The History of the Revolutions of PortugalVertot, abbé de
History
The History of the Revolutions of Portugal
Vertot, abbé de
Portugal -- History -- Revolution, 1640
IV. BAHIA, or TODOS SANTOS,
Is bounded on the north by the river St. Francesco, on the south by the
river Dolce, and on the east by the river Preto, one of the branches of
the river Verde.
POPULATION.
39,784 Whites;--49,693 Indians;--68,024 Negroes.
PRINCIPAL TOWN.
The capital of Bahia is St. Salvador; the entrance to which is through
the bay of Todos Santos: this bay is two leagues and a half wide. There
is a fort on each side of the entrance, intended rather to prevent
landing on the coast, than to impede the passage through the bay, which
is thirteen or fourteen leagues in length, and full of little islands,
containing cotton-trees. The bay is narrow towards the town, which
overlooks it, and is built on the side of a steep hill; it is, however,
a very good port, safe, and capable of containing a great fleet. St.
Salvador contains more than two thousand houses, the greatest part of
which are magnificent buildings.
COMMERCE.
Sugar and cotton make but a small part of the Bahia trade. Tobacco and
the whale-fishery are the principal. The annual product of the latter
amounted, twenty years since, to 3,530 pipes of oil; which, at the price
of a hundred and seventy-five French livres each (7l. 5s. 6d.), amounted
to six hundred and seventeen thousand seven hundred and fifty French
livres (25,739l. 11s. 8d.); and two thousand and ninety quintals of
whalebone, which, at a hundred and fifty livres (6l. 5s.) a quintal,
make three hundred and thirteen thousand five hundred livres (13,062l.
10s.). Total of the two sums, nine hundred and thirty-one thousand two
hundred and fifty French livres (38,802l. 1s. 8d.), of which the persons
employed in this commerce paid three hundred thousand livres (12,500l.)
to the government; the expenses did not exceed two hundred and
sixty-eight thousand seven hundred and fifty livres (11,197l. 18s. 4d.),
consequently they had a profit of three hundred and sixty-two thousand
five hundred livres (15,104l. 3s. 4d.). Tobacco, though cultivated
throughout the whole of Brazil, makes but a very unimportant object of
commerce any where but in Bahia. It succeeds extremely well in a spot of
ground extending 90 leagues, and is particularly fine in the district of
_Cachoeira_. Ten thousand quintals of an inferior kind of tobacco are
sent every year from Brazil to the coasts of Africa, which being sold
for eighteen French livres the hundred weight, amount to a hundred and
eighty thousand livres (7,500l.); fifty-eight thousand five hundred
quintals are also sent annually to Portugal, and sold, on entering that
country, at forty livres (1l. 13s. 4d.) the hundred weight, which amount
to two millions three hundred and forty thousand French livres
(97,500l.). Total of the two sums, two millions five hundred and twenty
thousand livres (105,000l.). The finest tobacco is exported to Genoa,
that of the second quality to Spain and Portugal, and a still inferior
sort to France and Hamburgh. The consumption of this Article at Madeira
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