But this attitude of mind changed, when the news arrived of the successful revolution of December, 1640. Dom Antonio Telles da Silva, the Portuguese Governor-General at once proclaimed King John IV. at San Salvador, and the Portuguese in the Dutch captainships felt an immediate desire to join their brethren. Matters of European policy however prevented them from striking a blow at once; John IV. could not afford to make enemies of the Dutch, and one of the terms of his alliance with them was that matters should remain exactly as they were in Brazil for ten years. However the Portuguese colonists had not to wait ten years owing to the ungrateful behaviour of the Dutch themselves. The Dutch West India Company could not appreciate the political ideas of Maurice of Nassau; these traders wanted large profits and not a great empire; they were disgusted at the amounts spent on the fortresses and the army, and in 1644 they recalled the great man whose ideas were too grand for them to fathom. Immediately on his departure, matters went from bad to worse in the Dutch captainships. His successors, a committee of merchants, neglected the fortresses, and aroused the hatred of the Portuguese sugar planters by their exactions, and though they sent home an unparalleled amount of sugar and money for one year, it was the only year they remained in office; for in 1645 the whole of the Portuguese colonists in the Dutch captainships burst into insurrection. It was in vain for the Dutch authorities to complain to Dom Antonio Telles da Silva; he answered that it was not his fault if the Portuguese revolted; they did not do so under his orders or directions; and the Portuguese ambassador at the Hague made the same assertion in the name of the king. Seldom has an insurrection been so rapidly successful; Antonio Moniz Barreto and Antonio Teixeira de Mello speedily reduced the province of Maranham, and João Fernandes Vieira, a self-made man and originally a butcher’s boy, occupied the whole of the province of Pernambuco, and drove the Dutch into their capital. The neglected fortresses were easily taken, and soon the Dutch held no place, but the Recife. It was in vain for Holland to declare war against Portugal, and to send great armaments to Brazil; the national movement was too strong to be resisted; the Dutch won some naval victories but could gain no fresh foothold in the country, and in 1655 the island of the Recife was abandoned after a ten years’ siege, and a King of Portugal once more reigned over the whole of Brazil.