This province produced formerly much excellent sugar, the culture of which has diminished considerably in consequence of the great droughts which are frequently experienced; but in its place cotton has greatly increased, as it resists the heat better, and at the present time does not leave a less profit to the cultivator.

In the eastern part of this province are the following towns:

In the western part are Pombal and Villa Nova de Souza.

Parahiba, denominated a city, in a state of mediocrity and populous, is situated upon the right bank, ten miles above the embouchure of the river of its name, near the confluence of the small river Unhaby. It is ornamented with a house of misericordia and its hospital; a convent of Franciscans, another of slippered Carmelites, and a third of Benedictines; five hermitages, that of Bom Jesus for the soldiers, Santo Cruz, St. Pedro Gonsalves, Our Lady of Rozario for the blacks, and May dos Homens for the mulattoes; also two handsome fountains of good water. It is the capital of the province, the residence of its governor, and of the ouvidor, whose jurisdiction extends also to the province of Rio Grande. It has its high-sounding royal professors of the primitive letters and Latin, and a junta of real fazenda, (the treasury.) Its only mother church is dedicated to Nossa Senhora das Neves. The Jesuits had a college here, which serves at the present day for the palace of the governors; they possessed another for recreation, at a distance of five miles on the beach of Tambahu, where there is an entertaining house of Franciscans. The principal streets are paved, and there are some good houses. The river, whose entrance is defended by two frontier forts, a league distant, is here a mile in width, forming a good port for sumacas. Ships can only advance a little higher up than the forts. A Juiz de Fora was granted to this city in the year 1813.

The Dutch exchanged its primitive name for that of Friderica, in honour of the Prince of Orange, and presented it with a sugar-loaf for arms, in allusion to the excellent quality of that article, which was made in this district, and in pursuance of the plan they had adopted of granting similar armorial emblems of some leading object or production peculiar to the districts or capitanias then under their dominion.

An Englishman, a Scotchman, and an Irishman have recently settled in this city, and it is to be hoped, that an union will exist in their commercial operations, and that they will be induced to go hand-in-hand, thereby precluding that competition, which has been already alluded to as militating so seriously in other places against the interest of the merchant and manufacturer. These establishments were formed in conjunction with the merchants of Pernambuco, and from hence they receive supplies of manufactured goods, the returns for which are transmitted direct to England in sugar and cotton principally. Besides, additional sums of specie sent from Pernambuco to those merchants for the purchase of produce, give this city the advantage of disposing of a greater portion of the productions of the province than the amount of British commodities consumed in it. During my stay at Pernambuco two or three vessels were sent from thence in ballast to Parahiba to take in produce, the major part of which was purchased with specie remitted for the purpose, and not with the proceeds of goods sold here. The balance of specie in favour of this city, in its interchange of commodities with the British merchant, may arise from various causes. The two or three merchants at Rio de Janeiro, who supply the government with naval and military stores, receive bills in payment upon the Provincial or fora treasuries, and the specie thus and by other remittances coming into the Pernambuco market beyond the returns for goods sold, create an extra demand for produce, arising from the impossibility of transmitting those funds to England in any other way; and thus part of the specie finds its way to this city, from an expectation of its being disposed of to better advantage. Two circumstances concur in producing this result;—in the first place, a considerable part of the produce of the province of Parahiba, till very recently, was brought to the market of Pernambuco; but the measures of the governor to confine the productions of the district under his jurisdiction to an exit by the head town, in order that the treasury may not be deprived of its revenue, has led to a concentration of the objects of exportation in this city, a direct transit to England being opened for them by the establishments mentioned, and whose object, in forwarding them at a lower rate than from Pernambuco, is at all events in the second place accomplished by an exemption from consulage duties.

One of the merchants settled here visited Pernambuco in the early part of 1820, whilst I was there, and purchased a cargo of bacalhao, or salt fish, from Newfoundland, being the sixth vessel which had arrived at Recife so laden in the course of two months, and this was the first entire cargo that had sailed from Pernambuco to Parahiba, demonstrating that this city is in a progressive state of commercial improvement.

In its environs the necessaries of life are cultivated, and the sugar cane, for which there are various engenhos, principally going by water. Towards the interior plantations of the cotton tree are to be seen, especially in the certam of Crumatahu.

Previous to the revolution at Pernambuco, which is said to have extended its baneful consequences to this province, particularly to the vicinity of this city, where the sugar is principally grown, the export of that article exceeded nine hundred chests annually, each containing fifty arrobas, or sixteen hundred pounds; but in 1819 the amount did not reach much above four hundred chests.