recalled the prowess of the Cid, and the escape of Mary Stuart from the English fleet that dogged her passage to France, was due to his courage and skillful seamanship. But with these brilliant gifts were combined qualities which wholly unfitted him for his position as the governor of a newly-founded state. Hasty in forming his religious opinions, he was mercilessly intolerant to all who refused to accept them. The colony was unfortunate in its site as well as in its leader. The spot pitched on was the coast of Brazil, a habitation ill-fitted for the inhabitants of a temperate climate, and moreover calculated to excite the jealousy alike of Spaniards and Portuguese. There, however, Villegagnon established himself with two shiploads of emigrants. Before long his rule was found so intolerable that a conspiracy was formed to murder him, and he was only saved by three Scotch soldiers who revealed the plot. Nevertheless the reports sent home were such as to induce a fresh party of emigrants to come out. Two hundred and ninety in all sailed, with five Calvinist pastors from Geneva. Villegagnon's love of theological speculation and controversy soon involved him in disputes with the ministers, and these disputes finally produced the not unnatural result of reconverting Villegagnon into an orthodox Catholic. His return to his former faith was soon accompanied by rigorous measures against his Calvinist opponents. Three of the ministers were put on board a vessel with insufficient supplies of food and water and shipped off to France. After a long and suffering voyage, they arrived in safety. The disciples whom they left in America fared even worse. Three of the most zealous of them were thrown into the sea by the order of the commander, who then delivered an address to his followers, warning them against the heresies of Luther and Calvin, and threatening a like punishment to all who should fall away. Villegagnon, however, soon longed for a wider field for his new-born zeal. He returned to France and was soon deep in a theological conflict with Calvin. The departure of their tyrant brought no gain to the colonists. Before a year the Portuguese attacked and routed them and destroyed their settlement. Thus ended the only attempt of the French to obtain a footing in South America.

In 1562 the French Huguenot party, headed by Coligny, made another attempt to secure themselves a refuge in the New World. Two ships set sail under the command of Jean Ribault, a brave and experienced seaman, destined to play a memorable

and a tragic part in the history of America. Ribault does not seem to have set out with any definite scheme of colonization, but Ribault's rather, like Amidas and Barlow, to have contented himvoyage and settlement, self with preliminary exploration. In April he landed on the coast of Florida. The fertility of the country and the friendliness of the natives delighted the voyagers. Nevertheless they decided to explore the coast farther and sailed northward. Finally they reached the harbor of Port Royal, where, as the narrator tells us, all the ships of Europe might have found harborage. The Indians were as friendly as those farther south, and encouraged their visitors with stories of a neighboring land called Sevola, ruled over by a giant, where gold and silver were so plentiful that they were deemed mere dross. Although there had been no definite scheme for colonization, Ribault thought that it would be well to take possession of a spot so rich in promise. Accordingly he called together his company, and after an exhortation, adorned, if we may believe our informant, with somewhat pedantic references to the heroes of antiquity, he proposed that some of them should volunteer to garrison a fort while the rest returned to Europe. So hopeful seemed the scheme, and so effectual was Ribault's persuasion, that his only difficulty was in restricting the number who were to stay. Finally thirty were chosen to remain under the command of Albert de Pierria. After he had laid the foundations of a fort, called in honor of the king Charlefort, Ribault returned to France. He would seem to have been unfortunate in his choice alike of colonists and of a commander. The settlers lived on the charity of the Indians, sharing in their festivities, wandering from village to village, and wholly doing away with any belief in their superior wisdom and power which might yet have possessed their savage neighbors. That their commander should have grown harsh can hardly be a source of wonder. De Pierria, however, if we may believe the complaints of his followers, showed all the severity of Villegagnon, without his zeal or ability. At length he met with the fate which Villegagnon had so narrowly escaped. His men, enraged at the execution of one comrade and the cruel banishment of another, rose and slew De Pierria. Nicholas Barr, whom they chose as his successor, naturally avoided any severity, and the little colony was free from one of its miseries. Under

1 The history of Ribault's colony is told in a translation from the French published by Hakluyt in 1587. The substance of it is taken from Ribault's own journal.

the new commander it enjoyed internal peace, but a new danger soon threatened it. France was torn asunder by civil war, and had no leisure to think of an insignificant settlement beyond the

No supplies came to the settlers, and they could not live forever on the bounty of their savage neighbors. The settlers decided to return home. To do this it was needful to build a bark with their own hands from the scanty resources which the wilderness offered. Whatever might have been the failings of the settlers, they certainly showed no lack of energy or of skill in concerting means for their departure. They felled the trees to make planks, moss served for caulking, and their shirts and bedding for sails, while their Indian friends supplied cordage. When their bark was furnished they set sail. Unluckily, in their impatience to be gone, they did not reckon what supplies they would need. The wind, at first favorable, soon turned against them, and famine stared them in the face. Driven to the last resort of starving seamen, they cast lots for a victim, and the lot by a strange chance fell upon the very man whose punishment had been a chief count against De Pierria. Life was supported by this hideous relief till they came in sight of the French coast. Even then their troubles were not over. An English privateer bore down upon them and captured them. The miseries of the prisoners seem, in some measure, to have touched their enemies. A few of the weakest were landed on French soil. The rest ended their wanderings in an English prison.

