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and religion would be likely to restore his shattered character and bring him into favor again. His former crimes were to be washed out in the blood of the innocents. Moreover, the Catholic party at the French court had communicated with the Spanish court as to the whereabouts and intentions of the Huguenots, so that Melendez knew precisely where to find them and how to compass their destruction.

It was St. Augustine's day when the dastardly Spaniard came in sight of the shore, but the landing was not effected until the 2d of September. The spacious harbor and the small river which enters it from the south were named in honor of the saint. On the 8th day of the same month, Philip II. was proclaimed monarch of all North America; a solemn mass was said by the priests; and there, in the sight of forest, and sky, and sea, the foundation-stones of the oldest town in the United States were put into their place. This was seventeen years before the founding of Santa Fé by ANTONIO DE ESPEGO, and forty-two years before the settlement at Jamestown.

As soon as the new town was sufficiently advanced to be secure against accident, Melendez turned his attention to the Huguenots. The latter were expecting to be attacked, but had supposed that the Spanish fleet would sail up the St. John's, and make the onset from that direction. Accordingly, knowing that they must fight or die, all the French vessels except two left their covert in the river and put to sea, intending to anticipate the movements of the Spaniards; but a furious storm arose and dashed to pieces every ship in the fleet. Most of the crews, however, reached the shore just above the mouth of the river. Melendez now collected his forces at St. Augustine, stole through the woods and swamps, and falling unexpectedly on the defenceless colony, utterly destroyed it. Men, women and children were alike given up to butchery. Two hundred were killed outright. A few escaped into the forest, Laudonniere, the Huguenot leader, among the number, and making their way to the coast, were picked up by the two French ships which had been saved from the storm.

The crews of the wrecked vessels were the next object of Spanish vengeance. Melendez discovered their whereabouts, and deceiving them with treacherous promises of clemency, induced them to surrender. They were ferried across the river in boats; but no sooner were they completely in the power of their enemy than their hands were bound behind them, and they were driven off, tied two and two, toward St. Augustine. As they approached the Spanish fort the signal was given by sounding a trumpet, and the work of slaughter began anew. Seven hundred defenceless victims were added to the previous atrocious massacre. Only a few

mechanics and Catholic servants were left alive. Under these bloody auspices the first permanent European colony was planted in our country. In what way the Huguenots were revenged upon their enemies will be told in another place.

The Spaniards had now explored the entire coast from the Isthmus of Darien to Port Royal in South Carolina. They were acquainted with the country west of the Mississippi as far north as New Mexico and Missouri, and east of that river they had traversed the Gulf States as far as the mountain ranges of Tennessee and North Carolina. With the establishment of their first permanent colony on the coast of Florida the period of Spanish voyage and discovery may be said to end.

Before closing this chapter, a brief account of the only important voyage made by the Portuguese to America will be given: At the time. of the first discovery by Columbus, the unambitious John II. was king of Portugal. He paid but little attention to the New World, preferring the security and dullness of his own capital to the splendid allurements of the Atlantic. In 1495 he was succeeded on the throne by his cousin Manuel, a man of very different character. This monarch could hardly forgive his predecessor for having allowed Spain to snatch from the flag of Portugal the glory of Columbus's achievements. In order to secure some of the benefits which yet remained, King Manuel fitted out two vessels, and in the summer of 1501 commissioned GASPAR CORTEREAL to sail on a voyage of discovery. The Portuguese vessels reached America in the month of July, and beginning at some point on the shores of Maine, sailed northward, exploring the coast for nearly seven hundred miles. Just below the fiftieth parallel of latitude Cortereal met the icebergs, and could go no farther. Little attention was paid by him to the great forests of pine and hemlock which stood tall and silent along the shore, promising ship-yards and cities in after times. He satisfied his rapacity by kidnapping fifty Indians, whom, on his return to Portugal, he sold as slaves. A new voyage was then undertaken, with the avowed purpose of capturing another cargo of natives for the slave-mart of Europe; but when a year went by, and no tidings arrived from the fleet, the brother of the Portuguese captain sailed in hope of finding the missing vessels. He also was lost, but in what manner has never been ascertained. The fate of the Cortereals and their slave-ships has remained one of the unsolved mysteries of the sea.

FRANCE

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NCE was not slow to profit by the discoveries of Columbus. As early as 1504 the fishermen of Normandy and Brittany began to ply their vocation on the banks of Newfoundland. A map of the Gulf of St. Lawrence was drawn by a Frenchman in the year 1506. Two years later some Indians were taken to France; and in 1518 the attention of Francis I. was turned to the colonization of the New World. Five years afterward a voyage of discovery and exploration was planned, and JOHN VERRAZZANI, a native of Florence, was commissioned to conduct the expedition. The special object had in view was to discover a north-west passage to Asia.

In the month of January, 1524, Verrazzani left the shores of Europe. His fleet consisted at first of four vessels; but three of them were damaged in a storm, and the voyage was undertaken with a single ship, called the Dolphin. For fifty days, through the buffetings of tempestuous weather, the courageous mariner held on his course, and on the 7th day of March discovered the main land in the latitude of Wilmington. He first sailed southward a hundred and fifty miles in the hope of finding a harbor, but found none. Returning northward, he finally anchored somewhere along the low sandy beach which stretches between the mouth of Cape Fear River and Pamlico Sound. Here he began a traffic with the natives. The Indians of this neighborhood were found to be a gentle and timid sort of creatures, unsuspicious and confiding. A half-drowned sailor who was washed ashore by the surf was treated with great kindness, and as soon as opportunity offered, permitted to return to the ship.

