injury, and we were enjoying a little quiet, when a vessel arrived
with prisoners from St. Jago, who had mutinied for want of -pay*
having been ten months without receiving a farthing, and being
nearly reduced, with the rest of the Portuguese force at that place,
to starvation. This was the real motive for the 1 Governor’s flight
to Bona Vista, for he deemed his life in-danger while at St. Jago,
and so distant was the hope < of relief from the mother country,
and his last speculation in orchil having failed, he thought it wise
to shelter-himself under the protection of Senhor Martins, ts.e'i
' After some months the insurrection was quelled, and the ringleaders
seized, who were the prisoners in’ question, r They: were
put in irons'immediately on arrival, stripped of all clothing, except
a linen shirt and trowsers, and crowded with' their wives and
children into a low room, under those we occupied. -Our comfort
at home was destroyed by their conversation, intermingled with
cries and complaints, and our compassion strongly.excited whenever
we went out, by their sickly and dejected appearance, as they
hovered round the grating to breathe the fresh air0. This event
was too important hot to cause some commotion in the island ;■ the
guards (consisting of sentinels with no other covering than an old
drab coat with a red collar, and the remnant of a cap,' bearing a
halberd staff on the right shoulder) were doubled4, and the cracked
0 The greater number of them were afterwards banished. We had at one timi a
chance of sailing with them, and 1 entertained great apprehension of their seizing the
vessel, a circumstance which had taken place on a previous occasion; the convicts
afterwards proceeding td Brazil.
a The valour of .these military heroes is such, that, during the absepcm of Senhor
Martins at the Cortez, an English man-of-war anchored, outside the bay, undiscovered
by those on shOre, and sent an officer and boats crew in to ask for a little water.
The appearance of the English uniform so appalled the residents of Bona Vista, thatf
the sentinels having given the alarm, ¡soldiers, captain, whites, blacks,'and mulattoes,
all.fled to the interior-of the island,, and left the-town to the mercy, of the supposed
invaders; Senhor.a Martins only packipg up as many of her valoables-as were portable
at the moment.
bell was sounded every half hour, accompanied by discordant cries
of 0 alfs well.”,-- The annoyance of these nightly sounds would
alone have tempted me to let all the prisoners loose, could I have
done so with impunity.
We found the Governor very gentlemanly, and speaking French
fluently. What his influence might be at St. Jago. I know not,
blit it did not even extend so far as to enable him to procure us a
bird at Bona Vista. He kept up some sort of form however, by
having am Orderly,: who walked backwards and forwards through a
room where he could be seen, or came to announce the alarming
approach of a ship’s boat, or the anxious one of a fruit boat from
St.- Jago, with despatches and oranges. We also saw a few
insignia of grandeur in perspective, such as a scarlet cloth, bordered
with black velvet, and thrown over a deal table. The secretary
too was- >always at hand about dinner or breakfast time, with , his
manuscript in his hand, for the Governor’s perusal, which he
presented with the same air as a school-boy presents a Christmas
carol, written .under the inspection of his writing-master.
While the- idea of ridicule is attached to every Portuguese
colony, from its poverty, ¡and affectation of state, under a total
want of means to support even respectability, and , peculiar contempt
has been felt for that of the Cape de Verd Islands, from
theidescription given of it by Captain Tuckey, I must beg leave
to rescue the present Governor from the charges too justly laid
upon his predecessor, Don Antonio. Mr. Bowdich, myself, and
children, experienced every attention from him which he had the
power of bestowing, and, had he possessed the means, I believe he
would cheerfully have furthered Mr. Bowdich’s views. But,
totally dependant on Senhor Manoel, away from his own residence,
without money, alarmed at the rebellion of his troops, and uncertain
df the effect it might have upon the powerful of his own
country, his Excellency must have been in a very unenviable state
s B