Читать книгу The Lily and the Totem; or, The Huguenots in Florida - William Gilmore Simms - Страница 3

Table of Contents

Introduction—The Huguenots—Their Condition in France—First Expedition for the New World, under the auspices of the Admiral Coligny, Conducted by John Ribault—Colony Established in Florida, and confided to the charge of Captain Albert.

The Huguenots, in plain terms, were the Protestants of France. They were a sect which rose very soon after the preaching of the Reformation had passed from Germany into the neighboring countries. In France, they first excited the apprehensions and provoked the hostility of the Roman Catholic priesthood, during the reign of Francis the First. This prince, unstable as water, and governed rather by his humors and caprices than by any fixed principles of conduct—wanting, perhaps, equally in head and heart—showed himself, in the outset of his career, rather friendly to the reformers. But they were soon destined to suffer, with more decided favorites, from the caprices of his despotism. He subsequently became one of their most cruel persecutors. The Huguenots were not originally known by this name. It does not appear to have been one of their own choosing. It was the name which distinguished them in the days of their persecution. Though frequently the subject of conjecture, its origin is very doubtful. Montluc, the Marshal, whose position at the time, and whose interests in the subject of religion were such as might have enabled him to know quite as well as any other person, confesses that the source and meaning of the appellation were unknown. It is suggested that the name was taken from the tower of one Hugon, or Hugo, at Tours, where the Protestants were in the habit of assembling secretly for worship. This, by many, is assumed to be the true origin of the word. But there are numerous etymologies besides, from which the reader may make his selection—all more or less plausibly contended for by the commentators. The commencement of a petition to the Cardinal Lorraine—“Huc nos venimus, serenissime princeps, &c.,” furnishes a suggestion to one set of writers. Another finds in the words “Heus quenaus,” which, in the Swiss patois, signify “seditious fellows,” conclusive evidence of the thing for which he seeks. Heghenen or Huguenen, a Flemish word, which means Puritans, or Cathari, is reasonably urged by Caseneuve, as the true authority; while Verdier tells us that they were so called from their being the apes or followers of John Hus—“les guenons de Hus;”—guenon being a young ape. This is ingenious enough without being complimentary. The etymology most generally received, according to Mr. Browning, (History of the Huguenots,) is that which ascribes the origin of the name to “the word Eignot, derived from the German Eidegenossen, q. e. federati. A party thus designated existed at Geneva; and it is highly probable that the French Protestants would adopt a term so applicable to themselves.” There are, however, sundry other etymologies, all of which seem equally plausible; but these will suffice, at least, to increase the difficulties of conjecture. Either will answer, since the name by which the child is christened is never expected to foreshadow his future character, or determine his career. The name of the Huguenots was probably bestowed by the enemies of the sect. It is in all likelihood a term of opprobrium or contempt. It will not materially concern us, in the scheme of the present performance, that we should reach any definite conclusion on this point. Their European history must be read in other volumes. Ours is but the American episode in their sad and protracted struggle with their foes and fortune. Unhappily, for present inquiry, this portion of their history attracted but too little the attention of the parent country. We are told of colonies in America, and of their disastrous termination, but the details are meagre, touched by the chronicler with a slight and careless hand; and, but for the striking outline of the narrative—the leading and prominent events which compelled record—it is one that we should pass without comment, and with no awakening curiosity. But the few terrible particulars which remain to us in the ancient summary, are of a kind to reward inquiry, and command the most active sympathies; and the melancholy outline of the Huguenots’ progress, in the New World, exhibits features of trial, strength and suffering, which render their career equally unique in both countries;—a dark and bloody history, involving details of strife, of enterprise, and sorrow, which denied them the securities of home in the parent land, and even the most miserable refuge from persecution in the wildernesses of a savage empire. Their European fortunes are amply developed in all the European chronicles. Our narrative relates wholly to those portions of their history which belong to America.

