Expedition of Gour rida. 1568. The chevalier Dominique de Gourgues, a solgues to Flo- dier of fortune, of a good family in Gascony, hearing of the massacre of his countrymen in Florida, determined to revenge their death, and repair the honour of his nation, by driving their murderers out of that country. On this vindictive enterprise he sailed from France, at his own expense, and without orders, with three frigates and one hundred and fifty soldiers and volunteers, and eighty chosen mariners, to Florida. The Spaniards, to the number of four hundred, were well fortified on the river of May, principally at the great fort, begun by the French, and afterward repaired by themselves. Two leagues lower toward the river's mouth, they had made two smaller forts, which were defended by one hundred and twenty soldiers, well supplied with artillery and ammunition.* Gourgues, though informed of their strength, April. proceeded resolutely forward, and with the assist-. Assails the ance of the natives, made a vigorous and desperate forts at the assault. Of sixty Spaniards in the first fort, there Spanish river of May. escaped but fifteen; and all in the second fort were slain. After sixty Spaniards, sallying out from the third fort, had been intercepted, and killed on the spot, this last fortress was easily taken. All the des Cantaber, Florida victor, sed insigni in Gallos perfidia, apud suos etiam infamis, cum res Americanas Batavicis parum sapienter comparet, BriJam se aliosque portus obsequio redditurum jactabat ; et jam parata classe missa in Angliam legatio, quæ littus et hospitium, si eo venti adigerent, oraret impetraretque. Sed subita morbi luës nautas disjecit, et dux ipse edoctus pollicitationes vanitatem, pudcre ut creditum, aut metu vitam finiit." Grotii Annales, 63, 64 & Index. 1 His equipment, according to Mezeray (who says he had 200 soldiers and 100 seamen), was made with part of his own estate, which he sold, and with what his brother, President of the Generality of Guyenne, lent him. The reason, assigned by this historian, why the Government of France did not revenge the massacre, is, that the king's Council was half Spanish Gourgues had recently returned from Africa. Losing no time, he sailed from France in August 1567 to the West Indies, whence, after delays by storms, he proceeded to Florida in the spring of 1568. 2 One of these lower forts must have been on one side of the river. and the other on the other side; for the river" passed between them.” surviving Spaniards were led away prisoners, with 1568. the fifteen who escaped the massacre at the first fort; and, after having been shown the injury, that they had done to the French nation, were hung on the boughs of the same trees, on which the Frenchmen had been previously hung. Over those devoted Frenchmen Frenchmen Melendez had suspended a Spanish label, signifying, "I do not this as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans." Gourgues, in retaliation, caused to be imprinted with a searing iron in a tablet of fir wood, "I do not this as to Spaniards, nor as to Mariners, but as to Traitors, Robbers, and Murderers." Having razed the three forts, he hastened his preparation to re 1 Charlevoix [Nouv. France, i. 103, 104.] justly condemns this barbarous retaliation : "Je ne crains pas de dire que l' expedition du Chevalier de Gourgues, jusques-là si glorieuse pour lui, et si honnorable pour la Nation, auroit été infiniment plus relevée par une conduite, où sa mcdération, et la générosité Françoise eût fait un beau contraste avec l' inhumanité des Espagnols, qu' en la terminant avec la même fureur, qu'il détestoit en eux." He pertinently cites the reply, made by Pausanias, kirg of Sparta, to a citizen of Ægina, who had proposed to him, as what would immortalize his name, to hang the dead body of Mardonius on a gallows, in revenge for the like indignity, shown to Leonidas by Mardonius and Xerxes: "Thou must have a very wrong notion of true glory, to imagine, that the way for me to acquire it is to resemble the Barbarians." The observation of the Catholic historian may have been as sincere and disinterested, as it is just and generous; it is difficult however to forget, that they were Huguenots, whose massacre Gourgues revenged; and that P. De Charlevoix was " de la Compagnie de Jesus" [a Jesuit], one of whose avowed tenets is, That faith is not to be kept with heretics. 2" Considering he had not men inough to keepe his fortes which he had wonne, much lesse to store them, fearing also lest the Spaniard which bath dominions neere adjoining should renew his forces, or the Savages should prevail against the French men, unlesse his Majestie would send thither, hee resolved to raze them. And indeede, after he had assembled, and in the ende perswaded all the Savage kings so to doe, they caused their subjects to runne thither with such affection, that they overthrew all the three Forts flatte even with the ground in one day." Hakluyt, iii. 359, 360. Du Pratz [Hist. Louisiane, i. 4.] says, that Gourgues established a new post before his return to France; but that the disorders in that kingdom did not permit its support. The account in Hakluyt, on which I rely, makes no mention of it. "Finding his ships set in order, and every thing ready to set sayle, hee counselled the kings to continue in the amitie and ancient league which they had made with the king of France, which would defend them against all nations; which they all promised, shedding teares because of his departure, Olocatara especially; for appeasing of whom he promised them to returne within twelve moons, (so they count the P French abandon Florida. 1568. turn; and on the third of May embarked for France. His sovereign not avowing the enterprise, his countrymen now bade Florida a final adieu. If the settlement of Ribault at Port Royal, or that of Laudonniere at the river of May, had been supported by the Parent State, long possession might have furnished a stronger claim to the country, than prior discovery, and France might have had an empire in America, before Britain had sent a single colony into this New World. Solomon Islands discovered. First voyage of Francis The Licenciate Castro, governor of Peru, to discover certain islands in the South Sea on the Peruvian coast, sent out from Lima a fleet, which, sailing eight hundred leagues westward of the coast, found a cluster of islands in eleven degrees south latitude, to which the governor gave the name of Solomon Islands. 