by Edmund Burke
Not many years after the discovery of the gold mines, Brazil, which for a century had been given up as a place incapable of yielding the metals for which America was chiefly valued, was now found to produce diamonds too; but at first of so unpromising a nature, that the working of the mines was forbidden by the court of Portugal, lest without making any compensation by their number, they might depreciate the trade which was carried on in these stones from Goa. But in spite of this prohibition, a number were from time to time smuggled from Brazil; and some too of such great weight, and high lustre, and transparency, that they yielded very little to the finest brought from India. The court now perceived the importance of the trade, and accordingly resolved to permit it, but under such restrictions as might be sufficiently beneficial to the crown and subject; and at the same time preserve the jewels in that scarcity which makes the principal part of their value. In 1740 the diamond mines were farmed at one hundred and thirty-eight thousand crusadoes, or about twenty-six thousand pounds sterling annually, with a prohibition against employing more than six hundred slave at a time in the works. It is probable that this regulation is not very strictly complied with, the quantity of diamonds is much increased, and their value of course sunk since that time. It is true, that diamonds of the very first rank are nearly as dear as ever. None of the diamonds of Brazil have so high a lustre as the first rate of Gol•nda; and they have generally something of a dusky yellowish cast; but they have been found of a prodigious size. Some years ago we had an account in the news papers of one sent to the king of Portugal, of a size and weight almost beyond the bounds of credibility; for it was said to weigh sixteen hundred carats, or six thousand seven hundred and twenty grains; and consequently must be worth several millions.
CHAP. IV.
THE trade of Portugal is carried on upon the same exclusive plan, on which the several nations of Europe trade with their colonies of America; and it more particularly resembles the Spanish method, by sending out not single ships, as the conveniency of the several places, and the ideas of the European merchants may direct; but by annual fleets which sail at stated times from Portugal, and compose three flotas bound to as many ports in Brazil; to Fernambucca, in the Northern part; Rio Janeiro, at the Southern extremity; and the bay of All Saints in the middle. In this last is the capital, which is called St. Salvador, where all the fleets rendezvous on their return to Portugal. This city commands a noble, spacious, and commodious harbour. It is built upon an high and steep rock, having the sea upon one side, and a lake forming a crescent, investing it almost wholly, so as nearly to join the sea on the other. This situation makes it in a manner impregnable by nature; but they have besides added to it very strong fortifications. All these make it the strongest place in America. It is divided into an upper and lower town. The lower consists only of a street or two, immediately upon the harbour, for the convenience of lading and unlading goods, which are drawn up to the higher town by machines. The streets in the upper town are laid out as regularly as the ground will admit, and are handsomely built. They had forty years ago in this city above two thousand houses, and inhabitants proportionable; a sumptuous cathedral; several magnificent churches; and many convents, well built and endowed. The Portuguese fleet sets out from Lisbon in it’s voyage hither in the month of February.
I can get no accounts, precise enough to be depended upon, of the towns of Fernambucca, or Parayba, and the capital of the Rio de Janeiro, to enable me to be particular about them. Let it suffice that the fleet for the former of these sets outs in March; and for the latter in the month of January; but they all rendezvous in the bay of All Saints, to the number of an hundred sail of large ships, about the month of May or June, and carry to Europe a cargo little inferior in value to the treasures of the flota and galleons. The gold alone amounts to near four millions sterling. This is not all extracted from the mines of Brazil; but as they carry on a large direct trade with Africa, they bring, especially from their settlement at Mozambique, on the Eastern side of that continent besides their slaves, vast quantities of gold, ebony and ivory, which goes into the amount of the cargo of the Brazil fleets for Europe. Those parts of Brazil which yield gold, are the middle and Northern parts on the Rio Janeiro and Bay of All Saints. They coin a great deal of the gold in America; that which is coined at Rio Janeiro bears an R, that which is struck at the Bay is marked with a B.
To judge the better of the riches of this Brazil fleet, the diamonds it contains must not be forgot. For if the mines rented to the crown in the year 1740, at twenty-six thousand pounds a year, it will be a very small allowance to say, that at least five times more is made out of them; and that there is returned to Europe in diamonds to at least the value of one hundred and thirty thousand pounds. This, with the sugar, which is principally the cargo of the Fernambucca fleet, the tobacco, the hides, the valuable drugs for medicine and manufactures, may give some idea of the importance of this trade, not only to Portugal, but to all the trading powers of Europe. The returns are not the fiftieth part of the produce of Portugal. They consist of the woollen goods of all kinds of England, France, and Holland, the linens and laces of Holland, France, and Germany; the silks of France and Italy; lead, tin, iron, copper, and all sorts of utensils wrought in these metals from England; as well as salt-fish, beef, flour, and cheese. Oil they have from Spain. Wine, with some fruits, is nearly all with which they are supplied from Portugal.
