I was introduced to several of the first merchants and planters, and particularly to the Colonels Joze Gonçalvez da Silva and Simplicio Dias da Silva; the latter is the sub-governor of Parnaiba, a small port situated about three degrees to the eastward of St. Luiz. They are both of them men of great wealth and of independent spirit. The former is an elderly man who has made a large fortune in trade, and latterly has increased it in planting cotton. He possesses between 1000 and 1500 slaves. On one occasion the mulatto driver of his carriage, though ordered by his master to stop, that the governor might pass, refused so to do. The following day an officer came to the old gentleman’s house with orders to arrest the man. The colonel sent for him and said, “Go, and I’ll take care of you,” adding to the officer, “tell His Excellency I have still several other drivers.” To the surprise of every person about the prison, two servants made their appearance in the evening with a tray, covered with a cloth which was handsomely embroidered, and filled with the best kinds of victuals; sweetmeats, &c. were not forgotten. All this was for the driver, and was repeated three times every day until the man received an order for his release. The Colonel Simplicio had been sent for by the governor to St. Luiz. Had it not been for the circumstances in which he was placed, I should have gone down to his residence at Parnaiba; he has there a most noble establishment, part of which consists of a band of musicians, who are his own slaves; some of them have been instructed at Lisbon and at Rio de Janeiro. It is through such men as these that improvements are to be expected. I likewise became acquainted with a gentleman who had been imprisoned for a trifling breach of some new port regulation. Any of his friends were allowed free ingress to see him, and I passed some pleasant evenings with him and other persons who were in the habit of assembling there; he was allowed two small rooms in the prison, and was confined in this manner for several months. The _Ouvidor_ of the province was also suspended from exercising the functions of his office, was removed from St. Luiz, and imprisoned in one of the forts. The _Juiz de Fora_, the second judicial officer, performed for the time the duties of the situation; he was a Brazilian, and a man of independent character, who spoke and acted freely, notwithstanding the ostensible place he held, and the danger of it under such a government. The master of an English merchant ship, I was told, had been arrested for some breach of port regulation, and was confined in a miserable dungeon for three days. I heard many more stories of the same nature; but these will, I think, suffice to shew the state of the city of St. Luiz at the time and just before I visited that place. [Illustration: _Fishing Canoe._]