It is not so generally known that the colonies of the Huguenots, in the new world, were almost coeval with those of the Spaniards. They anticipated them in the northern portions of the continent. These settlements were projected by the active genius of the justly-celebrated French admiral, Gaspard de Coligny, one of the great leaders of the Huguenots in France. His persevering energies, impelled by his sagacious forethought, effected a beginning in the work of foreign colonization, which, unhappily for himself and party, he was not permitted to prosecute, with the proper vigor, to successful completion. His sagacity led him to apprehend, from an early experience of the character of the Queen-mother, in the bigoted and brutal reign of Charles the Ninth, that there would, in little time, be no safety in France for the dissenters from the established religion. The feebleness of the youthful Prince, the jealous and malignant character of Catharine—her utter faithlessness, and the hatred which she felt for the Protestants, which no pact could bind, and no concession mollify—to say nothing of the controlling will of Pius the Fifth, who had ascended the Papal throne, sworn to the extermination of all heresies—all combined to assure the Protestants of the dangers by which their cause was threatened. The danger was one of life as well as religion. It was in the destruction of the one, that the enemies of the Huguenots contemplated the overthrow of the other. Coligny was not the man to be deceived by the hollow compromises, the delusive promises, the false truces, which were all employed in turn to beguile him and his associates into confidence, and persuade them into the most treacherous snares. He combined a fair proportion of the cunning of the serpent with the dove’s purity, and, maintaining strict watch upon his enemies, succeeded, for a long period, in eluding the artifices by which he was overcome at last. Availing himself of the influence of his position, and of a brief respite from that open war which preceded the famous Edict of January, 1562, by which the Huguenots were admitted, with some restrictions, to the exercise of their religion, Coligny addressed himself to the task of establishing a colony of Protestants in America. He readily divined the future importance, to his sect, of such a place of refuge. The moment was favorable to his objects. The policy of the Queen-mother was not yet sufficiently matured, to render it proper that she should oppose herself to his desires. Perhaps, she also conceived the plan a good one, which should relieve the country of a race whom she equally loathed and dreaded.[1] It is possible that she did not fully conjecture the ultimate calculations of the admiral. The king, himself, was a minor, entirely in her hands, who could add nothing to her counsels, or, for the present, interfere with her authority; and, without seeking farther to inquire by what motives she was governed in according to Coligny the permission which he sought, it is enough that he obtained the necessary sanction. Of this he readily availed himself. It was not, by the way, his first attempt at colonization. Having in view the same objects by which he was governed in the present instance, he had, in 1555, sent out an expedition to Brazil under Villegagnon. This enterprise had failed through the perfidy of that commander. Its failure did not discourage the admiral. Though the full character of Catharine had not developed itself, in all its cruel and heartless characteristics, it was yet justly understood by him, and he never suffered himself to forget how necessary to the sect which he represented was the desired haven of security which he sought, in a region beyond her influence.

From Brazil he turned his eyes on Florida. This terra incognita, at the period of which we speak, was El Dorado to the European imagination. It was the New Empire, richer than Peru or Mexico, in which adventurers as daring as Cortes and Pizarro were to compass realms of as great magnificence and wealth. Already had the Spaniard traversed it with his iron-clad warriors, seeking vainly, and through numberless perils, for the treasure which he worshipped. Still other treasures had won the imagination of one of their noblest knights; and in exploring the wild realm of the Floridian for the magical fountain which was to restore youth to the heart of age, and a fresh bloom to its withered aspect, Ponce de Leon pursued one of the loveliest phantoms that ever deluded the fancy or the heart of man. To him had succeeded others; all seeking, in turn, the realization of those unfruitful visions which, like wandering lights of the swamp forest, only glitter to betray. Vasquez d’Ayllon, John Verazzani, Pamphilo de Narvaez, and the more brilliant cavalier than all, Hernando de Soto, had each penetrated this land of hopes and fancies, to deplore in turn its disappointments and delusions. With the wildest desires in their hearts, they had disdained the merely possible within their reach. They had sought for possessions such as few empires have been known to yield; and had failed to see, or had beheld with scorn, the simple treasures of fruit and flower which the country promised and proffered in abundance. This vast region, claimed equally by Spain, France, and England, still lay derelict. “Death,” as one of our own writers very happily remarks, “seemed to guard the avenues of the country.” None of the great realms which claimed it as their domain, regarded it in any light but as a territory which they might ravage. Yet, well might its delicious climate, the beauty of its groves and forests, the sweets of its flowers, which beguiled the senses of the ocean pilgrim a score of leagues from land—to say nothing of the supposed wealth of its mountains, and of the great cities hid among their far recesses—have persuaded the enterprise, and implored the prows of enterprise and adventure. To these attractions the previous adventurers had not wholly shown themselves insensible. Ponce de Leon, enraptured with its rich and exquisite vegetation, as seen in the spring season of the year, first conferred upon it the name of beauty, which it bears. Nor, had he not been distracted by baser objects, would he have failed utterly to discover the salubrious fountains which he sought. Here were met natives, who, quaffing at medicinal streams by which the country was everywhere watered, grew to years which almost rival those of the antediluvian fathers. Verazzani, the Florentine, unfolds a golden chronicle of the innocence and delight which distinguished the simple people by whom the territory was possessed, and whose character was derived from the gentle influences of their climate, and the exquisite delicacy, beauty, and variety of the productions of the soil. He, too, had visited the country in the season of spring, when all things in nature look lovely to the eye. But such verdure as blessed his vision on this occasion, constituted a new era in his life, and seemed to lift him to the crowning achievement of all his enterprises. The region, as far his eye could reach, was covered with “faire fields and plaines,” “full of mightie great woodes,” “replenished with divers sort of trees, as pleasant and delectable to behold as is possible to imagine;”—“Not,” says the voyager, “like the woodes of Hercynia or the wilde deserts of Tartary, and the northerne coasts full of fruitlesse trees,” but “trees of sortes unknowen in Europe, which yeeld most sweete savours farre from the shoare.” Nor did these constitute the only attractions. The appearance of the forests and the land “argued drugs and spicery,” “and other riches of golde.”

