FRENCH HUGUENOTS.

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ecclesiastics. These latter performed the solemn offices of the Church, with the magnificence which attended them in the rich cathedrals of Spain, as they pursued their hopeless pilgrimage through the wilds of Alabama, Florida and Arkansas.

Now the Protestants appear for the first time on the The followers of Calvin made attempts to fix

scene.

settlements of their body on the coast of Brazil, and with the assistance of the renowned French Huguenot, Gaspard de Coligni, a large company of emigrants left France July 12, 1555, and founded the city of Rio Janeiro. The effort was not successful, and most of the colonists either returned to France,

owing to the perfidy of their leader, Nicholas, Chevalier de Villegagnon, who renounced Protestantism, or were driven home by the Portuguese a few years later.

This failure did not daunt the Admiral de Coligni, and he determined to make another effort, this time sending the colony to a point far removed from the habitations of civilized men. Under patent from the boy-king, Charles IX., Coligni sent out an expedition under command of Jean Ribault, a native of Dieppe. Ribault arrived off the shores of Florida on the last of April, 1562, and sailed along the coast viewing it "with unspeakable pleasure of the odorous smell and beauty of the same, and did behold to and fro the goodly order of the woods wherewith God had decked every way the said land."

One point reached by this party was probably just south of the present city of St. Augustine. On the morning of the first of May, Ribault and his men landed, were kindly received by the natives, and, prostrating themselves on the earth, rendered thanks to God for their safe arrival, and asked his protection in the strange land. They were amazed at the beauty of the scenery about them, and were deluded by the gold and silver ornaments that the savages were adorned with into the belief that there were rich mines of the precious metals not far distant. They did not then know that the gold mines the Indians worked were the wrecks of Spanish vessels cast upon their shores by the sea.

After his pleasant interviews with the natives, Ribault sailed to the northward, and discovered Port Royal, which he named, and there he cast anchor on the twenty-seventh of May. He took possession of

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the country in the name of the king of France, planting a column of stone to testify to the ownership. The same ceremony had been performed at their first landing-place. Erecting a fort called Caroline, and leaving a colony of twenty-six persons to occupy it, Ribault sailed to the north, on the eleventh of June, but he soon turned again towards France, where he arrived in July. The colonists had not remained in the wil derness long before they had grown tired of their life, and, building a frail vessel, sailed also in the same direction. They suffered great distress, and but a portion of them ever again saw their Mother Country.

When Ribault arrived at home he found France involved in religious war; but on the first opportunity, Coligni presented the case of the colonists to the king, and obtained ships to be sent to the succor of those whom Ribault had left behind. The fleet, commanded by Captain Laudonnière, who had accompanied Ribault on the first voyage, sailed on the twenty-second of April, 1564, and reached Florida on the twenty-second of June, but seems not to have sought for the colonists at all. It is possible, however, that the return of the party had been heard of before Ribault left France.

Thanks were rendered to God for the safe voyage and happy arrival, and the company united in singing hymns to his praise, praying that the enterprise might redound to his glory and to the advancement of the Protestant faith.*

*The fort which was built was named, like that at Port Royal, Caroline, after King Charles (in Latin Carolus), and the entire region after. wards took the name Carolina, not from this sovereign, but from the English King Charles, who gave the charters to the English companies which effected the permanent settlements in the State.

This party proved to be no more successful than the former one, and after suffering from seditions and desertion, it was determined by Laudonnière to return to France. After all preparations had been made for the voyage, a sail was descried in the distance which proved to be the harbinger of a fleet of Ribault, who had taken advantage of a partial cessation of the hostilities between Charles IX. and the Protestants to prosecute the scheme for the colonization of America with greater vigor. It was about the end of August, 1565. A fleet of war vessels was observed coming from the sea. They proved to be an expedition sent from Spain, to sweep away the Huguenot settlement, fitted out by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, with the support of Philip II., for the conquest and colonization of Florida.

Menendez had received almost unlimited authority, and was accompanied by more than twenty-five hundred persons. He came in sight of the shores he sought on the day marked in on the calendar with the name of St. Augustine, and for that reason gave the name of the saint to the harbor and stream, and the town of St. Augustine, which he founded, became the first permanent settlement within the limits of the United States.

The chaplain of the Spaniards says that when Menendez came within speaking distance of the French, he asked, "What are you doing in the territories of King Philip?" and promptly told them that he had been sent by his master to hang and destroy all the Lutherans whom he should find either on land or sea. Ribault did not wait to be attacked, but set sail to encounter the Spaniards. He was hardly at

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sea before his fleet was overtaken by a severe storm which destroyed every vessel, though the men mostly were saved. Menendez saw that his opportunity had arrived, and despite the arduous nature of the attempt, led his men across the country towards the French settlement, which he knew was in a defenceless condition. A sudden attack and a short fight made him master of the destinies of the French, and he massacred all who were unable to escape to the woods or the sea. Over the remains of the Frenchmen Menendez placed the inscription, "Not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans." He returned to Spain the next year in triumph, but with the loss of his fortune.

This disaster did not close the attempts of the French to establish a colony in Florida. The court did not make any effort to revenge the loss of its citizens, but Dominic de Gourgues, a gentleman of Gascony, sold his property, and, by the aid of his friends, fitted out a fleet of three vessels, on which he embarked one hundred and fifty men with the purpose of destroying the Spaniards. De Gourgues captured the Spanish forts near the mouth of the St. Matheo, and hanged his prisoners, placing over them the inscription, "Not as Spaniards or mariners, but as traitors, robbers and assassins." Too weak to risk an attack from the Spaniards at St. Augustine, De Gourgues hastily sailed for home in May, 1568; and with his butchery closed the efforts of the French to possess themselves of the Floridas or Carolinas.*

*Mr. Parkman, in his "Pioneers of France in the New World," treats the subject of this chapter.