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