This province comprehends three-fourths of the capitania of the same name, given in the year 1534 to Vasco Fernandez Coutinho, as a remuneration for the services he had rendered in Asia to the Portuguese crown. It extends one hundred and thirty miles from south to north, between the river Cabapuana and the river Doce, its northern limit; the width from east to west hitherto remains, in great part, undetermined, in consequence of a considerable portion of this territory yet remaining in the power of the aboriginal natives. It is bounded on the north by the province of Porto Seguro, on the west by that of Minas Geraes, on the south by that of Rio de Janeiro, and on the east by the Atlantic Ocean. Authentic documents, as to the precise epoch of its colonization, are not discovered; the foundation of the town of Espirito Santo, and from which the capitania derived its name, may however be regarded as its commencement. This town (now called Villa Velha, or Old Town,) was the capital until Victoria acquired the pre-eminence. It is asserted, by the author of the Geographical Description of Portuguese America, that Coutinho only took sixty persons with him to form the first establishment in his capitania, in which number were included two _degradados_, or degraded fidalgos, Don Gorge de Menezes and Don Simao de Castello Branco. With this small number he engaged and put the Indians to flight; founded the primitive capital; constructed a fort; and established an engenho. Animated with a desire of affording his colony the means of a rapid improvement, he returned to Portugal, to procure what appeared to him requisite for the accomplishment of this praiseworthy object, leaving in his stead Gorge de Menezes, who was killed in combat with the natives. Castello Branco succeeded him in the government, and the Goytacaze tribe, having formed a confederacy with the Tupininquins, they attacked the colony under his temporary jurisdiction with so much fury and effect as to destroy every edifice and to counteract all the efforts of the Portuguese to retain the footing they had made, so that the remains of the colony, finding that the Indians gave no quarter to any individual, were compelled to seek refuge upon the margins of the river Cricare. Coutinho returned from Portugal soon after this event, with all the assistance he could collect, and finding his capitania deserted, he solicited succours from Mendo de Sa, the governor-general at Bahia, which were promptly despatched under the command of his excellency’s son, Fernando de Sa, who uniting his force to the fugitives, near the Cricare, an assault was made upon the Indians with considerable advantage, but a body of the enemy fell upon them in turn, and did not allow time for the whole to save themselves by flight to the ships; Fernando de Sa, the commander was amongst the number that perished.