A Voyage Round the World in the Years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV. Baron George Anson Anson
the same part, and likewise to secure the company from being defrauded by the interfering of interlopers in their trade and property, he has depopulated a large town and a considerable district round it, and has obliged the inhabitants, who are said to amount to six thousand, to remove to another part of the country; for this town being in the neighbourhood of the diamonds, it was thought impossible to prevent such a number of people who were on the spot from frequently smuggling.
In consequence of these important discoveries in Brazil, new laws, new governments, and new regulations have been established in many parts of the country. For not long since a considerable tract, possessed by a set of inhabitants who from their principal settlement were called Paulists, was almost independent of the crown of Portugal, to which it scarcely acknowledged more than a nominal allegiance. These Paulists are said to be descendants of those Portuguese who retired from the northern part of Brazil when it was invaded and possessed by the Dutch. As from the confusion of the times they were long neglected by their superiors, and were obliged to provide for their own security and defence, the necessity of their affairs produced a kind of government amongst them which they found sufficient for the confined manner of life to which they were inured. And being thus habituated to their own regulations, they at length grew fond of their independency: so that rejecting and despising the mandates of the court of Lisbon, they were often engaged in a state of downright rebellion, and the mountains surrounding their country, and the difficulty of clearing the few passages that open into it, generally put it in their power to make their own terms before they submitted. But as gold was found to abound in this country of the Paulists, the present King of Portugal (during whose reign almost the whole discoveries I have mentioned were begun and compleated) thought it incumbent on him to reduce this province, which now became of great consequence, to the same dependency and obedience with the rest of the country, which, I am told, he has at last, though with great difficulty, happily effected. And the same motives which induced his Majesty to undertake the reduction of the Paulists has also occasioned the changes I have mentioned to have taken place at the island of St. Catherine's. For the governor of Rio Grande, of whom I have already spoken, assured us that in the neighbourhood of this island there were considerable rivers which were found to be extremely rich, and that this was the reason that a garrison, a military governor, and a new colony was settled there. And as the harbour at this island is by much the securest and the most capacious of any on the coast, it is not improbable, if the riches of the neighbourhood answer their expectation, but it may become in time the principal settlement in Brazil, and the most considerable port in all South America.
Thus much I have thought necessary to insert in relation to the present state of Brazil, and of the island of St. Catherine's. For as this last place has been generally recommended as the most eligible port for our cruisers to refresh at, which are bound to the South Seas, I believed it to be my duty to instruct my countrymen in the hitherto unsuspected inconveniencies which attend that place; and as the Brazilian gold and diamonds are subjects about which, from their novelty, very few particulars have been hitherto published, I conceived this account I had collected of them would appear to the reader to be neither a trifling nor a useless digression. These subjects being thus dispatched, I shall now return to the series of our own proceedings.
When we first arrived at St. Catherine's we were employed in refreshing our sick on shore, in wooding and watering the squadron, cleansing our ships, and examining and securing our masts and rigging, as I have already observed in the foregoing chapter. At the same time Mr. Anson gave directions that the ships' companies should be supplied with fresh meat, and that they should be victualled with whole allowance of all the kinds of provision. In consequence of these orders, we had fresh beef sent on board us continually for our daily expence, and what was wanting to make up our allowance we received from our victualler the Anna pink, in order to preserve the provisions on board our squadron entire for our future service. The season of the year growing each day less favourable for our passage round Cape Horn, Mr. Anson was very desirous of leaving this place as soon as possible, and we were at first in hopes that our whole business would be done and we should be in a readiness to sail in about a fortnight from our arrival; but, on examining the Tryal's masts, we, to our no small vexation, found inevitable employment for twice that time. For, on a survey, it was found that the main-mast was sprung at the upper woulding, though it was thought capable of being secured by a couple of fishes; but the fore-mast was reported to be unfit for service, and thereupon the carpenters were sent into the woods to endeavour to find a stick proper for a fore-mast. But after a search of four days they returned without having been able to meet with any tree fit for the purpose. This obliged them to come to a second consultation about the old fore-mast, when it was agreed to endeavour to secure it by casing it with three fishes, and in this work the carpenters were employed till within a day or two of our sailing. In the meantime, the commodore, thinking it necessary to have a clean vessel on our arrival in the South Seas, ordered the Tryal to be hove down, as this would not occasion any loss of time, but might be compleated while the carpenters were refitting her masts, which was done on shore.
On the 27th of December we discovered a sail in the offing, and not knowing but she might be a Spaniard, the eighteen-oared boat was manned and armed, and sent under the command of our second lieutenant, to examine her before she arrived within the protection of the forts. She proved to be a Portuguese brigantine from Rio Grande; and though our officer, as it appeared on inquiry, had behaved with the utmost civility to the master, and had refused to accept a calf which the master would have forced on him as a present, yet the governor took great offence at our sending our boat, and talked of it in a high strain as a violation of the peace subsisting between the crowns of Great Britain and Portugal. We at first imputed this ridiculous blustering to no deeper a cause than Don Jose's insolence; but as we found he proceeded so far as to charge our officer with behaving rudely, and opening letters, and particularly with an attempt to take out of the vessel by violence the very calf which we knew he had refused to receive as a present (a circumstance which we were satisfied the governor was well acquainted with), we had thence reason to suspect that he purposely sought this quarrel, and had more important motives for engaging in it than the mere captious bias of his temper. What these motives were it was not so easy for us to determine at that time; but as we afterwards found by letters which fell into our hands in the South Seas that he had dispatched an express to Buenos Ayres, where Pizarro then lay, with an account of our squadron's arrival at St. Catherine's, together with the most ample and circumstantial intelligence of our force and condition, we thence conjectured that Don Jose had raised this groundless clamour only to prevent our visiting the brigantine when she should put to sea again, lest we might there find proofs of his perfidious behaviour, and perhaps, at the same time, discover the secret of his smuggling correspondence with his neighbouring governors, and the Spaniards at Buenos Ayres. But to proceed.
It was near a month before the Tryal was refitted; for not only her lower masts were defective, as hath been already mentioned, but her main top-mast and fore-yard were likewise decayed and rotten. While this work was carrying on, the other ships of the squadron fixed new standing rigging, and set up a sufficient number of preventer shrouds to each mast, to secure them in the most effectual manner. And in order to render the ships stiffer and to enable them to carry more sail abroad, and to prevent their straining their upper works in hard gales of wind, each captain had orders given him to strike down some of their great guns into the hold. These precautions being complied with, and each ship having taken in as much wood and water as there was room for, the Tryal was at last compleated, and the whole squadron was ready for the sea: on which the tents on shore were struck, and all the sick were received on board. And here we had a melancholy proof how much the healthiness of this place had been over-rated by former writers, for we found that though the Centurion alone had buried no less than twenty-eight men since our arrival, yet the number of her sick was in the same interval increased from eighty to ninety-six. When our crews were embarked, and everything was prepared for our departure, the commodore made a signal for all captains, and delivered them their orders, containing the successive place of rendezvous from hence to the coast of China. And then, on the next day, being the 18th of January, the signal was made for weighing, and the squadron put to sea, leaving without regret this island of St. Catherine's, where we had been so extremely disappointed in our refreshments, in our accommodations, and in the humane and friendly offices which we had been taught to expect in a place