ntries
which will have reason to bless their discoveries, when the effect of
their evil deeds, as well as the memory of the brutal customs of the
savages they so unjustly oppressed, shall have passed away.

But I have neither space nor inclination to follow their adventures, and
must refer to Mr. Southey's elaborate and excellent account of them.
Daniel Defoe alone could have so handled the subject as to make
delightful so dull and so sad a tale. I am but a looker on to whom the
actions of the present are more interesting than the past, but yet am
not insensible to the influence that the elder days have had upon us.

Pernambuco had during the half century which had elapsed since the
expulsion of the Dutch had time to recruit. The sugar plantations had
reappeared, and the commerce of Recife had become extremely important.
The merchants, and especially those from Europe, had settled there, and
the town had increased till it became the second of Brazil; while Olinda
gradually declined, having few inhabitants besides priests and the
representatives of the old families of the province, who might be called
its nobility: still Recife was but a village until, in 1710, it
solicited and obtained the royal assent to its becoming a town, and
having a camera or municipal council to govern its internal affairs. The
jealousy of the people of Olinda and the other old Brazilians was
violently excited by this concession, which they conceived would raise
the plebeian traders and foreigners to an equality with themselves.
After several tumultuous meetings on the subject, three of the ten
parishes belonging to Olinda were assigned to Recife, and the governor,
fearing to set up the pillar which marks a township openly, had it
erected in the night. Fresh disturbances ensued, in which some of the
magistrates were concerned, and there were not wanting voices to exclaim
that the Pernambucans had shown they could shake off the strong chains
of the Dutch, and that they could as easily shake off others and govern
themselves. The seditious magistrates were arrested and thrown into
prison. The soldiers were employed to disarm the people; but they had
now advanced too far to be easily reduced. The governor was fired at and
dangerously wounded, and proofs were not wanting that the judge and the
bishop had at least consented to the attempt on his life. The most
serious disturbances followed: the inhabitants of the whole district
took up arms, some bloo