[12] Missions were founded with funds given by benevolent persons, at the solicitation of the monks. A royal grant was sometimes the foundation. They were invariably named in honor of a saint. The buildings usually formed a square, enclosed by a high wall, one end being occupied by the church, while the apartments of the friars, granaries, storehouses, etc., occupied the remaining sides.
[13] La Peyrouse, an officer of the French navy who had gallantly fought in our war for independence. He lost his life among the islands of the New Hebrides, on one of which his ship was thrown, not a soul surviving to tell the tale.
II.
THE FRENCH.
PRELUDE.
After the discovery of America by Columbus, the French were among the first to turn their attention to this side of the Atlantic, not so much to make conquests in the spirit of universal dominion, as the Spaniards were doing, as to seek new outlets or new sources of supply for their commerce and fisheries.
Spain, as we have seen, forced other nations to follow her lead at a respectful distance. With one foot planted in Europe and the other in America, she bestrode the Atlantic as the colossus of the age.
But the newly awakened spirit of discovery would not down at the bidding of prince or pontiff, let him be never so great or so powerful. Once aroused it was sure to find ways by which some part of the benefits to accrue to mankind from this grand discovery should not be monopolized by a single nation. We might even say that all the nations of Europe instinctively felt this to be their opportunity,—the opportunity of the human race.
France had the ships, and France had the sailors. Sir Walter Raleigh tells us—and surely he is an unbiassed witness—that in Cæsar's time the French Bretons were the best sailors in the world. Were we disposed to call in question their right to this title at a later day,—the time of Columbus, Cabot, Cortereal, and Magellan,—what can be said of their boldly setting sail across an unknown ocean, like the Atlantic, in vessels not larger than a modern oyster-boat?