f suggesting that the territory of Angola should become an appendage of
that of Dutch Brazil, as the two were bound so closely by this traffic!
The Dutch had also captured the Island of St. Thomas. In that place,
however, the climate avenged the Portuguese to the full, and the
mortality among the Dutch from fever in this island was appalling.

The Dutch in Brazil now sent an expedition to the north to obtain
possession of the Province of Maranhao. They captured and plundered the
capital, pillaging churches and ransacking the sugar factories. The
Governor, Maciel, appears to have behaved very badly, and with no
little treachery towards his fellow-countrymen. Nassau, when Maciel
surrendered, treated him with contempt, and imprisoned him. The
situation had now become grimly farcical. In Europe the Dutch were
supplying the Portuguese with arms and stores, and acting in general as
their allies; while in Brazil the two nations were openly at war, and
the Dutch were sending hostile expeditions in all directions!

Just at this period, indeed, the ambition of the Dutch appeared to swell
to the highest point. Count Mauritz determined to push his conquests far
to the south, and had even prepared an expedition for the capture of the
Spanish town of Buenos Aires; but the attempt was frustrated by the
hostility of the Portuguese and Indians nearer home. All this time, of
course, Dutch fleets had been harrying the Pacific coast, and the Dutch
had actually obtained a footing in Southern Chile, although this was not
destined to prove permanent. With the extension of their boundaries,
however, it was but natural that the difficulty of preserving their
dominion should increase.

In Maranhao, freshly conquered as it was, rebellion broke out almost as
soon as the Dutch had established themselves. Desperate fighting took
place in the neighbourhood of the capital, and many barbarities were
committed on both sides. The Dutch Governor, in a fit of exasperation,
delivered twenty-five Portuguese to the savages of Ceara, and sent fifty
to the Barbadoes to be sold as slaves. The English Governor, however,
after he had received these latter on shore, set them at liberty, and
administered a severe reproof to the agent who had offered white men for
sale in this way. Owing to happenings such as these the bitterness
between the two races increased.

In the end Maranhao was regained by the Portuguese, and the Fort of
Ceara itself was surprised by a fo