Before closing these two periods of bibliographical history, the labors of the collectors Basanier and Ternaux Compans, to whom we owe so much, should not pass unnoticed. The former is the editor of the letters of Laudonniére, three in number, describing the voyage of Ribaut, the building of Fort Caroline, and its destruction by the Spaniards, to which he adds an introduction on the manners and customs of the Indians, also by Laudonniére, and an account of the voyage of De Gourgues.[46] In this he was assisted by Hackluyt, who speaks of him as “my learned friend M. Martine Basanier of Paris,” and who translated and published his collection the year after its first appearance. Little is known of Basanier personally; mention is made by M. de Fétis in his Biographie des Musiciens of a certain Martin Basanier who lived about this time, and is probably identical. In the same year with his collection on Florida he published a translation of Antonio de Espejo’s History of the Discovery of New Mexico. The dedication of the “Histoire Notable” is to the “Illustrious and Virtuous Sir Walter Raleigh.” According to the custom of those days, it is introduced by Latin and French verses from the pens of J. Auratus (Jacques Doré?), Hackluyt, and Basanier himself. As a curious specimen of its kind I subjoin the anagram of the latter on Walter Raleigh:
“Walter Ralegh.
La vertu l’ha à gré.
En Walter cognoissant la vertu s’estre enclose,
J’ay combiné Ralegh, pour y voir quelle chose
Pourroit à si beau nom convenir à mon gré;
J’ay trouvé que c’estoit; la vertu l’ha à gré.”
The first edition is rare, and American historians are under great obligations to the Parisian publishers for producing a second, and for preserving the original text with such care.
The labors of Ternaux Compans throughout the entire domain of early American history, his assiduity in collecting and translating manuscripts, and in republishing rare tracts, are too well known and generally appreciated to need special comment. Among his volumes there is one devoted to Florida, containing eleven scarce or inedited articles, all of which are of essential importance to the historian.[47] These have been separately considered previously, in connection with the points of history they illustrate.
§ 3.—The First Spanish Supremacy. 1567-1763.
After the final expulsion of the French, Spain held the ascendancy for nearly two hundred years. Her settlements extended to the south and west, the natives were generally tractable, and at one period the colony flourished; yet there is no more obscure portion of the history of the region now included in the United States. Except the Chronological Essay of Barcia, which extends over only a fraction of this period, the accounts are few in number, meagre in information, and in the majority of instances, quite inaccessible in this country.
The verbal depositions of Pedro Morales and Nicolas Bourguignon,[48] captives brought by Sir Francis Drake to London, from his attack on St. Augustine, (1586,) are among the earliest notices we possess. They were written out by Richard Hackluyt, and inserted in his collection as an appendix to Drake’s Voyage. Both are very brief, neither filling one of his folio pages; they speak of the Indian tribes in the vicinity, but in a confused and hardly intelligible manner. Nicolas Bourguignon was a Frenchman by birth, and had been a prisoner among the Spaniards for several years. He is the “Phipher,” mentioned in Drake’s account, who escaped from his guards and crossed over to the English, playing the while on his fife the march of the Prince of Orange, to show his nationality.
Towards the close of the century, several works were published in Spain, of which we know little but their titles. Thus, mention is made of a geographical description of the country (Descripcion y Calidades de la Florida) by Barrientes, Professor of the Latin language at the University of Salamanca, about 1580. It is probably nothing more than an extract from the Cosmographia, attributed by some to this writer. Also, about the same time, Augustin de Padilla Davila, a Dominican, and Bishop of St. Domingo, published an ecclesiastical history of the See of Mexico and the progress of the faith in Florida.[49] Very little, however, had been achieved that early in the peninsular and consequently his work would in this respect interest us but little. The reports of the proceedings of the Council of the Indies, doubtless contain more or less information in regard to Florida; Barcia refers especially to those published in 1596.[50]