JOHN RIBAUT (re-bo) led the first expedition (1562) under the auspices of Coligny.
[Footnote: Jean Ribaut, as his name is given in Coligny's Ms. and in his own journal published in 1563, was an excellent seaman.]
[Footnote: Coligny (ko-lon-ye) was an admiral of France, and a leader of the Huguenots (Hu-ge-nots), as the Protestants were then called. He had conceived a plan for founding an empire in America. This would furnish an asylum for his Huguenot friends, and at the same time advance the glory of the French. Thus religion and patriotism combined to induce him to send out colonists to the new world.]
The company landed at Port Royal, S.C. So captivated were they, that when volunteers were called for to hold the country for France, so many came forward "with such a good will and joly corage," wrote Ribaut, "as we had much to do to stay their importunitie." They erected a fort, which they named Carolina in honor of Charles IX., king of France. The fleet departed, and this little band of thirty were left alone on the continent. From the North Pole to Mexico, they were the only civilized men. Food became scarce. They tired of the eternal solitude of the wilderness, and finally built a rude ship, and put to sea. Here a storm shattered their vessel. Famine overtook them, and, in their extremity, they killed and ate one of their number. A vessel at last hove in sight, and took them on board only to carry them captives to England. Thus perished the colony, but the name still survives.
[Footnote: The most feeble were landed in France. It is said that Queen Elizabeth while conversing with those sent to England, first thought of colonizing the new world]
LAUDONNIERE (Lo-don-yare), two years after, built a fort, also called Carolina, on the St. John's River.
[Footnote: The history of this colony records an amusing story concerning the long life of the natives. A party visited a chief in the midst of the wilderness who gravely assured them that he was the father of five generations, and had lived 250 years. Opposite him, in the same hut, sat his father, a mere skeleton, whose "age was so great that the good man had lost his sight, and could speak one onely word but with exceeding great paine." The credulous Frenchmen gazed with awe on this wonderful pair, and congratulated themselves on having come to such a land,—where certainly there would be no need of Ponce de Leon's fabled fountain.]
Soon the colonists were reduced to the verge of starvation.
[Footnote: Their sufferings were horrible. Weak and emaciated, they fed themselves with roots, sorrel, pounded fish-bones, and even roasted snakes. "Oftentimes," says Laudonniere, "our poor soldiers were constrained to give away the very shirts from their backs to get one fish. If at any time they shewed unto the savages the excessive price which they tooke, these villaines would answer them roughly: 'If thou make so great account of thy merchandise, eat it, and we will eat our fish;' then fell they out a laughing, and mocked us with open throat.">[
They were on the point of leaving, when they were reinforced by Ribaut. The French now seemed fairly fixed on the coast of Florida. The Spaniards, however, claimed the country. Melendez, about this time, had made a settlement in St. Augustine. Leading an expedition northward through the wilderness, in the midst of a fearful tempest, he attacked Fort Carolina and massacred almost the entire population.