The Lily and the Totem; or, The Huguenots in Florida

by William Gilmore Simms

  XXI.

  HISTORICAL SUMMARY.

  The glowing accounts of the delights of the Floridian Eden which werebrought by our returning voyagers, were not sufficient to persuadethe garrison to forego their anxious desire to return to France. Thehome-sickness under which they labored had now reached such a heightas to suffer no appeal or opposition. Nothing but the stern decree ofauthority could have silenced the discontents; and the authority layneither in the will nor in the numbers under the control of Laudonniere.To such a degree of impatience had this passion for their Europeanhomes arisen, that, when it was found that the building of the vesselfor their deportation would be delayed beyond the designated period,in consequence of the death, in battle with the savages, of two of thecarpenters, the multitude rose in mutiny setting upon Jean de Hais, themaster-carpenter,--who had innocently declared the impossibility ofdoing the work within the given time,--with such ferocity, as to make itscarcely possible to save his life. With this spirit prevailing amonghis garrison, Laudonniere was compelled to abandon the idea, altogether,of building the ship; and to address all his energies to the repair, forthe desired purpose, of the old brigantine, which had been brought backto La Caroline, by the returning pirates. To work, with this object, allparties were now set with the utmost expedition. The houses which hadbeen built without the fort were torn down, in order that the timbershould be converted into coal for the uses of the forge; this beinga labor much easier than that of using the axe upon the trees of theforest. The palisade which conducted from the fort to the river wastorn down also by the soldiery, for the same purpose, in spite ofthe objections of Laudonniere. It was their policy to make theirdetermination to depart inevitable, by rendering the place no longerhabitable. The fort, itself, it was determined to destroy, when theywere ready to sail, "lest some new-come guest should have enjoyed andpossessed it." Our Frenchmen were very jealous of the designs of theEnglish queen. They well knew that the haughty and courageous Elizabethwas meditating a British settlement in the New World; and though, aftertheir own voluntary abandonment of the country, they had no rightto complain that another should occupy the waste places, yet theirjealousy was too greatly that of the dog in the manger, to behold,with pleased eye, the possession by another of the things whichthey themselves had been unable to enjoy. "In the meanwhile," saysLaudonniere--seeking to excuse his own unwise management and feeblepolicy--"In the meanwhile, there was none of us to whome it was not anextreme griefe to leave a country wherein wee had endured so greatetravailes and necessities, to discover that which wee must forsakethrough our owne countrymen's default. For if wee had beene succoured intime and place, and according to the promise that was made unto us, thewar which was between us and Utina had not fallen out, neither shouldwee have had occasion to offend the Indians, which, with all paines inthe world, I entertained in good amitie, as well with merchandize andapparel, as with promise of greater matters; and with whome I so behavedmyself, that although sometimes I was constrained to take victuals insome few villages, yet I lost not the alliance of eight kings and lords,my neighbours, which continually succoured and ayded me with whateverthey were able to afford. Yea, this was the principal scope of all mypurposes, to winne and entertaine them, knowing how greatly their amitiemight advance our enterprise, and principally while I discovered thecommodities of the country, and sought to strengthen myself therein. Ileave it to your cogitation to think how neare it went to our heartsto leave a place abounding in riches (as we were thoroughly enformedthereof) in coming whereunto, and doing service unto our prince, welefte our owne countrey, wives, children, parents and friends, andpassed the perils of the sea, and were therein arrived as in a plentifultreasure of all our heart's desire."

