d, and
probably occasioned the many fevers and fluxes we were there afflicted
with. I must not omit to add, that we were pestered all day by vast
numbers of mosquetoes, which are not much unlike the gnats in England,
but much more venomous in their stings. At sunset, when the musquetoes
retired, they were succeeded by an infinity of sand-flies, which
made a mighty buzzing, though scarcely discernable by the naked eye;
wherever these bite, they raise a small lump attended by painful
itching, like that arising from the bite of an English harvest bug.
The only light in which this place deserves our consideration is its
favourable situation for supplying and refreshing our cruizers bound
for the South Sea, and in this view its greatest inconveniences remain
to be related, to do which more distinctly, it may not be amiss
to consider the changes which it has lately undergone, both in its
inhabitants, its police, and its governor.

In the time of Frazier and Shelvocke, this place served only as a
retreat to vagabonds and outlaws, who fled hither from all parts of
Brazil. It is true, that they acknowledged their subjection to the
crown of Portugal, and had a person among them whom they called their
captain, and who was considered as a kind of governor; but both their
allegiance to their king, and their obedience to the captain, were
merely verbal; for, as they had plenty of provisions and no money,
they were in a condition to support themselves without aid from any
neighbouring settlements, and had nothing among them to tempt any
neighbouring governor to interpose his authority among them. In this
situation they were extremely hospitable and friendly to such foreign
ships as came among them; for, as these ships wanted only provisions,
of which the natives had great store, while the natives wanted
clothes, for they often despised money, and refused to take it, the
ships furnished them with apparel in exchange for their provisions,
both sides finding their account in this traffic, and their captain
had neither interest nor power to tax or restrain it.

Of late, for reasons which will afterwards appear, these honest
vagabonds have been obliged to receive a new colony among them, and
to submit to new laws and a new form of government. Instead of their
former ragged and bare-legged captain, whom they took care, however,
to keep innocent, they have now the honour of being governed by Don
Jose Sylva de Paz, a brigadier of the armies