The woods were “full of many beastes, as stags, deere and hares, and likewise of lakes and pooles of fresh water, with great plentie of fowles, convenient for all kinde of pleasant game.” The air was “goode and wholesome, temperate between hot and colde;” “no vehement windes doe blowe in these regions, and those that do commonly reigne are the southwest and west windes in the summer season;” “the skye cleare and faire, with very little raine; and if, at any time, the ayre be cloudie and mistie with the southerne winde, immediately it is dissolved and waxeth cleare and faire againe. The sea is calme, not boisterous, and the waves gentle.” And the people were like their climate. The nature which yielded to their wants, without exacting the toil of ever-straining sinews, left them unembittered by necessities which take the heart from youth, and the spirit from play and exercise. No carking cares interfered with their humanity to check hospitality in its first impulse, and teach avarice to withhold the voluntary tribute which the natural virtues would prompt, in obedience to a selfishness that finds its justification in serious toils which know no remission, and a forethought that is never permitted to forget the necessities of the coming day. Verazzani found the people as mild and grateful as their climate. They crowded to the shore as the stranger ships drew nigh, “making divers synes of friendship.” They showed themselves “very courteous and gentle,” and, in a single incident, won the hearts of the Europeans, who seldom, at that period, in their intercourse with the natives, were known to exhibit an instance so beautiful, of a humanity so Christian. A young sailor, attempting to swim on shore, had overrated his strength. Cast among the breakers, he was in danger of being drowned. This, when the Indians saw, they dashed into the surf, and dragged the fair-skinned voyager to land. Here, when he recovered from his stupor, he exhibited signs of the greatest apprehension, finding himself in the hands of the savages. But his lamentations, which were piteously loud, only provoked theirs. Their tears flowed at his weeping. In this way they strove to “cheere him, and to give him courage.” Nor were they neglectful of other means. “They set him on the ground, at the foot of a little hill against the sunne, and began to behold him with great admiration, marveiling at the whitenesse of his fleshe;” “Putting off his clothes, they made him warme at a great fire, not without one great feare, by what remayned in the boate, that they would have rosted him at that fire and have eaten him.” But the fear was idle. When they had warmed and revived the stranger, they reclothed him, and as he showed an anxiety to return to the ship, “they, with great love, clapping him fast about with many embracings,” accompanied him to the shore, where they left him, retiring to a distance, whence they could witness his departure without awakening the apprehensions of his comrades. These people were of “middle stature, handsome visage and delicate limmes; of very little strength, but of prompt wit.”

We need not pursue the details of these earlier historians. They suffice to direct attention to Florida, and to persuade adventure with fanciful ideas of its charming superiority over all unknown regions. But the adventurers, until Coligny’s enterprise was conceived, meditated the invasion of the country, and the gathering of its hidden treasures, rather than the establishment of any European settlements in its glorious retreats. It was not till the eighteenth day of February, in the Year of Grace, one thousand five hundred and sixty-two, that the plan of the Admiral of France was sufficiently matured for execution. On that day he despatched two vessels from France, well manned and furnished, under the command of one John Ribault,[2] for the express purpose of making the first permanent European establishment in these regions of romance. The narrative of this enterprise is chiefly drawn from the writings of René Laudonniere, who himself went out as a lieutenant in the expedition. Laudonniere, in his narrative of their progress, says nothing of the secret objects of Coligny, of which he probably knew nothing. He ascribes to the King—the Queen-mother, rather—a nobler policy than either of them ever entertained. “My Lord of Chastillon,” (Coligny) thus he writes—“A nobleman more desirous of the publique than of his private benefits, understanding the pleasure of the King, his Prince, which was to discover new and strange countries, caused vessels for this purpose to be made ready with all diligence, and men to be levied meet for such an enterprise.”

This is merely courtly language, wholly conventional, and which, spoken of Charles the Ninth—a boy not yet in his teens—savors rather of the ridiculous. There is no question that the expedition originated wholly with Coligny; as little is it questionable, though Laudonniere says nothing on this subject, that it was designed in consequence of that policy which showed him the ever present danger of the Huguenots. It does not militate against this policy that he made use of a pretext which was suggested by the passion for maritime discovery common in those days. By the assertion of this pretext, he was the more easily enabled to persuade the Queen-mother to a measure upon which she otherwise would never have suffered the ships of the Huguenots to weigh anchor.

