received, and much as they feared another should they give trouble to
the invaders, they so resented our representative's meddling that he
found it better to beat a hasty retreat, and to send a wiser man in his
stead. But their fate was sealed, and from the moment the stranger put
his foot into this interesting country dates its entire change. The
system that the Jesuits established was quickly done away with. Paraguay
is now a part of the Argentine Republic, it is generally at war with
some of its neighbours, and its inhabitants are poor, disorderly, and
wretched.

As I shall have, while telling the story of my life, to relate more
serious events, I will, after recounting one more yarn, not weary my
readers with the little uninteresting details of my youthful adventures,
but pass over the next three years or so, at which time, after having
returned to England, I was appointed to another ship going to South
America, for the purpose of putting down the slave trade in the Brazils.
The adventure to which I have referred was one that made a deep
impression on my mind, as being of a most tragic nature.

While at Rio de Janeiro we were in the habit of visiting among the
people, attending dances, &c. I always remarked that the pretty young
Brazilian girls liked dancing with the fresh young English sailors
better than with their mud-coloured companions of the male sex, the
inhabitants of the country.

At the time I write of the English were not liked by the Brazilians,
partly on account of the raid we were then making on the slave trade,
partly through the usual jealousy always felt by the ignorant towards
the enlightened. So with the men we were seldom or ever on good terms,
but with the girls somehow sailors always contrive to be friends.