LITMIR.BIZ

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him, some of them being gentlemen of condition, others men and women purposing to become settlers in the New World. Jean Alphonse, an experienced navigator of Saintonge, by birth a Portuguese, was pilot of the expedition. After a very tedious voyage, they entered the Road of St. John's, Newfoundland, on the 8th of June, where they found no fewer than seventeen vessels engaged in the inexhaustible fisheries of those waters.

      While Roberval indulged in a brief repose at this place, the unwelcome appearance of Jacques Cartier filled him with disappointment and surprise. The lieutenant gave the hostility of the savages and the weakness of his force as reasons for having abandoned the settlement where he had passed the winter. He still, however, spoke favorably of the richness and fertility of the country, and gladdened the eyes of the adventurers by the sight of a substance that resembled gold ore, and crystals that they fancied were diamonds, found on the bold headland of Quebec. But, despite these flattering reports and promising specimens, Jacques Cartier and his followers could not be induced, by entreaties or persuasions, to return. The hardships and dangers of the last terrible winter were too fresh in memory, and too keenly felt, to be again braved. They deemed their portion of the contract already complete, and the love of their native land overcame the spirit of adventure, which had been weakened, if not quenched, by recent disappointment and suffering. To avoid the chance of an open rupture with Roberval, the lieutenant silently weighed anchor during the night, and made all sail for France. This inglorious withdrawal from the enterprise paralyzed Roberval's power, and deferred the permanent settlement of Canada for generations then unborn. Jacques Cartier died soon after his return to Europe.86 Having sacrificed his fortune in the pursuit of discovery, his heirs were granted an exclusive privilege of trade to Canada for twelve years, in consideration of his sacrifices for the public good; but this gift was revoked four months after it was bestowed.

      Roberval determined to proceed on his expedition, although deprived of the powerful assistance and valuable experience of his lieutenant. He sailed from Newfoundland for Canada, and reached Cap Rouge, the place where Jacques Cartier had wintered, before the end of June, 1542. He immediately fortified himself there, as the situation best adapted for defense against hostility, and for commanding the navigation of the Great River. Very little is known of Roberval's proceedings during the remainder of that year and the following winter. The natives do not appear to have molested the new settlers; but no progress whatever was made toward a permanent establishment. During the intense cold, the scurvy caused fearful mischief among the French; no fewer than fifty perished from that dreadful malady during the winter. Demoralized by misery and idleness, the little colony became turbulent and lawless, and Roberval was obliged to resort to extreme severity of punishment before quiet and discipline were re-established.

      Toward the close of April the ice broke up, and released the French from their weary and painful captivity. On the 5th of June, 1543, Roberval set forth from Cap Rouge to explore the province of Saguenay, leaving thirty men and an officer to protect their winter-quarters: this expedition produced no results, and was attended with the loss of one of the boats and eight men. In the mean time the pilot, Jean Alphonse, was dispatched to examine the coasts north of Newfoundland, in hopes of discovering a passage to the East Indies; he reached the fifty-second degree of latitude, and then abandoned the enterprise; on returning to Europe, he published a narrative of Roberval's expedition and his own voyage, with a tolerably accurate description of the River St. Lawrence, and its navigation upward from the Gulf. Roberval reached France in 1543; the war between Francis I. and the Emperor Charles V. for some years occupied his ardent spirit, and supplied him with new occasions for distinction, till the death of the king, his patron and friend, in 1547. In the year 1549 he collected some adventurous men, and, accompanied by his brave brother, Achille, sailed once again for Canada; but none of this gallant band were ever heard of more. Thus, for many a year, were swallowed up in the stormy Atlantic all the bright hopes of founding a new nation in America:87 since these daring men had failed, none others might expect to be successful.

      In the reign of Henry II., attention was directed toward Brazil; splendid accounts of its wealth and fertility were brought home by some French navigators who had visited that distant land. The Admiral Gaspard de Coligni was the first to press upon the king the importance of obtaining a footing in South America, and dividing the magnificent prize with the Portuguese monarch. This celebrated man was convinced that an extensive system of colonization was necessary for the glory and tranquillity of France. He purposed that the settlement in the New World should be founded exclusively by persons holding that Reformed faith to which he was so deeply attached, and thus would be provided a refuge for those driven from France by religious proscription and persecution. It is believed that Coligni's magnificent scheme comprehended the possession of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, gradually colonizing the banks of these great rivers into the depths of the Continent, till the whole of North America, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, should be hemmed in by this gigantic line of French outposts. However, the first proposition was to establish a colony on the coast of Brazil; the king approved the project, and Durand de Villegagnon, vice-admiral of Brittany, was selected to command in 1555; the expedition, however, entirely failed, owing to religious differences.

      Under the reigns of Francis II. and Charles IX., while France was convulsed with civil war, America seemed altogether forgotten. But Coligni availed himself of a brief interval of calm to turn attention once more to the Western World. He this time bethought himself of that country to which Ponce de Leon had given the name of Florida, from the exuberant productions of the soil and the beauty of the scenery and climate. The River Mississippi88 had been discovered by Ferdinand de Soto,89 about the time of Jacques Cartier's last voyage, 1543; consequently, the Spaniards had this additional claim upon the territory, which, they affirmed, they had visited in 1512, twelve years before the date of Verazzano's voyage in 1524. However, the claims and rights of the different European nations upon the American Continent were not then of sufficient strength to prevent each state from pursuing its own views of occupation. Coligni obtained permission from Charles IX. to attempt the establishment of a colony in Florida,90 about the year 1562. The king was the more readily induced to approve of this enterprise, as he hoped that it would occupy the turbulent spirits of the Huguenots, many of them his bitter enemies, and elements of discord in his dominions. On the 18th of February, 1562, Jean de Ribaut, a zealous Protestant, sailed from Dieppe with two vessels and a picked crew; many volunteers, including some gentlemen of condition, followed his fortunes. He landed on the coast of Florida, near St. Mary's River, where he established a settlement and built a fort. Two years afterward Coligni sent out a re-enforcement, under the command of René de Laudonnière; this was the only portion of the admiral's great scheme ever carried into effect: when he fell, in the awful massacre of Saint Bartholomew, his magnificent project was abandoned. [1568.] After six years of fierce struggle with the Spaniards, the survivors of this little colony returned to France.91

      CHAPTER III

      Little or no effort was made to colonize any part of Canada for nearly fifty years after the loss of Roberval; but the Huguenots of France did not forget that hope of a refuge from religious persecution which their great leader, Coligni, had excited in their breasts. Several of the leaders of subsequent expeditions of trade and discovery to Canada and Acadia were Calvinists, until 1627, when Champlain, zealous for the Romish faith, procured a decree forbidding the free exercise of the Reformed religion in French America.

      Although the French seemed to have renounced all plan of settlement in America by the evacuation of Florida, the fishermen of Normandy and Brittany still plied their calling on the Great Bank and along the stormy shores of Newfoundland, and up the Gulf and River of St. Lawrence. By degrees they began to trade with the natives, and soon the greater gains and easier life of this new pursuit transformed many of these hardy sailors into merchants.

      When, after fifty years of civil strife, the strong and wise sway of Henry IV. restored rest to troubled France, the spirit of discovery again arose. The Marquis de la Roche, a Breton gentleman, obtained from the king, in 1598, a patent granting the same powers that Roberval had possessed.

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