University of Virginia Library

1. I.
THE FIRST VOYAGE OF RIBAULT.

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. Montlue, 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 exeercise
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 Rene 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 Bellea-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 antennæare
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 fell. 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
scene 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.