But this question need not detain us. Laudonniere speaks of the armament as ample for the purpose for which it was designed—“so well furnished with gentlemen and with oulde souldiers that he (Ribault) had meanes to achieve some notable thing, and worthie of eternall memorie.” This was an exaggeration, something Spanish in its tenor—one of those flourishes of rhetoric among the voyagers of that day, which had already grown to be a sound without much signification. The vessels were small, as was the compliment of men dispatched. The objects of the expedition were limited, did not contemplate exploration but settlement, and, consequently, were not likely to find opportunity for great enterprises. The voyage occupied two months; the route pursued carefully avoided that usually taken by the Spaniards, whom already our adventurers had cause to fear. At the end of this period, land was made in the latitude of St. Augustine, to the cape of which they gave the name of St. François. From this point, coasting northwardly, they discovered “a very faire and great river”—the San Matheo of the Spaniards, now the St. John’s, to which Ribault, as he discovered it on the first of May, gave the name of that month. This river he penetrated in his boats. He was met on the shore by many of the natives, men and women. These received him with gentleness and peace. Their chief man made an oration, and honored Ribault, at the close, with a present of “chamois skinnes.” On the ensuing day, he “caused a pillar of hard stone to be planted within the sayde river, and not farre from the mouth of the same, upon a little sandie knappe,” on which the arms of France were engraved. Crossing to the opposite shores of this river, a religious service was performed in the presence of the Indians. There the red-men, perhaps for the first time, beheld the pure and simple rites of the genuine Christian. Prayers were said, and thanks given to the Deity, “for that, of his grace, hee had conducted the French nation into these strange places.” This service being ended, the Indians conducted the strangers into the presence of their king,[3] who received them in a sitting posture, upon a couch made of bay leaves and palmetto. Speeches were made between the parties which were understood by neither. But their tenor was amicable, the savage chieftain giving to Ribault, at parting, a basket wrought very ingeniously of palm leaves, “and a great skinne painted and drawen throughout with the pictures of divers wilde beastes; so livly drawen and portrayed that nothing lacked life.” Fish were taken for the Frenchmen by the hospitable natives, in weirs made of reeds, fashioned like a maze or labyrinth—“troutes, great mullets, plaise, turbots, and marvellous store of other sorts of fishes altogether different from ours.” Another chief upon this river received them with like favors. Two of the sons of this chief are represented as “exceeding faire and strong.” They were followed by troops of the natives, “having their bowes and arrowes, in marveilous good order.”

From this river, still pursuing a northwardly course, Ribault came to another which he explored and named the Seine, (now the St. Mary’s,) because it appeared to resemble the river of that name in France.[4] We pass over the minor details in this progress—how he communed with the natives—who, everywhere seemed to have entertained our Huguenots with equal grace and gentleness, and who are described as a goodly people, of lively wit and great stature. Ribault continued to plant columns, and to take possession of the country after the usual forms, conferring names upon its several streams, which he borrowed for the purpose from similar well-known rivers in France. Thus, for a time, the St. Mary’s became the Seine; the Satilla, the Somme; the Altamaha, the Loire; the Ogechee, the Garonne; and the Savannah, the Gironde. The river to which his prows were especially directed, was that to which the name of Jordan had been given by Vasquez de Ayllon, some forty years before. This is our present Combahee. In sailing north, in this search, other smaller rivers were discovered, one of which was called the Belle-a-veoir. Separated by a furious tempest from his pinnaces, which had been kept in advance for the purpose of penetrating and exploring these streams, Ribault, with his ships, was compelled to stand out to sea. When he regained the coast and his pinnaces, he was advised of a “mightie river,” in which they had found safe harborage from the tempest, a river which, “in beautie and bignesse” exceeded all the former. Delighted with this discovery, our Huguenots made sail to reach this noble stream.

The object of Ribault had been some safe and pleasant harborage, in which his people could refresh themselves for a season. His desires were soon gratified. He cast anchor at the mouth of a mighty river, to which, “because of the fairnesse and largenesse thereoff,” he gave the name of Port Royale, the name which it still bears. The depth of this river is such, that, according to Laudonniere, “when the sea beginneth to flowe, the greatest shippes of France, yea, the argosies of Venice, may enter there.” Ribault, at the head of his soldiers, was the first to land. Grateful, indeed, to the eye and fancy of our Frenchmen, was the scene around them. They had already passed through a fairy-like region, of islet upon islet, reposing upon the deep—crowned with green forests, and arresting, as it were, the wild assaults of ocean upon the shores of which they appeared to keep watch and guard. And, passing between these islets and the main, over stillest waters, with a luxuriant shrubbery on either hand, and vines and flowers of starred luxuriance trailing about them to the very lips of this ocean, they had arrived at an imperial growth of forest. The mighty shafts that rose around them, heavy with giant limbs, and massed in their luxuriant wealth of leaves, particularly impressed the minds of our voyagers—“mightye high oakes and infinite store of cedars,” and pines fitted for the masts of “such great ammirals” as had never yet floated in the European seas. Their senses were assailed with fresh and novel delights at every footstep. The superb magnolia, with its great and snow-white chalices; the flowering dogwood with its myriad blossoms, thick and richly gleaming as the starry host of heaven; the wandering jessamine, whose yellow trophies, mingling with grey mosses of the oak, stooped to the upward struggling billows of the deep, giving out odor at every rise and fall of the ambitious wavelet—these, by their unwonted treasures of scent and beauty, compelled the silent but profound admiration of the strangers. “Exceeding pleasant” did the “very fragrant odour” make the place; while other novelties interposed to complete the fascinations of a spot, the peculiarities of which were equally fresh and delightful. Their farther acquaintance with the country only served to increase its attractions. As they wandered through the woods, they “saw nothing but turkey cocks flying in the forests, partridges, gray and red, little different from ours, but chiefly in bignesse;”—“we heard also within the woods the voices of stagges, of beares, of hyenas, of leopards, and divers other sorts of beasts unknown to us. Being delighted with this place, we set ourselves to fishing with nets, and caught such a number of fish that it was wonderful.”

