Miss Owenson
Author of the Missionary St Clair &c
THE
M I S S I O N A R Y :
AN
Indian Tale.
BY
MISS OWENSON.
WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
FOURTH EDITION.
VOL. I:
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR J. J. STOCKDALE,
NO. 41, PALL MALL.
1811.
S. Gosnell, Printer, Little Queen Street, London.
| CHAPTER I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII. |
TO THE MOST NOBLE
ANN JANE,
MARCHIONESS OF ABERCORN,
THE FOLLOWING
TALE
IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,
BY
THE AUTHOR.
THE
M I S S I O N A R Y,
&c.
CHAPTER I.
IN the beginning of the seventeenth century, Portugal, bereft of hernatural sovereigns, had become an object of contention, to variouspowers in Europe. The houses of Braganza and of Parma, of Savoy andMedici, alike published their pretensions, and alike submitted to thatdecision, which the arms of Spain finally made in its own favour. Underthe goading oppression of Philip the Second, and of his two immediatesuccessors, the national independence of a brave people faded graduallyaway, and Portugal, wholly losing its rank in the scale of nations, sunkinto a Spanish province. From the torpid dream of slavish dependence,the victims of a mild oppression were suddenly awakened, by therapacious cruelties of Olivarez, the gloomy minister of Philip theFourth; and the spring of national liberty, receiving its impulse fromthe very pressure of the tyranny which crushed it, already recoveredsomething of that tone of force and elasticity which finally producedone of the most singular and perfect revolutions, which the history ofnations has recorded. It was at this period, that Portugal becamedivided into two powerful factions, and the Spanish partizans, andPortuguese patriots, openly expressed their mutual abhorrence, andsecretly planned their respective destruction. Even Religion forfeitedher dove-like character of peace, and enrolled herself beneath thebanners of civil discord and f