  It was while distressing himself with these cogitations thatLaudonniere, on the 3d of August, 1565, took a walk, "as was his customof an afternoon," to the top of a little eminence, in the neighborhoodof the fort, which afforded a distant prospect of the sea. Here, lookingforth with yearning to that watery waste which he was preparing totraverse, he was suddenly excited, as he beheld four sail of approachingvessels. At first, the tidings made the soldiers of the garrison to leapfor joy. The vessels were naturally supposed to be those of their owncountrymen; and such was the gladness inspired by this supposition, that"one would have thought them to be out of their wittes, to see themlaugh and leap." But, something in the behavior of the strange ships,after a while, rendered our Frenchmen a little doubtful of theircharacter. Instead of boldly approaching, they were seen to cast anchorand to send out one of their boats. A prudent fear of the Spaniards madeLaudonniere get his soldiers in readiness; while Captain La Vasseur,with a select party, advanced to the river side to meet the visitors.They proved to be Englishmen--a fleet under the command of thecelebrated John Hawkins; and had on board one Martin Atinas, of Dieppe;a Frenchman, who had been one of the colonists of Fort Charles,--one ofthose who, returning to France, had been taken up at sea and carriedinto England. He had guided the English admiral along the coast, and hisinformation had contributed to prompt the voyage of exploration whichHawkins had in hand. But the object of the British admiral was quitepacific, and his conduct exceedingly generous and noble. His ostensiblepurpose in putting into May River was to procure fresh water.Laudonniere permitted him to do so. Hawkins, perceiving the distressedcondition of the Frenchmen, relieved them with liberal supplies ofbread, wine and provisions. Apprised of their desire to return toFrance, he, with greater liberality and a wiser policy, offered totransport the whole colony. But Laudonniere was still jealous of theEnglishman, and was apprehensive that, while he carried off the onecolony, he would instantly plant another in its place. He declined thegenerous offer, but bargained with him for one of his vessels, for whichLaudonniere chiefly paid by the furniture of the fortress,--the cannon,&c.,--viz.: "two bastards, two mynions, one thousand of iron (balls),and one thousand (pounds) of powder." These items included only aportion of the purchase consideration, in earnest of the treaty. Movedwith pity at the wretched condition of the Frenchmen, the generousEnglishman offered supplies for which he accepted Laudonniere's bills.These the subsequent misfortunes of the latter never permitted him tosatisfy. In this way our colonists procured "twenty barrels of meale,six pipes of beanes, one hogshead of salt, and a hundred (cwt.?) ofwaxe to make candles. Moreover, forasmuch as hee saw my souldiersgoe barefoote, hee offered me besides fifty paires of shoes, which Iaccepted." "He did more than this," says Laudonniere. "He bestowed uponmyselfe a great jarre of oyle, a jarre of vinegar, a barell of olives, agreat quantitie of rice, and a barell of white biscuit. Besides, he gavedivers presents to the principal officers of my company according totheir qualities: so that, I may say, that we received as many courtesiesof the Generall as was possible to receive of any man living."