The same region is still renowned for its fish and game, for the monsters as well as the multitudes of the deep, and for the deer of its spacious swamps and forests, which still exercise the skill and enterprise of the angler and the hunter. This is the peculiar region also, of the “Devil fish,” the “Vampire of the Ocean,” described by naturalists as of the genus Ray, species Dio-don, a leviathan of the deep, whose monstrous antennæ are thrown about the skiff of the fisherman with an embrace as perilous as that wanton sweep of his mighty extremities with which the whale flings abroad the crowding boats of his hardy captors. Sea and land, in this lovely neighborhood, still gleam freshly and wondrously upon the eye of the visitor as in the days of our Huguenot adventurers; and still do its forests, in spite of the cordon which civilization and society have everywhere drawn around them, harbor colonies of the bear which occasionally cross the path of the sportsman, and add to his various trophies of the chase.

With impressions of the scene and region such as realized to our Frenchmen the summer glories of an Arabian tale, it was easy to determine where to plant their colony. Modern conjecture, however, is still unsatisfied as to the site which was probably chosen by our voyagers. The language of Laudonniere is sufficiently vague and general to make the matter doubtful; and, unhappily, there are no remains which might tend to lessen the obscurity of the subject. The vessels had cast anchor at the mouth of Port Royal River. The pilots subsequently counselled that they should penetrate the stream, so as to secure a sheltered roadstead. They ascended the river accordingly, some three leagues from its mouth, when Ribault proceeded to make a closer examination of the country. The Port Royal “is divided into two great armes, whereof the one runneth toward the west, the other toward the north.” Our Huguenot captain chose the western avenue, which he ascended in his pinnace. For more than twelve leagues he continued this progress, until he “found another arme of the river which ranne towards the east, up which the captain determined to sail and leave the greate current.”

The red men whom they encounter on this progress are at first shy of the strangers and take flight at their approach, but they are soon encouraged by the gentleness and forbearance of the Frenchmen, who persuade them finally to confidence. An amiable understanding soon reconciles the parties, and the Floridian at length brings forward his gifts of maize, his palm baskets with fruits and flowers, his rudely-dressed skins of bear and beaver, and these are pledges of his amity which he does not violate. He, in turn, persuades the voyagers to draw near to the shore and finally to land. They are soon surrounded by the delighted and simple natives, whose gifts are multiplied duly in degree with the pleasure which they feel. Skins of the chamois—deer rather—and baskets of pearls, are offered to the chief among the whites, whom they proceed to entertain with shows of still greater courtesy. A bower of forest leaves and shrubs is soon built to shelter them “from the parching heate of the sunne,” and our Frenchmen lingered long enough among this artless and hospitable people to get tidings of a “greate Indian Lorde which had pearles in great abundance and silver also, all of which should be given them at the king’s arrival.” They invited the strangers to their dwellings—proffering to show them a thousand pleasures in shooting, and seeing the death of the stag.

Our Huguenots, excellent Christians though they were, were by no means insensible to the tidings of pearl and gold. These glimpses of treasures, already familiar to their imaginations, greatly increase, in their sight, the natural beauties of the country. The narratives of the red men, imperfectly understood, and construed by the desires of the strangers, rather than their minds, were full of marvels of neighboring lands and nations—great empires of wealth and strength—cities in romantic solitudes—high places among almost inaccessible mountains, in which the treasures are equally precious and abundant. Listening to such legends, our Frenchmen linger with the red men, until the approach of night counsels them to seek the security of their ships.

But, with the dawning of the following day the explorations were resumed. Before leaving his vessel, however, Ribault provides himself with “a pillar of hard stone, fashioned like a column, whereon the armes of France were graven,” with the purpose of planting “the same in the fairest place that he coulde finde.” “This done, we embarked ourselves, and sayled three leagues towards the west; where we discovered a little river, up which wee sayled so long, that, in the ende, wee found it returned into the great current, and in his return, to make a little island separated from the firme lande, where wee went on shore, and by commandment of the captain, because it was exceeding faire and pleasant, there we planted the pillar upon a hillock open round about to the view and environed with a lake halfe a fathom deepe, of very good and sweete water.”

