erior seamanship and skill in manoeuvring. At
length, the wind having shifted, the Count de Torre put to sea; and on
January 12, 1640, the Dutch squadrons sighted the Spaniards, who were
being driven along by a southerly gale which had sprung up. Clinging to
their rear and keeping the weather-gauge, the Dutch kept up a running
fight, inflicting continual losses on their enemies, and, giving them no
opportunity to make for land and seek the shelter of a port, drove them
northwards in disorder never to return. By this signal deliverance the
hold of the Netherlanders upon their Brazilian conquests appeared to be
assured; and, as has been already stated, Joan Maurice took full
advantage of the opportunity that was offered to him to consolidate and
extend them. A sudden change of political circumstances was, however,
to bring to a rapid downfall a dominion which had never rested on a
sound basis.

The revolt of Portugal in 1641 was at first hailed in the United
Provinces as the entry of a new ally into the field against their
ancient enemy the Spaniard. But it was soon perceived that there could
be no friendship with independent Portugal, unless both the East and
West India Companies withdrew from the territories they had occupied
overseas entirely at the expense of the Portuguese. King Joao IV and his
advisers at Lisbon, face to face as they were with the menacing Spanish
power, showed willingness to make great concessions, but they could not
control the spirit which animated the settlers in the colonies
themselves. Everywhere the Spanish yoke was repudiated, and the Dutch
garrisons in Brazil suddenly found themselves confronted in 1645 with a
loyalist rising, with which they were not in a position to deal
successfully. The West India Company had not proved a commercial
success. The fitting out of great fleets and the maintenance of numerous
garrisons of mercenaries at an immense distance from the home country
had exhausted their resources and involved the company in debt. The
building of Mauritsstad and the carrying out of Joan Maurice's ambitious
schemes for the administration and organisation of a great Brazilian
dominion were grandiose, but very costly. The governor, moreover, who
could brook neither incompetence nor interference on the part of his
subordinates, had aroused the enmity of some of them, notably of a
certain Colonel Architofsky, who through spite plotted and intrigued
against him with the authorities at ho