Though the profits in this trade are great, very few Portuguese merchants trade upon their own stocks; they are generally credited by the foreign merchants, whose commodities they vend, especially the English. In short, though in Portugal, as in Spain, all trade with their plantations is strictly interdicted to strangers; yet, like all regulations that contradict the very nature of the object they regard, they are here as little attended to as in Spain. The Portuguese is only the trustee and factor; but his fidelity is equal to that of the Spanish merchant; and that has scarce ever been shaken by any public or private cause whatsoever. A thing surprising in the Portuguese; and a striking instance amongst a people so far from remarkable for their integrity, of what a custom originally built upon a few examples, and a consequent reputation built upon that, will be able to effect in succession of men of very different natural characters and morals. And so different is the spirit of commercial honesty from that of justice, as it is an independent virtue, and influences the heart.
The English at present are the most interested, both in the trade of Portugal for home consumption, and of what they want for the use of the Brazils. And they deserve to be most favoured, as well from the services they have always done that crown, and from the stipulations of treaties, as from the consideration that no other people consumes so much of the products of Portugal. However, partly from our own supineness, partly from the policy and activity of France, and partly from the fault of the Portuguese themselves, the French have become very dangerous rivals to us in this, as in most other branches of our trade. It is true, that though the French have advanced so prodigiously, and that there is a spirit of industry and commerce raised in most countries in Europe, our exports of manufactures, or natural products, have by no means lessened within these last forty years; which can only be explained by the extending our own, and the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, which increases the general demand. But though it be true, that we have rather advanced than declined in our commerce upon the whole, yet we ought to take great care not to be deceived by this appearance. For if we have not likewise advanced in as great a proportion to what we were before that period, and to our means since then, as our neighbours have done in proportion to theirs, as I apprehend we have not, then, I say, we have comparatively declined; and shall never be able to preserve that great superiority in commerce, and that distinguished rank of the first commercial and maritime power in Europe, time must be essential to preserve us in any degree, either of commerce or power. For if any other power of a more extensive and populous territory than ours, should come to rival us in trade and
wealth, he must come of necessity to give law to us in whatever relates either to trade or policy. Notwithstanding that, the want of capacity in the ministers of such a power, or the indolence of the sovereign, may protract the evil for a time, it will certainly be felt in the end, and will shew us demonstratively, though too late, that we must have a great superiority in trade, not only to ourselves formerly, but to our neighbours at present, to have any at all which is likely to continue with us for a long time.
CHAP. V.
THE pourtrait which the most judicious travellers give us of the manners and customs of the Portuguese in America, is very far from being favourable to that people. They are represented as a people at once sunk into the most effeminate luxury, and practising the most desperate crimes. Of a dissembling hypocritical temper; of little honesty in dealing, or sincerity in conversation; lazy, proud, and cruel. They are poor and penurious in their diet, not more through necessity than inclination. For, like the inhabitants of most Southern climates, they are much more fond of shew, state, and attendance, than of the joys of free society, and the satisfactions of a good table, Yet their feasts, seldom made, are sumptuous to extravagance.
The luxury, indolence, pride, and cruelty of the masters, has, amongst other causes, been very justly attributed to their being bred up amongst slaves, having every business entirely done by such; and to their being permitted to keep a prodigious number of negroes, not for their field work, nor for domestic employments, but merely to wait upon them, and to form their train. These become more corrupted than their masters, who make them the instruments of their crimes; and giving them an unbounded and scandalous licence, employ them whenever they want to terrify or revenge, as bullies and assassins. And indeed nothing can be conceived more fit to create the worst disorders, than the unnatural junction of slavery to idleness, and a licentious way of living. They are all suffered to go armed, and there are vast numbers who have merited or bought their freedom; and this is suffered in a country where the negroes are ten to one.
But this picture, perhaps too highly coloured for those whom it is intended to represent, is by no means applicable to all the Portuguese of Brazil. Those by the Rio Janeiro, and in the Northern captainships, are not near so effeminate and corrupted as those of the Bay of All Saints, which being in a climate favourable to indolence and debauchery, the capital city, and one of the oldest settlements, is in all respects worse than any of the others.
The government of Brazil is in the viceroy, who resides at St. Salvador. He has two councils, one for criminal, the other for civil affairs; in both which he presides. But, to the infinite prejudice of the settlement, all the delay, chicanery, and multiplied expences incident to the worst part of the law, and practised by the most corrupted lawyers, flourish here; at the same time that justice is so lax, that the greatest crimes often pass with impunity. Formerly the judges could not legally punish any Portuguese with death. And it is not difficult to imagine, how much such a licence in such a country, must have contributed to a corruption, that it may be the business of successions of good magistrates, and ages of good discipline, to restore to soundness. Upon the river of Amazons, the people, who are mostly Indians, and reduced by the priests sent thither, are still under the government of these pastors. The several divisions of this country are called missions.
