But this positivist of the seventeenth century, this genial pagan who had caught the essential spirit of the Renaissance and had the courage to put it into practice centuries before it became dominant even in the realm of thought, was too far in advance of his time. His countrymen could not understand him or his ideas, and the Portuguese colonists were equally incapable of appreciating what he was trying to do for them. His edifice scattered like a card house the moment he left. To all appearances every vestige of his work was swept away; it is only a memory and an example; a wave that dashed far up the beach at the beginning of the flood-tide, leaving a mark that long served only to show how far the water had once come. It remained for the nineteenth century and another nation of shopmen to put into practice, on a scale large enough to convince the world, the great principle of non-interference by the central government with the religious beliefs and the local self-government of colonies.
The moneyed aristocrats of the West India Company distrusted Maurice as a member of a reigning family which was maintained in power by its popularity with the masses. The Directory wanted immediate profits, not an empire established on a broad and sure foundation. In their hearts they preferred a steward and bookkeeper to a prince and a statesman. The Calvinist clergy bitterly complained of the liberties conceded their Catholic competitors for tithes, and succeeded in imposing on Maurice the execution of the prohibition against religious processions—then as now so dear to the Brazilian heart. Spies were sent out to report on him and he was continually hampered.
Among the Brazilians he was equally misunderstood. While personally so popular that not one of their chroniclers has a word of dispraise for him, they could not forget that he was of a different race and religion, and he did not succeed in converting them to his ideas. His best personal friends were among those most influential, after his departure, in stirring up the exclusive Brazilian feeling.
Maurice was not a man to be easily daunted. For seven years he remained in office, fighting the Directory, the Calvinist ministers, the corrupt officials, trying to reconcile the jealousies between Dutchmen and Brazilians, and to create a homogeneous community. But after the power of the Nassau family began to decline with the rise of the Witt oligarchy, the Directory determined to be rid of him. In 1644 he made a vigorous demand for more troops, and when it was refused sent in a Bismarckian resignation, which, to his surprise, was immediately accepted with many polite protestations of thanks for his services.