We are particular in these details, in the hope that future explorers may be thus assisted in the work of identifying the places marked by our Huguenots. Everything which they see in the new world which surrounds them, is imposing to the eye and grateful to the sense. They wander among avenues of gigantic pines that remind them of the mighty colonnades in the great cathedrals of the old world. They are at once exhilarated by a sense of unwonted freshness and beauty in what they behold, and by aspects of grandeur and vastness which solemnize all their thoughts and fancies. With these feelings, when, in their wanderings, they arouse from the shady covers where they browsed “two stagges of exceeding bignesse, in respect of those which they had seene before,” their captain forbids that they should shoot them, though they might easily have done so. The anecdote speaks well for Ribault’s humanity. It was not wholly because he was “moved with the singular fairenesse and bignesse of them,” as Laudonniere imagines, but because his soul was lifted with religious sentiment—filled with worship at that wondrous temple of nature in which the great Jehovah seemed visibly present, in love and mercy, as in the first sweet days of the creation.

To the little river which surrounded the islet, on which the pillar was raised, they gave the name of “Liborne.” The island itself is supposed to be that which is now called Lemon Island. The matter is one which still admits of doubt, though scarcely beyond the reach of certainty, in a close examination from the guide posts which we still possess. It is a question which may well provoke the diligence of the local antiquary. “Another isle, not far distant from” that of the pillar, next claimed the attention of the voyagers. Here they “found nothing but tall cedars, the fairest that were seene in this country. For this cause wee called it the Isle of Cedars.”

This ended their exploration for the day. A few days were consumed in farther researches, without leading to any new discoveries. In the meantime, Ribault prepared to execute the commands of his sovereign, in the performance of one of the tasks which civilization but too frequently sanctions at the expense of humanity. He was commanded by the Queen-mother to capture and carry home to France a couple of the natives. These, as we have seen, were a mild race, maintaining among themselves a gentle intercourse, and exercising towards strangers a grateful hospitality. It was with a doubtful propriety that our Frenchman determined to separate any of them from their homes and people. But it was not for Ribault to question the decrees of that sovereign whom it was the policy of the Huguenots, at present, to conciliate. Having selected a special and sufficient complement of soldiers, he determined “to returne once againe toward the Indians which inhabiteth that arme of the river which runneth toward the West.” The pinnace was prepared for this purpose. The object of the voyage was successful. The Indians were again found where they had been at first encountered. The Frenchmen were received with hospitality. Ribault made his desires known to the king or chief of the tribe, who graciously gave his permission. Two of the Indians, who fancied that they were more favored than the rest of their brethren, by the choice of the Frenchmen, yielded very readily to the entreaties which beguiled them on board one of the vessels. They probably misunderstood the tenor of the application; or, in their savage simplicity, concluded that a voyage to the land of the pale-faces was only some such brief journey as they were wont to make, in their cypress canoes, from shore to shore along their rivers—or possibly as far down as the great frith in which their streams were lost. But it was not long before our savage voyagers were satisfied with the experiment. They soon ceased to be pleased or flattered with the novelty of their situation. The very attentions bestowed upon them only provoked their apprehensions. The cruise wearied them; and, when they found that the vessels continued to keep away from the land, they became seriously uneasy. Born swimmers, they had no fear about making the shore when once in the water: and it required the utmost vigilance of the Frenchmen to keep them from darting overboard. It was in vain, for a long time, that they strove to appease and to soothe the unhappy captives. Their detention, against their desires, now made them indignant. Gifts were pressed upon them, such as they were known to crave and to esteem above all other possessions. But these they rejected with scorn. They would receive nothing in exchange for their liberty. The simple language in which the old chronicler describes the scene and their sorrows, has in it much that is highly touching, because of its very simplicity. They felt their captivity, and were not to be beguiled from this humiliating conviction by any trappings or soothings. Their freedom—the privilege of eager movements through billow and forest—sporting as wantonly as bird and fish in both—was too precious for any compensation. They sank down upon the deck, with clasped hands, sitting together apart from the crew, gazing upon the shores with mournful eyes, and chaunting a melancholy ditty, which seemed to the watchful and listening Frenchmen a strain of exile and lamentation—“agreeing so sweetly together, that, in hearing their song, it seemed that they lamented the absence of their friendes.” And thus they continued all night to sing without ceasing.