As the Portuguese have been once dispossessed of this country by the Dutch, and once endangered by the French, their misfortunes and dangers have made them wise enough to take very effectual measures for their future security. St. Salvador is a very strong fortification; they have others that are not contemptible; besides a good number of European regular troops, of which there are two regiments in St. Salvador. The militia too is regimented, amongst whom they reckon some bodies of Indians, and free negroes; and indeed at present Brazil seems to be in as little danger as the settlements of any power of America, not only from their own internal strength, their remoteness, and the intolerable heat and unhealthiness of a great part of the climate, but from the interest that most of the states in Europe who are concerned in that trade, have to keep it in the hands of the Portuguese.
VOLUME II.
PART V. The French Settlements.
CHAP. I.
THE French were amongst the last nations who made settlements in the West-Indies; but they made ample amends by the vigour with which they pursued them, and by that chain of judicious and admirable measures which they used in drawing from them every advantage, which the nature of the climate would yield; and in contending against the difficulties which it threw in their way. The civil wars, which divided and harrassed that kingdom, from the death of Henry the second, with very little interruption, until the majority of Lewis the fourteenth, withdrew the attention of both prince and people from their commercial interests to those of parties in religion and government. The politicks of the house of Valois, though France perhaps was never governed by princes of so ingenious and refined a turn, were wholly of the Machiavillian kind. They tended to distract, to unsettle, to try dangerous schemes, and to raise storms only to display a skill in pilotage. The parties then in France solely contended, what power could be given to or taken from the king, without considering what could make their country a great kingdom. Therefore, which way soever the ballance inclined, whether to the king or to the nobles; to the catholicks, or to the protestants, it was pretty indifferent to the real happiness of that nation. The parties only gamed out of a common stock. Neither could be enriched. But their dissentions made all of them poor and weak. The time of cardinal Richlieu must be considered as the true aera of French policy. This great man pacifying all at home, exalting the royal authority upon the ruins of the power of the nobility, and modelling that great system of general policy in external affairs, which has raised France to such a pitch of greatness; amongst so many, and such extensive cares, did not forget those of commerce, and what serves most effectually to support commerce, colonies, and establishments abroad. But the circumstances of the time, and his genius that embraced so many objects, did not leave him leisure to perfect what he began. It was reserved for that great, wise, and honest minister Colbert, one of the ablest that ever served any prince, to bring that plan to perfection, to carry it in a great measure into execution, and to leave things in such order, that it was not difficult, when favourable circumstances offered, to make France one of the first trading powers in Europe, and her colonies the most powerful, their nature considered, of any in America.
So early as the reign of Francis I. the French attempted an establishment in North-America; but it was not until the year 1625, that they made their first settlement in the West-Indies. This was upon St. Christopher, one of the Caribee islands. A remarkable circumstance attended it; the English took possession of the island the same day. But this settlement had no long life on either side. The Spaniards had reason to dread the establishment of such powers in their neighbourhood; and they envied the French and English those advantages it was foreseen they would draw from countries from which they had themselves no benefit, and which they claimed only to keep them desarts.
They assaulted these new colonies, and drove them out of the island. The English colony soon returned, and possessed themselves of the largest and best part, before the French could collect themselves; who, finding the English already settled in the best part, left a small colony on the other part. But their chief, and the most adventurous of their inhabitants, went in search of other seats, when, after various fortune, and after combating the difficulties which a new country and their own imprudence had caused them, they made a considerable settlement in the islands of Martinico and Guardaloupe.
Cardinal Richlieu saw very early into the advantages which might arise from these settlements, if prudently managed; and he thought the most prudent management both for securing and extending them, consisted in but one article; which was, to put the government into proper hands. With that view he made choice of Monsieur de Poincy, a knight of Malta; who was sent thither with the t
itle of governor and lieutenant-general of the isles of America, and a very ample commission. No person could be better fitted to rectify the disorders that naturally must arise in every new settlement, and to put things in a right channel for the time to come. Of a good family; of an unblemished reputation for probity; of great reading; of much and various knowledge of life; and of a genius as variously exercised. He was a master in mechanical learning; in which he excelled not more to his own honour, than to the benefit of the colonies which had the happiness to be committed to his care. He it was that first taught them the method of cultivating the sugar cane, and preparing the sugar. He improved the methods which were used in the Brazils for this purpose, both with regard to the mills and the furnaces; and having given a direction to their industry, he gave it all the encouragement he could, by supporting those who raised their own substance, by the means which advanced the colony; whilst he kept a watchful eye, and a severe hand upon all, who were for making hasty fortunes, without adding to the publick stock. He made admirable regulations for the speedy and impartial administration of justice; and knowing that all order must depend for it’s blessing above, and it’s effect here upon an attention to religion, he ordered a proper number of churches to be built in all the islands under his care, and settled priests in them, with a competent, but not a superfluous provision; but he did not think monasteries and monks so compatible with a new colony.
Under the inspection of this governor, Martinico, Guardaloupe, part of St. Christopher’s, St. Bartholomew, and St. Martin, were settled, and began to flourish, and that with very little help from home. A plain proof that almost every thing depends in affairs of this nature, on chusing proper men to command, and giving them a proper authority.