ing accurate descriptions of the country; and James le Moyne, called De Morgues, an ingenious painter, was commissioned to execute colored drawings of the objects which might engage his curiosity. A voyage of sixty days brought the fleet, by the way of the Canaries and the Antilles, to the shores of Florida in June. The harbor of Port Royal, rendered gloomy by recollections of misery, was avoided; and, after searching the coast, and discovering places which were so full of amenity that melancholy itself could not but change its humor as it gazed, the followers of Calvin planted themselves on the banks of the river May, near St. John's bluff. They sung a psalm of thanksgiving, and gathered courage from acts of devotion. The fort now erected was named Carolina. The result of this attempt to procure for France immense dominions at the south of our republic through the agency of a Huguenot colony, has been very frequently narrated; it forms a dark picture of malignant and merciless bigotry.

The French were hospitably welcomed by the natives; a monument, bearing the arms of France, was crowned with laurels, and its base encircled with baskets of corn. What need is there of minutely relating the simple manners of the red men, the dissensions of rival tribes, the largesses offered to the strangers to secure their protection or their alliance, the improvident prodigality with which careless soldiers wasted the supplies of food; the certain approach of scarcity; the gifts and the tribute levied from the Indians by entreaty, menace, or force? By degrees the confidence of the red men was exhausted; they had welcomed powerful guests, who promised to become their benefactors, and who now robbed their humble granaries.

But the worst evil in the new settlement was the character of the emigrants. Though patriotism and religious enthusiasm had prompted the expedition, the inferior class of the colonists was a motley group of dissolute men. Mutinies were frequent. The men were mad with the passion for sudden wealth; and in December a party, under the pretence. of desiring to escape from famine, compelled Laudonnière to sign an order permitting their embarkation for New Spain. No sooner were they possessed of this apparent sanction of the

chief than they began a career of piracy against the Spaniards. The act of crime and temerity was soon avenged. The pirate vessel was taken, and most of the men disposed of as prisoners or slaves. The few that escaped in a boat sought shelter at Fort Carolina, where Laudonnière sentenced the ringleaders to death.

During these events the scarcity became extreme; and the friendship of the natives was forfeited by unprofitable severity. March of 1565 was gone, and there were no supplies from France; April passed away, and the expected recruits had not arrived; May brought nothing to sustain the hopes of the exiles, and they resolved to attempt a return to Europe. In August, Sir John Hawkins, the slave merchant, arrived from the West Indies. He came fresh from the sale of a cargo of Africans, whom he had kidnapped with signal ruthlessness; and he now displayed the most generous sympathy, not only furnishing a liberal supply of provisions, but relinquishing a vessel from his own fleet. The colony was on the point of embarking when sails were descried. Ribault had arrived to assume the command, bringing with him supplies of every kind, emigrants with their families, garden-seeds, implements of husbandry, and the various kinds of domestic animals. The French, now wild with joy, seemed about to acquire a home, and Calvinism to become fixed in the inviting regions of Florida.

But Spain had never abandoned her claim to that territory, where, if she had not planted colonies, she had buried many hundreds of her bravest sons. Should the proud Philip II. abandon a part of his dominions to France? Should he suffer his commercial monopoly to be endangered by a rival settlement in the vicinity of the West Indies? Should he permit the heresy of Calvinism to be planted in the neighborhood of his Catholic provinces? There had appeared at the Spanish court a commander well fitted for reckless acts. Pedro Melendez de Aviles, often, as a naval officer, encountering pirates, had become inured to acts of prompt and unsparing vengeance. He had acquired wealth in Spanish America, which was no school of benevolence, and his conduct there had provoked an inquiry, which, after a long arrest, ended in

his conviction. The heir of Melendez had been shipwrecked among the Bermudas; the father desired to return and search among the islands for tidings of his only son. Philip II. suggested the conquest and colonization of Florida; and in May, 1565, a compact was framed and confirmed by which Melendez, who desired an opportunity to retrieve his honor, was constituted the hereditary governor of a territory of almost unlimited extent.

On his part he stipulated, at his own cost, in the following May, to invade Florida with five hundred men; to complete its conquest within three years; to explore its currents and channels, the dangers of its coasts, and the depth of its havens; to establish a colony of at least five hundred persons, of whom one hundred should be married men; with twelve ecclesiastics, besides four Jesuits. He further engaged to introduce into his province all kinds of domestic animals and five hundred negro slaves. The sugar-cane was to become a staple of the country.