After a few days the voyage was continued toward the north. The whole coast of New Jersey was explored, and the hills marked as containing minerals. The harbor of New York was entered, and its safe and spacious waters were noted with admiration. At Newport, Rhode Island, Verrazzani anchored for fifteen days, and a trade was again opened with the Indians. Before leaving the place the French sailors repaid the confidence of the natives by kidnapping a child and attempting to steal a defenceless Indian girl.

Sailing from Newport, Verrazzani continued his explorations north

ward. The long and broken line of the New England coast was traced with considerable care. The Indians of the north were wary and suspicious. They would buy neither ornaments nor toys, but were eager to purchase knives and weapons of iron. Passing to the east of Nova Scotia, the bold navigator reached Newfoundland in the latter part of May. In July he returned to France and published an account, still extant, of his great discoveries. The name of New France was now given to the whole country whose sea-coast had been traced by the adventurous crew of the Dolphin.

Such was the distracted condition of France at this time, that another expedition was not planned for a period of ten years. In 1534, however, Chabot, admiral of the kingdom, selected JAMES CARTIER, a seaman of St. Malo, in Brittany, to make a new voyage to America. Two ships were fitted out for the enterprise, and after no more than twenty days of sailing under cloudless skies anchored on the 10th day of May off the coast of Newfoundland. Before the middle of July, Cartier had circumnavigated the island to the northward, crossed the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the south of Anticosti, and entered the Bay of Chaleurs. Not finding, as he had hoped, a passage out of this bay westward, he changed his course to the north again, and ascended the coast as far as Gaspé Bay. Here, upon a point of land, he set up a cross bearing a shield with the lily of France, and proclaimed the French king monarch of the country. Pressing his way still farther northward, and then westward, he entered the St. Lawrence, and ascended the broad estuary until the narrowing banks made him aware that he was in the mouth of a river. Cartier, thinking it impracticable to pass the winter in the New World, now turned his prows toward France, and in thirty days anchored his ships in the harbor of St. Malo.

So great was the fame of Cartier's first voyage that another was planned immediately. Three good ships were provided, and quite a number of young noblemen joined the expedition. Colonization rather than discovery was now the inspiring motive. The sails were set by zealous and excited crews, and on the 19th of May the new voyage was begun. This time there was stormy weather, yet the passage to Newfoundland was made by the 10th of August. It was the day of St. Lawrence, and the name of that martyr was accordingly given to the gulf, and afterward to the noble stream which enters it from the west. Sailing northward around Anticosti, the expedition proceeded up the river to the island of Orleans, where the ships were moored in a place of safety. Two Indians whom Cartier had taken with him to France in the previous year now gave information that higher up the river there was an important

town on the island of Hochelaga. Proceeding thither in his boats, the French captain found it as the Indians had said. A beautiful village lay there at the foot of a high hill in the middle of the island. Climbing to the top of the hill, Cartier, as suggested by the scene around him, named the island and town Mont-Real. The country was declared to belong by right of discovery to the king of France; and then the boats dropped down the river to the ships. During this winter twenty-five of Cartier's men were swept off by the scurvy, a malady hitherto unknown in Europe.

With the opening of spring, preparations were made to return to France. The terrible winter had proved too much for French enthusiasm. The emblem of Catholicism, bearing the arms of France, was again planted in the soil of the New World, and the homeward voyage began; but before the ships had left their anchorage, the kindly king of the Hurons, who had treated Cartier with so much generosity, was decoyed on board and carried off to die. On the 6th day of July the fleet reached St. Malo in safety; but by the accounts which Cartier published on his return the French were greatly discouraged. Neither silver nor gold had been found on the banks of the St. Lawrence; and what was a new world good for that had not silver and gold?

Francis of La Roque, lord of ROBERVAL, in Picardy, was the next to undertake the colonization of the countries discovered by the French. This nobleman, four years after Cartier's return from his second voyage, was commissioned by the court of France to plant a colony on the St. Lawrence. The titles of viceroy and lieutenant-general of New France were conferred upon him, and much other vainglorious ceremony attended his preparations for departure. The man, however, who was chiefly relied on to give character and direction to the proposed colony was no other than James Cartier. He only seemed competent to conduct the enterprise with any promise of success. His name was accordingly added to the list, and he was honored with the office of chief pilot and captaingeneral of the expedition.

The next thing to be done was to find material for the colony. This was a difficult task. The French peasants and mechanics were not eager to embark for a country which promised nothing better than savages and snow. Cartier's honest narrative about the resources of New France had left no room for further dreaming. So the work of enlisting volunteers went on slowly, until the government adopted the plan of opening the prisons of the kingdom and giving freedom to whoever would join the expedition. There was a rush of robbers, swindlers and murderers, and the lists were immediately filled. Only counterfeiters and traitors were denied the privilege of gaining their liberty in the New World.

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