In reality the settlers had not been forgotten by their countrymen. The news of the abandonment of the colony did not The colony reach France till long after the event. Before its ar

by Laudon

reinforced rival a fleet was sent out to the relief of the colony. nière.' Three ships were dispatched, the largest of a hundred and twenty tons, the least of sixty tons, under the command of René Laudonnière, a young Poitevin of good birth. On their outward voyage they touched at Teneriffe and Dominica, and found ample evidence at each place of the terror which the Spaniards had inspired among the natives. In June the French reached the American shore south of Port Royal. As before, their reception by the Indians was friendly. Some further exploration failed to discover a more suitable site than that which had first presented itself, and accordingly a wooden fort was soon

The account of the colony during Laudonnière's period of office is taken from his own letters. They were translated into English, and published in Hakluyt's collection.

built with a timber palisade and bastions of earthen work. Before long the new-comers found that their intercourse with the Indians was attended with unlooked-for difficulties. There were three tribes of importance, each under the command of a single chief, and all more or less hostile one to the other. In the South the power of the chiefs seems to have been far more dreaded, and their influence over the national policy more authoritative, than among the tribes of New England and Canada. Laudonnière, with questionable judgment, entangled himself in these Indian feuds, and entered into an offensive alliance with the first of these chiefs whom he encountered, Satouriona.

Before he was called on to fulfill his engagements to Satouriona, his followers had established friendly relations with the Thimagoa tribe, the very enemies against whom Satouriona especially desired the help of the French. Ottigny, one of Laudonnière's followers, had been sent out on an exploring party and had penetrated into the Thimagoa country and had friendly dealings with the inhabitants. A second visit under the command of one Vasseur led to still more intimate relations. The visitors were hospitably received and learned tidings of a land beyond, where gold and silver were so plentiful that they were used for defensive armor. It was clearly the interest of the French to stand well with all the tribes which lay between them and this rumored El Dorado, and the agreement with Satouriona was forgotten. Nevertheless upon Vasseur's next visit to Satouriona, he was severely cross-examined by that chief as to the object of his late journey, and only satisfied him by an elaborate account of a purely imaginary attack upon the Thimagoas, in which he had with his own hand slain two of his enemies. It was clear, however, that Satouriona's faith in his allies was shaken, and even the firmness with which Laudonnière asserted his own superiority and showed his contempt for the anger of the savage might have failed of its object, had it not been seconded by a storm of lightning so unparalleled as to excite a belief among the savages that it was a special contrivance of the white man for their destruction. In his terror Satouriona sent a messenger to implore the forbearance of Laudonnière, and the French were, for the time, saved from the wrath of their discontented ally. No sooner were his difficulties with the savages over than Laudonnière's life was in trouble from his own followers. If Laudonnière's own account is to be trusted, one of his men, La Roquette, persuaded his comrades that he was endowed

LAUDONNIÈRE'S MISFORtunes.

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with supernatural powers, and that he could reveal to them vast mines of precious metals. Accordingly, they demanded to be at once led in search of the treasure. Laudonnière insisted that it was at least necessary to finish the fort before departing. The delay so enraged the would-be gold-hunter that he conspired to destroy Laudonnière either by poison or by blowing him up in his bed. His chief accomplice was one Le Genre, who had, as he imagined, received some slight from Laudonnière, but who, unfortunately, still stood high in his esteem and was employed by him as a sort of deputy when he himself was incapacitated by sickness. The plot for Laudonnière's destruction failed, but not long after some of the discontented men seized upon the two remaining vessels and went buccaneering in the West Indies, where they were finally captured by the Spaniards, an event which led ultimately to the destruction of the colony. Laudonnière at once set to work to repair his loss by building two vessels, but the labor which this entailed was treated as a grievance. Soon the men, emboldened by Laudonnière's illness, broke into open mutiny, imprisoned their commander and extorted from him a passport, and then, taking two vessels and all the ammunition, set sail with vague schemes of enriching themselves by piracy in the Spanish Main. They took a rich prize, but through their own carelessness and folly it was recaptured, and at last the chief part of them returned, terrified and ashamed if not repentant, and submitted themselves to Laudonnière. Two of the ringleaders were put to death, the rest received a free pardon. Henceforth, though we hear at times of disaffection, there was no open outbreak.

A new source of trouble, however, soon beset the unhappy colonists. Their quarrels had left them no time for tilling the soil, Hawkins's and they were wholly dependent on the Indians for visit. food. The friendship of the savages soon proved but a precarious means of support. The dissensions in the French camp must have lowered the new-comers in the eyes of their savage neighbors. They would only part with their supplies on exorbitant terms. Laudonnière himself throughout would have adopted moderate and conciliatory measures, but his men at length became impatient and seized one of the principal Indian chiefs as a hostage for the good behavior of his countrymen. skirmish ensued, in which the French were victorious. It was clear, however, that the settlement could not continue to depend on