  Here, we are fortunately in possession of the narrative of Hawkinshimself, and his report of the encounter with our Frenchmen. It affordsa good commentary upon the bad management of Laudonniere, and theworthless character of his followers; the sturdy Englishmen seeing, at aglance, where all the evils of the colony lay. He describes their firstsettlement as gathered from their own lips; their numbers, the periodthey had remained in the country, their frequent want, and the modesresorted to for escaping famine. His details comprise all the factsof our history, as already given. Of their discontents and rebels, hespeaks as of a class, "who would not take the paines so much as to fishein the river before their doores, but would have all thinges put intheir mouthes. They did rebell against the Captaine, taking away firsthis armour, and afterwards imprisoning him, &c." The narrative ofHawkins gives the subsequent history of the rebels, their piracy,capture and fate. He mentions one particular, which we do not gatherfrom Laudonniere, showing the sagacity of the Floridian warriors.Finding that the Frenchmen, in battle, were protected by their coats ofmail, or escaupil, and the bucklers in familiar use at the time, theydirected their arrows at the faces and the legs of their enemies, whichwere the parts in which they were mostly wounded. At the close
of thiswar, according to our Englishmen, Laudonniere had not forty soldiersleft unhurt. After detailing the supplies accorded to the colonists fromhis stores, he adds, "notwithstanding the great want that the Frenchmenhad, the ground doth yield victuals sufficient, if they would have takenpaines to get the same; _but they being souldiers, desired to live bythe sweat of other men's browes_." Here speaks the jealous scorn of thesailor. "The ground yieldeth naturally great store of grapes, for in thetime the Frenchmen were there they made twenty hogsheads of wine." Ourpoor Huguenots could seek gold and manufacture wine, but could not raiseprovisions. They were of too haughty a stomach to toil for any but theluxuries of life. "Also," says Hawkins, "it (the earth) yieldeth rootspassing good, deere marvellous store, with divers other beastes andfowle serviceable to man. These be things wherewith a man may live,having corne or maize wherewith to make bread, for maize maketh goodsavory bread, and cakes as fine as flowre; also, it maketh good meale,beaten and sodden with water, and nourishable, which the Frenchmen diduse to drink of in the morning, and it assuageth their thirst, so thatthey have no need to drink all the day after. And this maize was thegreatest lack they had, because they had no labourers to sowe the same;and therefore, to them that should inhabit the land, it were requisiteto have labourers to till and sowe the ground; for they, having victualsof their owne, whereby they neither spoil nor rob the inhabitants, maylive not only quietly with them, _who naturally are more desirousof peace than of warre_, but also shall have abundance of victualsproffered them for nothing, &c." The testimony of Hawkins is asconclusive in behalf of the Floridians as it is unfavorable to ourFrenchmen. He speaks in the highest terms of the qualities and resourcesof the country, as abounding in commodities unknown to men, and equal tothose of any region in the world. He tells us of the gold procured bythe Huguenot colonists, one mass of two pounds weight being taken bythem from the Indians, without equivalent. The latter he describes ashaving some estimation of the precious metals; "for it is wrought flatand graven, which they wear about their necks, &c." The Frenchmen eatsnakes in the sight of our Englishmen, to their "no little admiration;"and affirm the same to be a delicate meat. Laudonniere tells Hawkinssome curious snake stories, which could not well be improved upon, evenin the "Hunter's Camp," on a "Lying Saturday." "I heard a miracle of oneof these adders,"--snakes a yard and a half long,--"upon the which afaulcon (hawk) seizing, the sayd adder did claspe her taile about her;which, the French captaine seeing, came to the rescue of the faulcon,and took her,--slaying the adder." There is no improbability in thisstory; but we shall be slow to give our testimony in behalf of thatwhich follows: "And the Captaine of the Frenchmen saw also a serpentwith three heads and foure feet, of the bignesse of a great spaniel,which, for want of a harquebuse, he durst not attempt to slay."Laudonniere had evidently some appreciation of the marvellous; but only_four_ feet to _three_ heads was a monstrous disproportion. The accountwhich Hawkins gives of the abundance of fish in the neighborhood of thegarrison, is no exaggeration, and only adds to the surprise that we feelat the wretched indolence and imbecility of the colonists, who, withthis resource "at their doores," depended for their supply upon theFloridians.

  Hawkins's account of the coast and characteristics of Florida is copiousand full of interest, but belongs not to this narrative. He left theHuguenots, on the 28th July, 1565, making all preparations to follow inhis wake; and on the fifteenth of August Laudonniere was prepared todepart also. The biscuit was made for the voyage, the goods and chattelsof the soldiers were taken on board, and most of the water;--nothingdelayed their sailing but head-winds;--when the whole proceeding wasarrested by the sudden appearance of Ribault, with the long-promisedsupplies from France. The approach of Ribault was exceedingly cautious;so circumspect, indeed, that fears were entertained by the garrison thathis ships were those of the Spaniards. The guns of the fortress werealready trained to bear upon them when the strangers discoveredthemselves. The reasons for their mysterious deportment, as subsequentlygiven, arose from certain false reports which had reached France, of theconduct of Laudonniere. He had been described, by letters from some ofhis malcontents in the colony, as affecting a sort of regal state--aspreparing to shake off his dependence upon the mother-country--andsetting up for himself, as the sovereign lord of the Floridas. PoorLaudonniere! living on vipers, crude berries and bitter roots, mocked bythe savages on one hand, fettered and flouted by his own runagates andrebels on the other,--defied in his authority, and starving in all hisstate, was in no mood to affect royalty upon the River May. He was, nodoubt, a vain and ostentatious person; but, whatever may have been hisabsurdities and vanities, at first, they had been sufficiently schooledby his necessities, we should think, to cure him of any such idleaffectations. He had been subdued and humbled by defeat,--the failureof his plans, and the evident contempt into which he had sunk among hispeople. Yet of all this, the King of France and Monsieur de Colignycould have known nothing; and when we recollect that the colony wasmade up of Huguenots only, a people of whose fidelity the former mightreasonably doubt, the suspicions of the Catholic monarch may not besupposed entirely unreasonable. At all events, Ribault was sent tosupersede the usurping commander, and bore imperative orders for hisrecall. The armament confided to Ribault consisted of seven vessels, anda military force corresponding with such a fleet. We are also made awarethat, on this occasion, the force which he commanded was no longermade up of Huguenots exclusively, as in the previous armament. A largesprinkling of Catholic soldiers accompanied the expedition, and thetemporary peace throughout the realm enabled a great number of gentlemenand officers to employ themselves in the search after adventure in theNew World. They accordingly swelled the forces of Ribault, and showedconclusively that the colonial establishment in Florida had grown intosome importance at home. That Laudonniere should become a prince there,was calculated to exaggerate the greatness of the principality; and thejealousy of the French monarch, in all probability, for the first time,awakened his sympathy for the settlement. The same accounts which hadborne the tidings of Laudonniere's ambition, may have exaggerated theresources and discoveries of the country; and possibly some specimens ofgold--the mass of two pounds described by Hawkins--had dazzled the eyesand excited the avarice of court and people. Enough that Laudonniere wasto be sent home for trial, and that Ribault was to succeed him in thegovernment.

