Brazil—John Harrison | Autograph letter signed, writing as an early European settler in Brazil, 1634

Brazil—John Harrison

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

announcing "my arrival with my companie here in Rio Grande now readie to goe to our plantation, some two houres going from the river", with his expectations for the success of the new plantation, which will enable him to "repay the chardges the companie hath been at, whom I have found verie honourable and respective towards me", 1 page, folio, Rio Grande [do Norte, in north-eastern Brazil]], 24 November 1634, integral autograph address leaf, in modern tan morocco-backed boards, minor damp-staining and fraying, strengthened

A 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, Engosh envoy to The Hague, and he had spent considerable time in England as a diplomat in the early 1620s.