The king, in return, promised the undertaker various commercial immunities; the office of governor for life, with the right of naming his son-in-law as his successor; an estate of twenty-five square leagues in the immediate vicinity of the settlement; a salary of two thousand ducats, chargeable on the revenues of the province; and a fifteenth part of all royal perquisites.

Meantime, news arrived, as the French writers assert through the treachery of the court of France, that the Huguenots had made a plantation in Florida, and that Ribault was preparing to set sail with re-enforcements. The cry was raised that the heretics must be extirpated; and Melendez readily obtained the forces which he required. More than twenty-five hundred persons-soldiers, sailors, priests, Jesuits, married men with their families, laborers, and mechanics, and, with the exception of three hundred soldiers, all at the cost of Melendez-undertook the invasion. The trade-winds of July bore them rapidly across the Atlantic, but a tempest scattered the fleet on the way; it was with only one third part of his forces that Melendez reached the harbor of St. John in Porto Rico. But he esteemed celerity the secret of success; and,

refusing to await the arrival of the rest of his squadron, he sailed for Florida. It had been his design to explore the coast; to select a favorable site for a settlement; and, after constructing fortifications, to attack the French. On the twenty-eighth of August, the day which the customs of Rome have consecrated to the memory of one of the most eloquent sons of Africa, and one of the most venerated of the fathers of the church, he came in sight of Florida. For four days he sailed along the coast, uncertain where the French were established; on the fifth day he landed, and gathered from the Indians accounts of the Huguenots. At the same time he discovered a fine haven and beautiful river; and, remembering the saint on whose day he neared the coast, he gave to the harbor and to the stream the name of St. Augustine. Sailing then to the north, he espied a portion of the French fleet, and observed the road where they were anchored. The French demanded his name and objects. am Melendez of Spain," replied he; "sent with strict orders from my king to gibbet and behead all the Protestants in these regions. The Frenchman who is a Catholic I will spare; every heretic shall die." The French fleet, unprepared for action, cut its cables; the Spaniards, for some time, continued an ineffectual chase.

"I

At the hour of vespers, on the evening preceding the anniversary of the nativity of Mary, the Spaniards returned to the harbor of St. Augustine. At noonday of the festivalthat is, on the eighth of September-the governor went on shore to take possession of the continent in the name of his king. Philip II. was proclaimed monarch of all North America. The mass of Our Lady was performed, and the foundation of St. Augustine immediately laid. It is, by more than forty years, the oldest town in the union, east of the Mississippi.

Among the French it was debated whether they should improve their fortifications and await the approach of the Spaniards, or proceed to sea and attack their enemy. Against the advice of his officers, Ribault resolved upon the latter course. Hardly had he left the harbor for the open sea before there arose a fearful storm, which continued till October, and

wrecked every ship of the French fleet on the Florida coast. The vessels were dashed against the rocks about fifty leagues south of Fort Carolina; most of the men escaped with their lives.

The Spanish ships suffered, but not so severely; and the troops at St. Augustine were entirely safe. They knew that the French settlement was left in a defenceless state. Melendez led his men through the low land that divides the St. Augustine from the St. John's, and with a furious onset surprised the weak garrison, who had looked only toward the sea for the approach of danger. After a short contest, the Spaniards, on the twenty-first, became masters of the fort, and soldiers, women, children, the aged, the sick, were alike massacred. The Spanish account asserts that Melendez ordered women and young children to be spared; yet not till after the havoc had long been raging.

Nearly two hundred persons were killed. A few escaped into the woods, among them Laudonnière, Challus, and Le Moyne, who have related the horrors of the scene. But whither should they fly? Death met them in the woods; and the heavens, the earth, the sea, and men, all seemed conspired against them. Should they surrender, appealing to the sympathy of their conquerors? "Let us," said Challus, "trust in the mercy of God rather than of these men." A few gave themselves up, and were immediately put to death. The others, after the severest sufferings, found their way to the sea-side, and were received on board two small French vessels which had remained in the harbor.

The victory had been gained on the festival of St. Matthew; and hence the Spanish name of the river May. After the carnage, mass was said; a cross raised; and the site for a church selected, on ground still smoking with the blood of a peaceful colony.

The shipwrecked men were, in their turn, soon discovered. Melendez invited them to rely on his compassion; in a state of helpless weakness, wasted by their fatigues at sea, half famished, destitute of water and of food, they capitulated, and in successive divisions were ferried across the intervening river. As the captives stepped upon the opposite bank their hands

VOL. 1.-6