NOTE.--The reader will, I fear, observe a want in this work, which has not by any means escaped the notice of the writer, but which he has found it impossible fully to supply. In almost every chapter there occur notices of large transactions in money, the coins quoted being those then current in Spain and Portugal, respectively. It would, of course, be possible to state approximately the relative value to a given standard of those various coins, respectively, at any one period; but the value of gold and silver coins of the same name varied so constantly and so considerably that it is impossible to lay down a definite standard of value throughout the whole area of which this work treats for any considerable part of the period to which it is devoted. As an instance of the tendency to mislead in taking any fixed coin as a standard in reference to South American monetary transactions, I may mention that, in _Buenos Ayres_, in the year 1866, I found the Argentine _dollar_, a coin which most English readers would naturally estimate as the equivalent of four shillings, to be worth exactly twopence. This, of course, applies to the paper _dollar_; but this would be the legal tender in payment of amounts stated in _dollars_, unless otherwise specified. CHAPTER XII. _BRAZIL: DISCOVERY OF THE DIAMOND DISTRICT._ 1724-1749. [Sidenote: 1724.] The mining districts had on several occasions been the scene of serious and prolonged resistance against the constituted authorities, in consequence of the regulations respecting the mode of levying the royal share which were introduced with a view to prevent smuggling. It had been found necessary to make a severe example of the ringleaders of an insurrection; and the mining population were thenceforward amenable to law. It was established that all gold was to pass through the royal smelting-house before paying the royal fifths which were now re-established. The people of the mines had, by a timely discovery, escaped the danger of a negro insurrection; and in consequence so many negroes took to the woods that the same evil was apprehended as in the case of the _Palmares_. In order to avert such a contingency, Bush-captains were established, whose business it was to apprehend wandering negroes, for whom they received head-money from their masters. In many cases it was alleged that the Bush-captains, in order to receive the reward, made a practice of arresting negroes who were not runaways, and that this institution was only one degree less troublesome to the community than the evil which it was appointed to suppress--these individuals being likewise in the habit of detaining negroes and profiting by their labour.