Jl. CHAP. number of the slain, but not the atrocity of the deed Melendez returned to Spain, impoverished, but triumphant. The French government heard of the outrage with apathy, and made not even a remonstrance on the ruin of a colony, which, if it had been protected, would have given to its country a flourishing empire in the south, before England had planted a single spot on the new continent. History has been more faithful, and has assisted humanity by giving to the crime of Melendez an infamous notoriety. The first town in the United States sprung from the unrelenting bigotry of the Spanish king. We admire the rapid growth of our larger cities; the sudden transformation of portions of the wilderness into blooming states. Augustine presents a stronger contrast, in its transition from the bigoted policy of Philip II. to the American principles of religious liberty. Its origin should be carefully remembered, for it is a fixed point, from which to measure the liberal influence of time; the progress of modern civilization; the victories of the American mind, in its contests for the interests of humanity. 1567. St. The Huguenots and the French nation did not share the indifference of the court. Dominic de Gourguesa bold soldier of Gascony, whose life had been a series of adventures, now employed in the army against Spain, now a prisoner and a galley-slave among the Spaniards, taken by the Turks with the vessel in which he rowed, and redeemed by the commander of the knights of Malta-burned with a desire to avenge his own wrongs and the honor of his country. The sale of his property, and the contributions of his friends, furnished the means of equipping three ships, in 22. which, with one hundred and fifty men, he embarked Aug. EXTENT OF SPANISH DOMINIONS IN NORTH AMERICA. 73 11. for Florida, not to found a colony, but only to destroy CHAP. and revenge. He surprised two forts near the mouth. of the St. Matheo; and, as terror magnified the num- 1568. ber of his followers, the consternation of the Spaniards enabled him to gain possession of the larger establishment, near the spot which the French colony had occupied. Too weak to maintain his position, he, in May, 1565, hastily weighed anchor for Europe, May having first hanged his prisoners upon the trees, and placed over them the inscription, "I do not this as unto Spaniards or mariners, but as unto traitors, robbers, and murderers." The natives, who had been ill treated both by the Spaniards and the French, enjoyed the consolation of seeing their enemies butcher one another. 1 The attack of the fiery Gascon was but a passing storm. France disavowed the expedition, and relinquished all pretension to Florida. Spain grasped at it, as a portion of her dominions; and, if discovery could confer a right, her claim was founded in justice. Cuba now formed the centre of her West Indian possessions, and every thing around it was included within her empire. Sovereignty was asserted, not only over the archipelagos within the tropics, but over the whole continent round the inner seas. From the remotest south-eastern cape of the Caribbean, along the whole shore to the Cape of Florida, and beyond it, all was hers. The Gulf of Mexico lay embosomed within her territories. 1 I owe to R. Biddle, the biographer of Cabot, a manuscript copy of the record of these events, pre10 VOL I. served in the family of De Gourges, 74 CHAPTER III. ENGLAND TAKES POSSESSION OF THE UNITED STATES. CHAP. III. THE attempts of the French to colonize Florida, though unprotected and unsuccessful, were not without an important influence on succeeding events. About the time of the return of De Gourgues, Walter Raleigh,' a young Englishman, had abruptly left the university 1569 of Oxford, to take part in the civil contests between the 1575. Huguenots and the Catholics in France, and with the to prince of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., was learning the art of war under the veteran Coligny. The Protestant party was, at that time, strongly excited with indignation at the massacre which De Gourgues had avenged; and Raleigh could not but gather from his associates and his commander intelligence respecting Florida and the navigation to those regions. Some of the miserable men who escaped from the first expedition, had been conducted to Elizabeth, and had kindled in the public mind in England a desire for the possession of the southern coast of our republic; the reports of Hawkins,3 who had been the benefactor of the French on the River May, increased the national excitement; and De Morgues, the painter, who had sketched in Florida the most remarkable appearances of nature, ultimately found the opportunity of finishing his designs, through the munificence of Raleigh. 1 Oldys' Raleigh, 16, 17. Tyt ler's Raleigh, 19–23. 2 Hakluyt, iii. 384 3 Ibid. iii. 612-617. 4 Hakluyt, iii. 364. Compare a marginal note to iii. 425. VOYAGES IN THE REIGN OF HENRY VII. 75 Mar The progress of English maritime enterprise had CHAP prepared the way for vigorous efforts at colonization. The second expedition of the Cabots was, as we have 1498 seen, connected with plans for settlements. Other commissions, for the same object, were issued by Henry VII. In the patent, which an American histo- 1501 rian has recently published,' the design of establishing 19. emigrants in the New World is distinctly proposed, and encouraged by the concession of a limited monopoly of the colonial trade and of commercial privi leges. It is probable, that at least one voyage was made under the authority of this commission; for in the year after it was granted, natives of North Ameri- 1502 ca, in their wild attire, were exhibited to the public wonder of England.2 4 Dec. 9 Yet if a voyage was actually made, its success was inconsiderable. A new patent,3 with larger conces- 1502. sions, was issued, in part to the same patentees; and there is reason to believe, that the king now favored by gratuities the expedition, which no longer appeared to promise any considerable returns. Where no profits followed adventure, navigation soon languished. Yet the connection between England and the New-Found Land was never abandoned. Documentary evidence exists of voyages favored by the English, till the time when the Normans, the Biscayans, and the Bretons, began to frequent the fisheries on the American coast. Is it probable, that English mariners ever wholly resigned to a rival nation the benefits arising from their own discoveries? 1509 to Nor was the reign of Henry VIII. unfavorable to 1547 1 Memoir of Cabot, 306-314. 2 Stow, An. 1502, 483, 484. 3 Rymer's Fœdera, xiii. 37-42. Bacon's Henry VII. 4 Mem. of Cabot, 226. Note. 5 Mem. of Cabot, 229, 230. TIT CHAP. the mercantile interests of his kingdom; and that monarch, while his life was still unstained by profligacy, and his passions not yet hardened into the stubborn selfishness of despotism, considered the discovery of the north as his "charge and duty," and made such experiments as the favorable situation of England appeared to demand.1 An account has already been 1517. given of the last voyage of discovery in which Sebastian Cabot was personally engaged for his native land. Is it not probable, that other expeditions were made, with the favor of King Henry and of Wolsey, although no distinct account of them has been preserved? Of 1527. one such voyage for the discovery of a north-west passage, there exists a relation, written by Rut, the commander of one of the ships, and forwarded from the haven of St. John in Newfoundland. This implies a direct and established intercourse between England and the American coast. Some part of the country was explored; for the English never abandoned the hope of planting a colony on the continent which Cabot had discovered. The jealousy of the Spanish nation was excited, and already began to fear English rivalry in the New World. Henry VIII. was vigorous in his attempts to check piracy; and the navigation of his subjects was extended under the security of his protection. The banner of St. George was often displayed in the harbors of Northern Africa and in the Levant; and when commerce, emancipated from the confinement of the inner seas, went boldly forth to make the ocean its chief highway, England became more emulous to 1 Thorne's letter, in 1527, to Henry VIII., in Hakluyt, i. 236. 2 Purchas, iii. 809. Hakluyt, iii. 167, 168. Mem. of S. Cabot, part ii. c. ix. 3 Herrera, d. ii. 1. v. c. iii. Compare Oviedo, 1. xix. c. xiii. in Ramusio, iii. fol. 204. 4 Hill's Naval History, 267 |