Such are the advantages of this island; but it has its inconveniences also, partly proceeding from its climate, but more particularly from its new regulations and the form of its government, as lately established. In regard to the climate, it must be remembered that the woods and hills which surround the harbour prevent a free circulation of air, and the continual vigorous vegetation furnishes such a prodigious quantity of vapour, that a thick fog covers the whole country all night, and a great part of the morning, continuing till either the sun gathers strength to dissipate it, or it is dispersed by a brisk sea-breeze. This renders the place close and humid, and probably occasioned the many fevers and fluxes we were there afflicted with. I must not omit to add, that we were pestered all day by vast numbers of mosquetoes, which are not much unlike the gnats in England, but much more venomous in their stings. At sunset, when the musquetoes retired, they were succeeded by an infinity of sand-flies, which made a mighty buzzing, though scarcely discernable by the naked eye; wherever these bite, they raise a small lump attended by painful itching, like that arising from the bite of an English harvest bug. The only light in which this place deserves our consideration is its favourable situation for supplying and refreshing our cruizers bound for the South Sea, and in this view its greatest inconveniences remain to be related, to do which more distinctly, it may not be amiss to consider the changes which it has lately undergone, both in its inhabitants, its police, and its governor.
In the time of Frazier and Shelvocke, this place served only as a retreat to vagabonds and outlaws, who fled hither from all parts of Brazil. It is true, that they acknowledged their subjection to the crown of Portugal, and had a person among them whom they called their captain, and who was considered as a kind of governor; but both their allegiance to their king, and their obedience to the captain, were merely verbal; for, as they had plenty of provisions and no money, they were in a condition to support themselves without aid from any neighbouring settlements, and had nothing among them to tempt any neighbouring governor to interpose his authority among them. In this situation they were extremely hospitable and friendly to such foreign ships as came among them; for, as these ships wanted only provisions, of which the natives had great store, while the natives wanted clothes, for they often despised money, and refused to take it, the ships furnished them with apparel in exchange for their provisions, both sides finding their account in this traffic, and their captain had neither interest nor power to tax or restrain it.
Of late, for reasons which will afterwards appear, these honest vagabonds have been obliged to receive a new colony among them, and to submit to new laws and a new form of government. Instead of their former ragged and bare-legged captain, whom they took care, however, to keep innocent, they have now the honour of being governed by Don Jose Sylva de Paz, a brigadier of the armies of Portugal, who is accompanied by a garrison of soldiers, and has consequently a more extensive and better supported power than any of his predecessors: And as he wears better cloaths, lives more splendidly, and has a much better knowledge of the importance of money than any of them could ever pretend to, so he puts in practice certain methods for procuring it with which they were utterly unacquainted; yet it may be much doubted if the inhabitants consider these methods as tending to promote either their interests, or that of their sovereign, the king of Portugal. This much is certain, that his behaviour cannot but be extremely embarrassing to such British ships as touch here in their way to the South Seas.
One of his practices was, that he placed centinels at all the avenues, to prevent the people from selling us any refreshments, except at such exorbitant rates as we could not afford to give. His pretence for this extraordinary stretch of power was, that he was obliged to preserve their provisions for upwards of an hundred families, which were daily expected as a reinforcement to the colony. Thus he seems no novice in his profession, by his readiness at inventing a plausible pretence for his interested management. This circumstance, however, though sufficiently provoking, was far from being the most exceptionable part of his conduct; for, as by the neighbourhood of the Rio Plata, a considerable smuggling trade is carried on between the Portuguese and Spaniards, especially in exchanging gold for silver, by which both princes are defrauded of their fifths; and as Don Jose was deeply engaged in this prohibited commerce, in order to ingratiate himself with his Spanish correspondents, he treacherously dispatched an express to Buenos Ayres, where Pizarro then lay, with an account of our arrival, our strength, the number, of our ships, guns, men, and every circumstance he could suppose our enemy desirous of being acquainted with.
This much, and what we shall have to relate in the course of our own proceedings, may suffice as to the present state of St Catharines and the character of its governor. But as the reader may wish to know the reasons for the late new modelling of this settlement, it will require, to explain this circumstance, to give a short account of the adjacent continent of Brazil, and of the wonderful discoveries which have been made within the last forty years, which, from a country of but mean estimation, has rendered it now perhaps the most considerable colony on the face of the earth.
This country was first discovered by Americus Vesputio, a Florentine, who had the good fortune to be honoured by giving his name to the immense continent found out some time before by Columbus. As Vesputio was in the service of Portugal, this discovery was settled and planned by that nation, and afterwards devolved to the crown of Spain along with the rest of the Portuguese dominions. During the long war between Spain and the states of Holland, the Dutch possessed themselves of the northermost parts of Brazil, and kept it for some years; but, when the Portuguese revolted from the Spanish government, this country took part in the revolt, and the Dutch were soon driven out of their acquisitions; since which time it has continued without interruption under the crown of Portugal. Till the beginning of the present century, it was only productive of sugar and tobacco, and a few other commodities of very little importance; but has been lately discovered to abound in the two mineral productions, gold and diamonds, which mankind hold in the highest estimation, and which they exercise their utmost art and industry in acquiring.