The pinnace, meanwhile, lay at anchor, the tide being against them; with the dawn of day the voyage was resumed, and the ships were reached in safety where they lay in the roadstead. Transferred to these, the two captives continued to deplore their fate. Every effort was made to reconcile them to their situation, and nothing was withheld which experience had shown to be especially grateful to the savage fancy. But they rejected everything; even the food which had now become necessary to their condition. They held out till nearly sunset, in their rejection of the courtesies, which, with a show of kindness, deprived them of the most precious enjoyment and passion of their lives. But the inferior nature at length insisted upon its rights. “In the end they were constrained to forget their superstitions,” and to eat the meat which was set before them. They even received the gifts which they had formerly rejected; and, as if reconciled to a condition from which they found it impossible to escape, they put on a more cheerful countenance. “They became, therefore, more jocunde; every houre made us a thousand discourses, being marveillous sorry that we could not understand them.” Laudonniere set himself to work to acquire their language. He strove still more to conciliate their favor; engaged them in frequent conversation; and, by showing them the objects for which he sought their names, picked up numerous words which he carefully put on paper. In a few days he was enabled to make himself understood by them, in ordinary matters, and to comprehend much that they said to him. They flattered him in turn. They told him of their feats and sports, and what pleasures they could give him in the chase. They would take food from no hands but his; and succeeded in blinding the vigilance of the Frenchmen. They were not more reconciled to their prison-bonds than before. They had simply changed their policy; and, when, after several days’ detention, they had succeeded in lulling to sleep the suspicions of their captors, they stole away at midnight from the ship, leaving behind them all the gifts which had been forced upon them, as if, to have retained them, would have established, in the pale-faces, a right to their liberties—thus showing, according to Laudonniere, “that they were not void of reason.”

Ribault was not dissatisfied with this result of his endeavor to comply with the commands of the Queen-mother. His sense of justice probably revolted at the proceeding; and the escape of the Indians, who would report only the kindness of their treatment, would, in all likelihood, have an effect favorable to his main enterprise—the establishment of a colony. This design he now broached to his people in an elaborate speech. He enlarged upon the importance of the object, drawing numerous examples from ancient and modern history, in favor of those virtues in the individual which such enterprise must develope. There is but one passage in this speech which deserves our special attention. It is that in which he speaks to his followers of their inferior birth and condition. He speaks to them as “known neither to the king nor to the princes of the realme, and, besides, descending from so poore a stock, that few or none of your parents, having ever made profession of armes, have beene knowne unto the great estates.” This is in seeming conflict with what Laudonniere has already told us touching the character and condition in society of the persons employed in the expedition. He has been careful to say, at the opening of the narrative, that the two ships were “well furnished with gentlemen (of whose number I was one) and old soldiers.”[5] The apparent contradiction may be reconciled by a reference to the distinction, which, until a late period, was made in France, between the noblesse and mere gentlemen. The word gentleman had no such signification, in France, at that period, as it bears to-day. To apply it to a nobleman, indeed, would have been, at one time, to have given a mortal affront, and a curious anecdote is on record, to this effect in the case of the Princess de la Roche Sur Yon, who, using the epithet “gentilhomme” to a nobleman, was insulted by him; and, on demanding redress of the monarch, was told that she deserved the indignity, having been guilty of the first offence.

But Ribault’s speech suggested to his followers that their inferior condition made nothing against their heroism. He, himself, though a soldier by profession, from his tenderest years, had never yet been able to compass the favor of the nobility. Yet he had applied himself with all industry, and hazarded his life in many dangers. It was his misfortune that “more regard is had to birth than virtue.” But this need not discourage them, as it has never discouraged him from the performance of his duties. The great examples of history are in his eyes, and should be in theirs.

“Howe much then ought so many worthy examples move you to plant here? Considering, also, that hereby you shall be registered forever as the first that inhabited this strange country. I pray you, therefore, all to advise yourselves thereof, and to declare your mindes freely unto me, protesting that I will so well imprint your names in the King’s eares, and the other princes, that your renowne shall hereafter shine unquenchable through our realm of France.”

Ribault was evidently not insensible to fame. Had his thoughts been those of his sovereign, also, how different would have been the history! His soldiers responded in the proper spirit, and declared their readiness to establish a colony in the wild empire, the grandeur and beauty of which had already commended it to their affections. Delighted with the readiness and enthusiasm of his men, he weighed anchor the very next day, in order to seek out the place most fit and convenient for his settlement. “Having sayled up the great river on the north side, in coasting an isle which ended with a sharpe point toward the mouth of the river;—having sailed awhile he discovered a small river which entered into the islande, which hee would not faile to search out, which done, he found the same deep enough to harbour therein gallies and galliots in good number. Proceeding farther, he found an open place joyning upon the brinke thereof, where he went on land, and seeing the place fit to build a fortresse in, and commodious for them that were willing to plant there, he resolved incontinently to cause the bignesse of the fortification to be measured out.” The colony was to be a small one. Twenty-six persons had volunteered to establish it; as many, perhaps, as had been called for. The dimensions of the fort were small accordingly. They were taken by Laudonniere, and one Captain Salles, under Ribault’s directions. The fort was at once begun. Its length was sixteen fathoms, its breadth thirteen, “with flanks according to the proportion thereof.” Then, for the first time, the European axe was laid to the great shafts of the forest trees of America, waking sounds, at every stroke, whose echoes have been heard for three hundred years, sounding, and destined to resound, from the Atlantic to the Pacific seas; leaving no waste of wood and wild, unawakened by this first music of civilization.

