In 1640 Portugal revolted from Spain, regained her independence, and offered the crown to a member of the House of Braganza, a line which retained its inheritance until a few years ago. The effect upon the Americas was again notable; the Pernambucanos, still carrying on guerilla warfare from the forests, were heartened, obtained help from an enthusiastic Bahia, and redoubled their efforts; the Dutch came to an agreement with Portugal that all possessions conquered by them during the Spanish régime should be held, and tried to extend their holdings farther north—an effort which was vain in itself, costly in life and money, and hardened the determination of the colonists to do for themselves what the mother country would not do on their behalf. In 1643 Prince Maurice returned to Holland: he had the interests of the colony as such at heart too much to please the West India Company. A liberal minded man, he wished to see the colonial ports opened to free commerce, succeeded in getting the Company to forego all monopolies except that of taking dyewoods away from Brazil and sending in slaves and munitions of war, any Dutch captain being free to visit ports controlled by his compatriots; these were not agreeable pills for a monopolistic organization to swallow. On the other hand in recalling Maurice of Nassau the Company lost prestige, henceforward carried on a losing struggle with the virile Brazilians, and were forced out of section after section until by 1648 only the forts of Parahyba, Rio Grande do Norte, the island of Itamaracá and the city of Recife were in Dutch hands. A certain embarrassment was created in Europe by this situation, and the Portuguese Government, taken to task by Holland, sent emissaries to the insurgent Pernambucanos to order suspension of hostilities: the leaders replied that they “would go to receive punishment for their disobedience after they had turned the invaders out of Pernambuco,” and went on with the war. Holland herself, now at loggerheads with England or rather with Cromwell on account of her support given to the Stuarts, could not help her Brazilian colony; a severe defeat was inflicted by the Pernambucans in 1649, at the battle of Guararapes, and the Dutch, never recovering from this blow, were finally obliged to capitulate to Francisco Barretto in January, 1654. The Pernambucan attackers were nerved to this final effort, the storming of Recife, by the news of the disaster inflicted on van Tromp’s fleet in the English Channel at the hands of Blake.