On May 9 and 10, 1624 a large Dutch expeditionary force struck a vital blow against the dual empire of Spain and Portugal by seizing the city of Bahia, capital of Brazil and second-ranking center of that colony’s sugar industry. One year later a massive combined Luso-Spanish force, the Portuguese contingent of which is known as the “expedition of the vassals,” successfully recaptured that bastion and temporarily expelled the Dutch from Brazil. Among the coeval published accounts of these two events and the circumstances surrounding them, one of the most important is that of the Jesuit father, Bartolomeu Guerreiro (ca. 1564-1642). Clearly a court historian, Guerreiro repeatedly emphasized the personal distress of Philip IV of Spain over the loss of Bahia and his deep sense of gratitude to members of the Portuguese nobility for volunteering to participate in its recovery and to his Lusitanian vassals of all stations for their surprisingly large financial contribution (234,300 cruzados) to defray the expenses of the Portuguese armada.

The first (and only known previous) edition of the Jornada dos vassalos was published in Lisbon late in 1625, shortly after the return of the Portuguese armada. There are four copies of this edition in the National Library of Brazil, which has decided to republish this rare work as the initial volume of its new series dedicated to the memory of one of its most distinguished directors, the well-known historian Rodolfo Garcia. Unfortunately, the present edition is defective in several respects. First, the prefatory note does not place the book in its historical context and contains information primarily of interest to librarians and collectors of rare books. Second, republication of the original erratum page fails to fulfill its purpose since the pagination of this edition has been altered to an extent not clearly indicated. Third, pp. 97-113 have been badly jumbled. Readers of this edition will discover (after considerable exasperation) that the correct order of the intervening pages is: 101, 98, 99, 104, 97, 102, 103, 100, 109, 106, 107, 112, 105, 110, 111, 108, and 113!