The site thus chosen by Ribault for his colony, though no traces have been left of the labor of his hands, is scarcely doubtful to the present possessors of the country. All the proofs concur in placing Fort Charles somewhere between North Edisto and Broad River, and circumstances determine this situation to be that of the beautiful little town of Beaufort, in South Carolina. The Grande Riviere of the French is our Broad River.[6] It was at the mouth of this river, in an island with a safe and commodious port, that the fort was established; and of the numerous islands which rise everywhere along the coast in this region, as a fortress to defend the verdant shores from the assaults of ocean, there is none which answers so well as this all the requisitions of this description. Besides, it is actually in the very latitude of the site, as given by Laudonniere; and the tradition of the Indians, as preserved by our own people, seems to confirm and to conclude the conjectures on this subject. They state that the first place in which they saw the pale faces of the Europeans was at Coosawhatchie, in South Carolina. Now, the Coosawhatchie is the principal stream that forms the Grande Riviere of the Frenchmen; and was, questionless, the first of the streams that was penetrated by the pinnace of Ribault. It is highly probable that it bore the name of Coosawhatchie through its entire course, until it emptied itself into the ocean. The testimony of the Indians, based simply upon their tradition, is of quite as much value as that of any other people. It is well known with what tenacity they preserve the recollection of important events, and with what singular adherence to general truthfulness. The island upon which Beaufort now stands was most probably that which yielded the first American asylum to the Huguenots of France!

Our Frenchmen travailed so diligently that, in a short space, the fortress was in some sort prepared for the colonists. It was soon in a defensible condition. “Victuals and warlike munition” were transferred from the shipping to the shore, and the garrison were furnished with all things necessary for the maintenance of their fortress and themselves. The fort was christened by the name of Charles, the King of France; while the small river upon which it was built received the name of Chenonceau. All things being provided, the colonists marched into their little and lovely place of refuge. They were confided to the charge of one Captain Albert, to whom, and to whose followers, Ribault made a speech at parting. His injunctions were of a parental and salutary character. He exhorted their Captain to justice, firmness and moderation in his rule, and his people to obedience; promising to return with supplies from France, and reinforcements before their present resources should fail them. But these exhortations do not seem to have been much regarded by either party. It will be for us, in future chapters, to pursue their fortunes, and to pluck, if possible, from the unwritten history, the detailed events of their melancholy destiny. Sad enough will it have been, even if no positive evil shall befall them—that severance from their ancient comrades—that separation from the old homes of their fathers in La Belle France—that lonesome abode, on the verge of “ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,” on the one hand, and the dense, dark, repelling forests of Apalachia on the other;—doubtful of all they see—in spite of all that is fresh and charming in their sight;—apprehensive of every sound that reaches them from the wilderness—and filled with no better hope than that which springs up in the human bosom when assured that all hope is cut off—that one hope excepted, which is born of necessity, and which blossoms amid the nettles of despair. The isolation was the more oppressive and likely to be grievous, as we have reason to doubt that, though founding a colony for the refuge of a religious and persecuted people, they brought any becoming sense of religion with them. Our progress thus far with the adventurers has shown us but few proofs of the presence among them of any feelings of devotion. Ribault himself was but a soldier, and his ambition was of an earthly complexion. Had they been elevated duly by religion, they would have been counselled and strengthened in the solitude by God. Unhappily, they were men only, rude, untaught, and full of selfish passions—badly ruled and often ill-treated, and probably giving frequent provocation to the pride and passions of those who had them under rule. But they began their career in the New World with sufficient cheerfulness. Its climate was delicious, like that of their own country. Its woods and forests were of a majesty and splendor beyond any of which their wildest fancies had ever dreamed; and the security which the remoteness of the region promised them, and the novelty which invested every object in their eyes made the parting from their comrades a tolerably easy one. They heard with lively spirits the farewell shouts of their companions, and answered them with cheers of confidence and pride. The simple paragraph which records the leave-taking of the parties, is at once pleasing and full of pathos. “Having ended his (Ribault’s) exhortations, we took our leaves of each of them, and sayled toward our shippes. We hoysed our sayles about ten of the clocke in the morning. After wee were ready to depart, Captain Ribault commanded to shoote off our ordnance, to give a farewell unto our Frenchmen; which fayled not to do the like on their part. This being done, wee sayled toward the north.” That last shout, that last sullen roar of their mutual cannon, and the great waves of the Atlantic rolled, unbroken by a sail, between our colonists and La Belle France.