Gold was first found in the mountains adjacent to the city of Rio Janeiro. The occasion of its discovery is variously related, but the most common account is, that the Indians dwelling on the back of the Portuguese settlements were observed, by the soldiers employed in an expedition against them, to use this metal for fish-hooks; and, on enquiry into their manner of procuring this precious metal, it appeared that great quantities of it were annually washed from the hills, and left among the sand and gravel which remained in the vallies after the running off or evaporation of the water. It is now [in 1740] little more than forty years since any quantities of gold, worth notice, have been imported from Brazil to Europe; but, since that time, the annual imports have been continually augmented by the discovery of places in other provinces, where it is to be met with as plentifully as at first about Rio Janeiro. It is alleged that a slender vein[4] of gold spread through all the country, at about twenty-four feet below the surface, but that this vein is too thin and poor to answer the expence of digging.[5] However, where the rivers or rains have had any course for a considerable time, there gold is always to be collected, the water having separated the metal from the earth, and deposited it in the sands, thereby saving the expence of digging; hence it is esteemed an infallible gain to be able to divert a stream from its channel, and ransack its bed. From this account of the manner of gathering gold, it should follow that there are no mines of this metal in Brazil, and this the governor of Rio Grande, who happened to be at St Catharines, and frequently visited Mr Anson, did most confidently affirm, assuring us that all the gold was collected from rivers, or from the beds of torrents after floods. It is indeed asserted that large rocks are found in the mountains abounding in gold, and I have seen a fragment of one of these rocks having a considerable lump of gold entangled in it; but, even in this case, the workmen only break off the rocks, and do not properly mine into them; and the great expence of subsisting among these mountains, and in afterwards separating the metal from the stone, occasions this method of procuring gold to be but rarely put in practice.
The examining the bottom of rivers and beds of torrents, and the washing the gold there found, from the sand and dirt with which it is always mixed, are performed by slaves, who are principally negroes, kept in great numbers by the Portuguese for this purpose. The regulation of the duty of these slaves is singular, as they are each of them obliged to furnish their master with the eighth part of an ounce of gold daily.[6] If they are either so fortunate or industrious as to collect a greater quantity, the surplus becomes their own property, and they may dispose of it as they think fit; so that some negroes, who have accidentally fallen upon rich washing-places, are said to have themselves purchased slaves, and to have lived afterwards in great splendour, their original master having no other demand upon them than the daily supply of the before-mentioned eighths; which, as the Portuguese ounce is somewhat lighter than our troy ounce, may amount to about nine shillings sterling.
The quantity of gold thus collected in the Brazils and returned annually to Lisbon, may be estimated, in some degree, from the amount of the royal fifth. This has been of late computed, one year with another, at one hundred and fifty aroues, of thirty-two Portuguese pounds each, which, valued at L. 4 sterling the troy ounce, make very nearly three hundred thousand pounds sterling; and consequently the capital, of which this is the fifth, is about a million and a half sterling. It is obvious that the annual return of gold to Lisbon cannot be less than this, though it may be difficult to guess how much more it may be. Perhaps we may not be much mistaken in conjecturing that the gold exchanged with the Spaniards at Buenos Ayres for silver, and what is privately brought to Europe without paying the duty, may amount to near half a million more, which will make the entire yearly produce of Brazilian gold nearly two millions sterling; a prodigious sum to be found in a country which only a few years since was not known to furnish a single grain.
Besides gold, this country also affords diamonds, as already mentioned. The discovery of these valuable stones is much more recent even than that of gold, as it is scarcely twenty years since the first were brought to Europe.[7] They are found in the same manner as gold, in the gullies of torrents and beds of rivers, but only in particular places, and by no means so universally spread throughout the country. They were often found while washing for gold, before they were known to be diamonds, and were consequently thrown away along with the sand and gravel; and it is well remembered that numbers of very large stones, which would have made the fortunes of the possessors, have passed unregarded through the hands of those who now impatiently support the mortifying reflection. However, about twenty years since, [that is, in 1720,] a person acquainted with the appearance of rough diamonds, conceived that these pebbles, as they were then called, were of the same kind; yet it is said there was a considerable interval between the first stating of this opinion and its confirmation, by proper examination, as it was difficult to persuade the inhabitants that what they had been long accustomed to despise, could be of such amazing importance; and in this interval, as I was told, a governor of one of these places procured a good number of these stones, which he pretended to make use of as markers at cards. The truth of the discovery was at last confirmed by skilful jewellers in Europe, who were consulted on the occasion, and who declared that these Brazilian pebbles were true diamonds, many of which were not inferior in lustre, or other qualities, to those of the East Indies. On this being made known, the Portuguese in the neighbourhood of the places where these had been first discovered, set themselves to search for diamonds with great assiduity, and were hopeful of discovering them in considerable quantities, as they found large rocks of crystal in many of the mountains whence the streams proceeded that washed down the diamonds.