now pitched his camp upon the neck of sand which divides the river from the sea about a league from Recife, commanding the communication of that place with Olinda, and on this locality he erected a fort to secure his ammunition and stores. To this fort was given the name which had been applied to the camp, Bom Jesus, and a small town soon grew up under its shelter.
The Dutch beheld with consternation the near approach of the enemy; and the splendid out-houses and gardens, which had been laid out by Nassau, as well as the bridge of Boavista, were destroyed by the people of Recife, in order to facilitate the defence of that town. The new town of Mauritias was likewise demolished. So great was the anxiety of the people that the Council found it advisable to communicate to them the contents of their latest despatches to Amsterdam, in order to convince them that their critical situation had been duly represented.
On the advice of Hogstraten an expedition was now organized against the island of Itamaraca, on which the enemy had to rely for grain. After three attacks, the assailants, under Fernandes and Vidal, forced their way into the town, and had actually secured their victory, when it was lost through their rapacity and cruelty. The troops from Bahia showed an example of plundering which was not thrown away upon the Dutch deserters of Hogstraten’s regiment; and Cardozo had given orders to put all the Indians to the sword, the result being that the Portuguese had to retire with loss and disgrace. They, however, fortified Garassu, and secured all the roads by which the enemy from Itamaraca could molest them.
For some time after this expedition the Portuguese were kept inactive by a strange infectious disease, which seemed only to yield to the treatment of bleeding, and which filled the hospitals, until Joam Fernandes hit upon the expedient of setting up certain images of saints, before whom mass was daily performed. To their intercession the cessation of the scourge