These new institutions materially affected the British Factory at Lisbon. At that period _Brazil_ was supplied, almost exclusively, with English manufactures through the Portuguese merchants of the capital, who obtained long credit from the Factory in consequence of the length of time which they took to obtain returns, there being but one fleet sent to _Brazil_ each year. Thus the Brazilian trade was carried on by means of English capital, the sudden stagnation of which would be seriously felt. Great Britain had at the time the right by treaty of trading directly with _Brazil_; but her ambassador at Lisbon was of opinion that it would be inexpedient to assert the right in question, as he considered that the newly-established monopoly, being erroneous in principle, would shortly be abandoned. Pombal was too despotic in his views to be much concerned as to the degree in which his measures might affect individual interests; and it is but right to add that his grant of a monopoly to companies for the trade with _Maranham_ and _Pernambuco_ were productive of considerable good to those provinces, since the employment of so large a capital gave an impulse both to agriculture and to commerce. In particular, many negroes were imported into _Maranham_, and their labour made it more easy to carry out the laws in respect to the Indians, one species of slavery being exchanged for another. It is stated, however, that the impulse now given to industry and trade in _Maranham_ soon produced a most civilizing effect upon the people of that province. Another measure of the same minister was the establishment of a company with the exclusive right to the whale-fishing, and which likewise obtained a contract for supplying the greater part of _Brazil_ with salt--a monopoly which was attended with disastrous results to the country. But it was not by such measures as the grants of monopolies, whether their results were good or the reverse, that Pombal obtained his reputation as a statesman. He did not scruple to attack prejudices, however rooted; whilst he made the law respected amongst populations who, before his time, had been notoriously lawless. In short, his system was that of a benevolent despotism; for no one denies his enlarged views and good intentions. At a period long gone by, when _Brazil_ was a wide and unexplored world, it had been found convenient to make vast grants to such persons as should undertake the settlement of different captaincies. As, however, colonization advanced, the claims of the representatives of the donatories were found to be not unfrequently antagonistic with the public good, and the Government had, from time to time, purchased them in exchange for the grant of honours and wealth. It being represented to the Minister at Lisbon that the existing system was productive of much evil in _Brazil_, he, by one somewhat arbitrary but beneficial act, extinguished the remaining donatories, and purchased their rights for the Crown.