y the Capt. Symam Estacio da
Sylveira, printed in 1624. He had been at the taking of Maranham from
the French, and his paper is evidently a decoy for colonists. He says,
that Daniel de la Touche was induced to go thither by Itayuba of the
_Iron arm_, a Frenchman who had been brought up among the Tupinambas. Is
this Mr. Southey's Rifault?]

Meantime the Dutch had formed a West Indian Company, trusting that they
would thereby be able to annoy the court of Spain in their American
possessions, as they had already done in the East Indies. In 1624, a
fleet under Jacob Willekins and the famous Peter Heyne was fitted out
for that purpose. The ships having been separated in a gale of wind,
Willekins made the Morro de San Paulo, about forty miles south of Bahia,
where he waited for the rest of the convoy. When it arrived he sailed
boldly into the reconcave, and St. Salvador was taken almost without a
struggle. Vandort, the Dutch general, immediately began to fortify the
place, and proclamations being issued promising freedom and redress of
wrongs to all who should submit, many Indians, negroes, and Jews
instantly joined him. But the Portuguese, who had hoped that the Dutch
had only come to plunder the city, seeing that they were sitting quietly
down as in a permanent establishment, roused themselves, and after some
little disagreement as to who should command them, pitched on the Bishop
Don Marcos Texeira. He fixed his head-quarters on the Rio Vermelho. The
Dutch were weakened by the departure of Willekins for Holland, and of
Peter Heyne for Angola, the plan of the West India Company being to
secure that settlement, in order to have a certain supply of slaves for
their new conquests in Brazil. Dort had been killed, and there was no
competent commander. The Bishop's troops harassed those of the city in
every direction, and the Dutch were prepared to become an easy prey to
Don Fadrique de Toledo, who had been sent from Spain with a strong force
to recover the capital of Brazil. They capitulated, therefore, in May,
1625, and conditioned for being sent to Holland with sufficient arms and
their personal baggage, leaving the city and forts as they were.

The next year, however, Peter Heyne returned to the reconcave. Every
precaution was taken against him by the governor. Four large ships with
men and artillery were placed to intercept him; but in his single ship,
the rest of his squadron not being able to come up with him, ran in
betw