He arrived in 1637, and his keen eye at once saw that the two obstacles to pacification were the military raids which the new Spanish commander, Bagnuoli, was directing from his position near the San Francisco; and the fear of the Pernambuco sugar planters that Dutch dominion meant their forcible conversion to Calvinism. The Dutch troops were now well equipped and seasoned for warfare in the tropical woods, and their officers had learned how to exercise their trade under these difficult circumstances with all the coolness, shrewdness, and steadiness of their race. Commanded by Maurice they easily inflicted a crushing defeat upon the motley crew Bagnuoli had been able to gather. The whole country north of the San Francisco fell into Maurice's hands, and he crossed that river and destroyed the Brazilian base of supplies in Sergipe. The next year he was ordered by the Directory to attack Bahia with insufficient forces, and was compelled to retire after a forty-days siege. Two years later, however, his fleet defeated and nearly destroyed the largest naval force Spain had sent out since the Invincible Armada. Of the six thousand soldiers on board who had been expected to drive him from Brazil, only one thousand were landed, away north of Cape St. Roque, whence they barely managed to reach Bahia after a march of over a thousand miles through the wilderness, suffering the most frightful hardships. Maurice followed up this victory by occupying Sergipe (1640) and Maranhão (1641). Ceará had fallen into his hands in 1637. The whole of Brazil from the 3rd to the 12th degree of latitude, a solid body of territory containing more than two-thirds of the population and developed resources, was apparently irretrievably lost to the Portuguese. They only retained Bahia and the isolated settlements in Pará and the southern provinces.
In internal administration Maurice was equally vigorous. He suppressed the exactions of Dutch soldiers and functionaries, and established law, order, and justice. Agriculture, industry, and commerce flourished as never before. He found Recife a miserable port village and left it a city of two thousand houses. He does not seem to have made any especial exertions to secure Dutch immigration. The Brazilians were not displaced as landed proprietors, and most of the plantations confiscated from the persistently rebellious were resold to Brazilians who accepted the Dutch rule. He permitted to Romanists and Jews the free and public exercise of their faith. Many Jews came to Pernambuco, and with their characteristic capacity soon became prominent and useful in the commercial life of the colony. The courts were so organised as to secure representation for Brazilians. He summoned a sort of legislature of the principal colonists--the first representative assembly on South American soil--and put into effect the measures it proposed. Local administration was entrusted to Brazilians, and his aim was evidently to make the colony self-governing.