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to death by the Spaniard and the Catholic, "not as Frenchmen," he is said to have declared, "but as Lutherans." Such was the unhappy fate of the first fugitives from the old world to the new. Objects at once of religious and of national animosity, they were pursued by enemies enlisted against them as on a crusade. The passions of Europe obtained fresh space in America; the feeble fell, the strong triumphed as they had done in older lands.

tion to

avenge them.

But there was something inspiring, after all, in Expedi- the associations of the western shore. If the fugitives thither were murdered by their foes, they were not forgotten by their friends. Three years after their victory, the Spaniards were surprised on the same ground by a French expedition under De Gourgues, a soldier of Gascony, who had sold his estate in order to avenge his fallen countrymen. He took the Spanish forts, and hung his prisoners, with the inscription above them, "Not as Spaniards or Moriscoes, but as Traitors, Robbers, and Assassins." Thus was our soil a second time darkened with the slaughter of strangers. Without waiting an attack from the Spaniards at St. Augustine, De Gourgues sailed home, the last of the French to attempt the possession of Florida or of Carolina, (1568.)

Acadie and Maine.

De Monts and De

A long period elapsed before the French reappeared, except as fishermen or as traders, in any part of America. At length, a grant of all the territory from Pennsylvania to New Brunswick, Saussaye. under the name of Acadie, was made by Henry IV. of France to the Sieur de Monts, (1603,) and he, after a hard winter, made the first permanent settlement of Frenchmen in America at Port Royal, (1604,) since Annapolis. A later attempt to make a settlement upon Cape Cod met with immediate failure on account of the hostility of the natives, (1606.) Some

years afterwards, one or two Jesuit missionaries crossed over from that part of Acadie which was occupied, to a part as yet unoccupied, within the limits of the present Maine, (1612.) They were followed the next year, by De Saussaye, the agent of Madame de Guercheville to whom the earlier grant to De Monts was now reconveyed; the limits being extended so far as to reach from Florida to the St. Lawrence, De Saussaye, accompanied by a few Jesuits, began the colony of St. Sauveur upon Mount Desert Island, off the coast of Maine, (1613.) It was hardly begun, however, before it was broken up by an attack from an English armed vessel belonging to the then rising colony of Virginia.

Canada.

plain.

Meantime the banners of France had been carCham- ried up the St. Lawrence. Champlain, the greatest leader whom the French had as yet followed to the west, laid the foundations of Quebec in the heart of the province of Canada, (1608.) The next year, forming an alliance with the Algonquins, then at war with the Iroquois or Five Nations of New York, he marched southward to the lake which bears his name, (1609.) Six years later, he took the lead in another foray which penetrated the forests on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, (1615.) A new way appeared to be open to French settlements in the United States.

with the

English.

Collisions But nothing followed. The English arms, after an interval of several years, were carried against the northern settlements of the French. Acadie, already made the subject of an English grant, and Canada were conquered, but restored, (1628-32.) Then the French came down in their turn, and drove the English from the trading posts established by the Plymouth colony on the Maine coast, (1631-35.) The attempts to repel them were in vain; on the contrary, they forbade the English to

pass Pemaquid, a point midway between the Kennebec and the Penobscot. The interior was at the same time in the occupation of the French priests, if of any Europeans.

Priests

The priests and the missionaries of France were and mis- the most prominent amongst her settlers. They sionaries. came full of adventure as of faith, hesitating at no danger, shrinking from no sacrifice. That there should be some less worthy amongst the number was a matter of course. It was equally natural that, among the most worthy, there should be many to magnify their work, to count their converts too freely, and to oppose their antagonists too fiercely. But taken all in all, the French missionaries have a higher place than most early comers deserve in our history. What they were and what they did will appear more clearly at a later period.

Other

With the priest came the soldier, the explorer, settlers. and the trader, all animated by the love of enterprise, to say nothing of its rewards in fame or in riches. They form a less sinister group than the Spanish settlers, more supple, more gay, though by no means more gallant or more adventurous.

Institutions.

Much of the difference may be ascribed to the influence of the French institutions. These, at the time in question, were the institutions of a comparatively limited monarchy. If there were arbitrary influences in the government, sufficient, as we shall hereafter observe, to oppress its subjects and its colonies, there was also something of a more generous nature, by which the devotedness of the missionary, the bravery of the soldier, and the zeal of the adventurer were sustained.

Circumstances.

The circumstances in which the French settlers were placed tended to confirm all their enterprise and all their fortitude. Abandoning the southern Carolina and drawing in the limits of Acadie on the south, they were

for a long time concentrated upon northern shores and in northern valleys. In these lands, adventure was not to be pursued, nor was sustenance to be obtained, without energy and hardihood.

Extent of

French claims.

In following the French into Acadie and Canada, we have gone far beyond the limits of the United States. But their Acadie embraced our Maine, or

a large portion of it; their Canada comprehended our Vermont and our New York, or large portions of them; not to speak of the western regions afterwards included in the same province. We shall return to the French at the epoch of their later acquisitions. For the present, we leave the name of New France, bestowed by Verrazzano and Cartier in their voyages, and adopted by De Monts, Champlain, and De Saussaye, in their settlements, extending in immense proportions along the seaboard and in the interior. It was a title to be set against the Florida and the New Mexico of Spain.

2

England

lumbus.

CHAPTER IV.

ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS.

SECTION I. Early Movements. 1492 to 1606.

THE English were first connected with America and Co- through Columbus. When his plans of discovery were declined by the Portuguese court, he sent his brother Bartholomew to make the same offers to the king of England, (1484.) Bartholomew, long upon his way and upon his return, was bringing back some favorable proposals from Henry VII., just as Christopher was returning from his first voyage, (1493.) It was too late for England to obtain the services of Columbus.

Voyages

Cabots.

But it was just in time for England to profit by of the his discoveries. Both the king and his subjects, at least those of his subjects who were interested in navigation, seem to have caught the impulse naturally springing from such an enterprise as had been achieved. Within three years from the first return of Columbus, Henry authorized a Venetian then belonging to Bristol, John Cabot, with his three sons, to start an expedition at their own expense, in order to do whatever they could for themselves, and at the same time to set up the banners of the English monarch, as his vassals and deputies, upon the lands supposed to exist northward of those discovered by Columbus, (1496.) The Cabots, setting sail in the following year, (1497,) reached a shore called by them Prima

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