Brazil—John Harrison | Autograph letter signed, writing as an early European settler in Brazil, 1635

Brazil—John Harrison

Autograph letter signed, to Constantijn Huygens ("Sir Constantine Hughens Knight Secretarie to his Excellence at the Haghe")

providing him with news of "my proceedings in these remote parts of an other part of the world America", explaining that he had been "at first settled at Rio Grande - but since the taking of Paraiba removed hither to a better plantation, I thank God, & the lords; especiallie much bound to myn here [Servacio] Carpentier now Governour here", continuing that this letter will be carried by his servant, who he is sending back to Europe, and "this my servant will further relate unto you, both the occasion, and all other circumstances", 1 page, folio, "from my new plantation near Paraiba", 2 April 1635, integral autograph address leaf, red wax seal impression, in modern tan morocco-backed boards

A RARE LETTER BY AN ENGLISH SETTLER INVOLVED IN A DUTCH COLONIAL ENTERPRISE IN SOUTH AMERICA. The Dutch WIC (West Indische Compagnie) had established a foothold in northeastern Brazil in 1630, naming it "New Holland". John Harrison's involvement in this colonial enterprise, which was chiefly given over to the sugar industry, had evidently been supported by Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), secretary to the stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange. Huygens had close links to England: as a young man he had been emplyed by Sir Dudley Carleton, Engish envoy to The Hague, and he had spent considerable time in England as a diplomat in the early 1620s.

In this second letter, Harrison has moved south from the territory around Rio Grande do Norte to Paraiba, the coast of which had been conquered from the Portuguese by a Dutch fleet in December 1634.