Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/35

 determined to devote himself, his fortune, and his whole being, to the achievement of some signal and terrible retribution. He found means to equip three small vessels, and to put on board of them eighty sailors, and one hundred and fifty troops. Having crossed the Atlantic, he sailed along the coast of Florida, and landed at a river about fifteen leagues' distance from the river May. The Spaniards, to the number of four hundred, were well fortified, principally at the great fort, begun by the French, and afterwards repaired by themselves. Two leagues lower, towards the river's mouth, they had made two smaller forts, which were defended by a hundred and twenty soldiers, well supplied with artillery and ammunition. Gourgues, though informed of their strength, proceeded resolutely forward, and, with the assistance of the natives, made a vigorous and desperate assault. Of sixty Spaniards in the first fort, there escaped but fifteen; and all in the second fort were slain. After a company of Spaniards, sallying out from the third fort, had been intercepted, and killed on the spot, this last fortress was easily taken. All the surviving Spaniards were led away prisoners, with the fifteen who escaped the massacre at the first fort; and were hung on the boughs of the same trees on which the Frenchmen had been previously suspended. Gourgues, in retaliation for the label Melendez had attached to the bodies of the French, placed over the corpses of the Spaniards the following declaration:—"I do not this as unto Spaniards or mariners, but as unto traitors, robbers and murderers." Having razed the three forts, and not being strong enough to remain in the country, he returned to France in May, 1568. Such was the end of the efforts made by the French Protestants to found settlements in Florida. Had France been wise enough to have protected her sons in this attempt, she might easily have obtained a nourishing empire in the south, before England had planted a single spot on the Continent. But she did not, and Spain consequently retained her claim—such as it was—to Florida undisputed.

The long and bloody struggles between Protestants and Roman Catholics in France during the latter half of the 16th century, effectually prevented all attempts at colonization by that nation in the New World. The accession of Henry IV., his abjuration of Protestantism, and especially the issue of the Edict of Nantes, which secured civil and religious freedom to the Huguenots, restored peace and prosperity to France ; and the wise and skilful administration of Sully fostered the arts of peaceful industry and trade. A commission was obtained in 1598, by the Marquis de la Roche, of Brittany, to take possession of and other neighboring countries "not possessed by any Christian prince;" the attempt, however, failed entirely. On the death of La Roche, Chauvin, a naval officer, and Pontgravé, a merchant of St. Malo, entered profitably into the fur trade, without, however, doing anything of moment towards colonization.

In 1603, a company of merchants was formed at Rouen, and Samuel