These soldiers are under two Captains, the one a Dutchman and the other a Portuguese. They are appointed to guard one of the King's magazines; where they always keep sentinel, both by day and night. This is a pretty good distance from the Court, and here it was the King contrived their station, that they might swear and swagger out of his hearing, and that nobody might disturb them nor they nobody. The Dutch captain lies at one side of the gate, and the Portuguese at the other.
Once the King, to employ these his white soldiers, and to honour them, by letting them see what an assurance he reposed in them; sent one of his boys thither to be kept prisoner, which they were very proud of. They kept him two years in which time he had learnt both the Dutch and Portuguese language. Afterwards the King retook the boy into his service; and within a short time after, executed him.
But the King's reason in sending this boy to be kept by these soldiers was probably, not as they supposed and as the king himself outwardly pretended, viz.:—to show how much he confided in them, but out of design to make them look the better to their watch, which their debauchery made them very remiss in. For the prisoner's hands only were in chains, and not his legs. So that his possibility of running away, having his legs at liberty; concerned them to be circumspect and wakeful: and they knew if he had escaped it were as much as their lives were worth. By this crafty and kind way did the king correct the negligence of his white soldiers.
Indeed his inclinations are much towards the Europeans, making them his great officers; accounting them more faithful and trusty than his own people. With these he often discourses concerning the affairs of their countries, and promotes to places far above their ability and sometimes their degree or desert. And indeed all over the land they do bear, as it were, a natural respect and reverence to white men; inasmuch as black, they hold to be inferior to white: and they say the gods are white, and that the souls of the blessed after the resurrection wrill be white; and therefore that black is a rejected and accursed colour.
And as further signs of the King's favour to them, there are many privileges which the white men have and enjoy, as tolerated or allowed them from the King, which I suppose