3 1572. Francis Drake, the celebrated English navigator, made his first voyage to South America. Entering Drake to the port of Nombre de Dios with four pinnaces, he landed about one hundred and fifty men, seventy of whom he left in a fort, that was there; and with South A merica. yeeres) and that his king would send them an army, and store of knives for presents, and all other things necessary." Hakluyt, iii. 356-360; and Charlevoix Nouv. France, i. 95-106; where there are entire accounts of this voyage. Mezeray Hist. France, 701. Chalmers, i. 513. Purchas, v. 1604, 1605. Univ. Hist. xl. 413417. Anderson, ii. 127. He arrived at Rochel 6 June, with the loss but of a small pinnace and 8 men in it, with a few gentlemen and others, who were shin in assaulting the forts. Hakluyt. When Gourgues went to Paris to present himself to the king, to inform him of the success of his voyage, and to offer him "his life and all his goods" toward subduing this whole country to his obedience, he met with an iH reception, and was constrained to hide himself a long time in the court of Roan, “ about the year 1570." He died in 1582," to the great grief of such as knew him." Hakluyt, iii. 360. Purchas, v. 1605. 2 Chalmers, i. 513. 3 Hakluyt, iii. 467. Purchas, v. 1447. This name was given, that the Spaniards, supposing them to be those islands, from which Solomon fetched gold to adorn the temple at Jerusalem, might be the more desirous to go and inhabit them. Ibid. the remaining eighty surprised the town, but was soon repelled by the Spaniards. He next sailed into Darien harbour, where he landed, and intercepted two companies of mules, laden with gold and silver, on the way fron Panama to Nombre de Dios; took off the gold; and soon after reembarked.' The king of Spain gave the islands of Bermudas to one of his subjects; but the Spaniards never took possession of them." 1575. Oxenham, merica. John Oxenham, an Englishman, hearing what Voyage of spoil captain Drake had brought from South Amer- an Englishica, made a voyage, accompanied by seventy persons, man, to South A in a ship of one hundred and twenty tons. Landing his men at Darien, where he hauled his ship to the shore, and covered it with boughs of trees, he travelled twelve leagues into the main land, and built a pinnace on a river, by which he passed into the South Sea. After taking some Spanish prizes, he and his company were made prisoners by the Spaniards, and executed.3 1576. age of All attempts to find a North East passage to In- First voydia having been unsuccessful, queen Elizabeth sent Martin out Martin Frobisher with three small ships, for the Frobisher. discovery of a North West passage. Arriving at 1 Hakluyt, iii. 525,526, 778, 779. He took away the gald only, "for they were not able to carrie the silver through the mountaines." Ibid. Two days after this spoliation, he came to the house of Crosses, and burnt above 200,000 ducats in merchandize. Purchas, v. 1180. 2 Univ. Hist. xli. 339. 3 Hakluyt, iii. 526-528; 779-781. The Justice asked the English .captain, Whether he had the Queen's licence, or the licence of any Prince or Lord. He answered, That he had none, but that he came of his own proper motion. On this acknowledgment, the captain and his company were condemned, and were all put to death at Panama, excepting the Captain, the Master, and the Pilot, and five boys, who were carried to Lima, and there the three men were executed, but the boys were spared. bid. and Purchas, v. 1180, 1446. Elizabeth's Foreland, bisher's Strait. Discovers the northerly coast of America, he discovered a cape, which he called Elizabeth's Foreland; and the and Fro- Strait, which still bears his name. This strait being impassable, on account of fixed ice, he entered a bay in north latitude sixty three degrees; sailed sixty leagues; landed, and took one of the natives;* but the ice obliged him to relinquish his enterprise, and return to England.* Second voyage of 1577. The discovery of supposed gold ore by FrobishFrobisher. er in his voyage the last year encouraged the Society of adventurers to send him out with three other ships, to explore farther the coast of Labrador and Greenland, with an ultimate view to the discovery of a passage to India; but he again returned without success. + 1 Frobisher, having made presents to the inhabitants (supposed northward of Labrador), they came on board his ship. Five sailors, sent to take ashore one of these visitants, went, contrary to orders, to the natives, and neither they nor the boat were ever seen afterward. This was therefore called, The five men's Sound. The English, upon this, enticed one of the natives to the ship's side, with a bell, and in giving it to him, took him and his boat. Finding himself now in captivity, "for very choler and disdaine he bit his tongue in twaine within his mouth." He died soon after his arrival in England. Hakluyt. 2 Hakluyt, iii. 29—32; 57—60. Purchas, i. 739. Prince Chron. Introd. 101. Smith Gen. Hist. Virginia, I. Stow Chron. 680. Belknap. Biog. i. 37. Europ. Settlements, ii. 286. Univ. Hist. xli. 100. Harris Voy. i. 575. Forster Voy. 274. Anderson [ii. 126.] places this voyage in 1567; but the accounts in Hakluyt prove it to have been made in 1576. After several attempts to land with the boat, which,were baffled by the ice, Frobisher commanded his people, if they could possibly get ashore," to bring him whatsoever thing they could first find, whether it were living or dead, stocke or stone, in token of Christian possession." Some of his company brought flowers; some, green grass; and one brought a piece of black stone," much like to a sea cole in colour, which by the waight seemed to be some kinde of metall or minerall." Hakluyt. This stone was tried by the London goldsmiths; and was pronounced to be richly impregnated with gold; but while it incited adventurers to new enterprises, it totally baffled their hopes. Ibid. Anderson, ii. 127, 143. 3 See the preceding note. 4 Hakluyt, iii. 32—39; 60—73. Harris Voy. i. 575-577. Forster Voy. 274. Univ. Hist. xli. 101. He sailed 30 May from Harwich with one ship of 200 tons, belonging to the queen, two small barks, and 120 men. With the professed object of the voyage in our view, we are struck |