Portuguese in Asia, Ayres da Cunha, and Fernão Alvares de Andrade, with instructions to search for gold mines and to exercise a general supervision over the government of the country. The colonists, who flocked to Brazil from Portugal at this time, were of a very different type to the Portuguese who were sent to Asia. The latter were chiefly soldiers, sailors, and officials, despatched to India and the settlements in the East in royal fleets as servants of the Crown, who, while acknowledging themselves servants of the king, yet went to the East with the idea of making their own fortunes, and eventually returning home to Portugal, while the Brazilian colonists went out at their own expense with their wives and families, and made their homes in their adopted country. These men were invaluable to a new country; they went out with no intention of ever returning home, and with the power and will to labour with their hands. Throughout the sixteenth century a steady succession of Portuguese emigrants made their way to Brazil, either on account of the favourable report of its climate and resources, which they received from their friends or relations already settled there, or in order to escape the misfortunes impending on their own country, and more especially the heavy hand of the Inquisition. Mention has been made of the vast importation of slaves into Portugal; this employment of negro labour threw a number of agricultural labourers out of work, who did not care to enlist as soldiers for the East, and could not make a livelihood in cities, and from this class many of the first colonists to Brazil came. Some weight, too, must be attached to the adventurous nature of the Portuguese people; and this side of their character, which showed itself in individuals in the East, made men who loved a family life better than fighting find their way to the western continent. The colonization of Brazil was essentially popular; it was not initiated by king, priests, or nobles; and illustrates the extreme self-reliance and daring which made Portugal so great at this period. The one blot upon the careers of these early settlers was their treatment of the natives. Accustomed to the existence of slavery at home, they tried to make the natives work for them, and this attempt brought about a bitter hatred between the aboriginal races and the immigrants, which showed itself in murder and massacre. The steady tide of emigration to Brazil did not at this time contribute to the wealth of the mother country; on the contrary, it must be noted as one of the chief causes of that depopulation of Portugal, which has been spoken of as the germ of the decadence of the Portuguese power.