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Roman Catechism, and they applied themselves with especial ardour to the song and the sacred music with which the Jesuits softened and polished their faith and manners. They sent their children immediately after infancy to the church-choirs, where they studied instrumental performance and the sundry harmonious services of their religion.

The captaincy of São Vicente, now known as the province of São Paulo, was then governed by the heirs of the first grandee, who appointed as their representatives authorities entitled lieutenants and captains-major (capitães-móres). All did homage in temporal matters to the Governor of Rio de Janeiro.

In its earliest days São Paulo had fought with valour and success against the Tamoyo tribe of Rio de Janeiro, who had taken the part of the French invader. This race made incessant attacks upon its southern neighbours, robbing and slaying them without ruth or regard to age or sex; and its violence terrified the milder Carijós and Goyanázes, who inhabited the plains and forests of our captaincy. At length, by the valour of the Paulistas and their Indian auxiliaries, the Tamoyo name ceased to be a byword in the land.

But what groans and sorrow, what prayers in the temples, what genuflexions before the altars followed the evil report that the Hollanders, having seized the city São Salvador da Bahia, and soon afterwards of Pernambuco, threatened to drown the Brazil in a flood of calamities, and to raise upon the ruins of the Roman religion the cold and lifeless abstraction of a Reformed faith, whose apostles were Luther, Calvin, and their herd of followers. Hearing the hateful successes of these heretics, all the people of the town and its environs, guided by the Jesuits and by the authorities, flocked to implore mercy and salvation from the Eternal. Curses loud and deep mingled with the tears of the whites and the Mamelucos, of