  The approach of Ribault with his fleet was exceedingly slow. Head-windsand storms baffled his progress, and as he reached the coast of Floridahe loitered along its bays and rivers, seeking to obtain from theIndians all possible tidings of the colony, before venturing upon anencounter with the supposed usurper of the sovereignty of the country.When, at length, he drew nigh to La Caroline, so suspiciously did heapproach, that he drew upon him the fire of Laudonniere's men; and,but for the distance, and the seasonable outcry which was made by hisfollowers, announcing who they were, a conflict might have ensuedbetween the parties. To the great relief of Ribault, Laudonnierereceived him with submission. The former apprised him frankly of thereports in France to his discredit, and delivered him the letters ofColigny to the same effect. Laudonniere soon succeeded in convincinghis successor that he had been greatly slandered--that he was entirelyinnocent of royalty, and almost of state, of any kind--that, howeverunfortunate he may have been--however incompetent to the duties he hadundertaken, he was certainly not guilty of the extreme follies, thepresumption, or the cruelty, which constituted the several points in theindictment urged against him. Ribault strove to persuade him to remainin the colony, and to leave his justification to himself. But thisLaudonniere declined to do, resolving to return to France;--a resolutionwhich, as we shall see hereafter, was only delayed too long,--to thefurther increase of the misfortunes of our captain. Meanwhile he fellsick of a fever, and the authority passed into the hands of JeanRibault, whose return was welcomed by crowds of Indian chiefs, who cameto the fortress to inquire after the newly-arrived strangers. They soonrecognised the chief by whose hands the stone pillar had been reared,which st
ood conspicuous at the entrance of the river. He was easilydistinguished, by many of them, by reason of the massy beard which hewore. They embraced him with signs of a greater cordiality than theywere disposed to show to his immediate predecessor. The Kings Homoloa,Seravahi, Alimacani, Malica, and Casti, were among the first to recallthe ties of their former friendship, and to brighten the ancient chainof union, by fresh pledges. They brought to Ribault, among other gifts,large pieces of gold, which, in their language, is called "sieroa pira,"literally "red metal,"--which, upon being assayed by the refiner, provedto be "perfect golde." They renewed their offers to conduct him to theMountains of Apalachia, where this precious metal was to be had for thegathering. Ribault was not more inaccessible to this attractive showingthan Laudonniere had been; but before he could project the desiredenterprise, in search of the mountains which held such gloriouspossessions, new events were in progress, involving such dangers assuperseded the hopes of gain among the adventurers, by necessities whichmade them doubtful of their safety. The Spaniards, of whom they had longbeen apprehensive, were at length discovered upon the coast.