We need not listen to this passage. The reader will find it, with other good things, in the huge tome of the braggart, and garrulous, but very shrewd and valiant old Gascon. Enough to say, that this counsel did not prevail with his friend. Gourgues determined to persevere in his original intention of presenting himself at court. His reasons for this resolution were probably not altogether shown to Montluc. Gourgues was a bankrupt, and needed employment. His expedition had absorbed his little fortune, and left him a debtor, without the means of repayment. With the highest reputation as a captain, by land and sea,—and with his name honored by the sentiment of the nation, which was not permitted to applaud,—he still fondly hoped that his friend had mistaken his position, and that he should be honored and welcomed to the favor and service of his sovereign. He was one of those to hope against hope.
“As thou wilt! Unbolt the door for the man who is wilful. If thy resolution be taken, I say no more. But thou shalt have letters to the Court, and if the words of an old friend and brother in arms may do thee good, thou shalt have the sign-manual of Montluc, to as many missives as it shall please thee to despatch.”
The letters were written; and, with a full narrative of his expedition prepared, the Chevalier de Gourgues made his appearance at court. He had anticipated the ambassador of Spain; but he was received coldly. The Queen Mother, and the Princes of Lorraine, with all who worshipped at their altars, turned their backs upon the heroic enthusiast. The king forebore to smile. In his secret heart, he really rejoiced in the vengeance taken by his subject upon the Spaniards, but he was not in a situation to declare his true sentiments. Meanwhile, the Spanish ambassador demanded the offender, and set a price upon his head. The Queen Mother and her associates denounced him. A process was initiated to hold him responsible, in his life, for an enterprise undertaken without authority against the subjects of a monarch in alliance with France; and our chevalier was compelled to hide from the storm which he dared not openly encounter. For a long time he lay concealed in Rouën, at the house of the President de Marigny, and with other ancient friends. In this situation, the Queen of England, Elizabeth, made him overtures, and offered him employment in her service; but the tardy grace of his own monarch, at length, enabled him to decline the appointments of another and a hostile sovereign. But, nevertheless, though admitted to mercy by the king of France, he was left without employment. Fortune, in the end, appeared to smile. Don Antonio, of Portugal, offered him the command of a fleet which he had armed with the view to sustaining his right to the crown of that country, which Philip of Spain was preparing to usurp. Gourgues embraced the offer with delight. It promised him employment in a familiar field, and against the enemy whom he regarded with an immortal hate; but the Fates forbade that he should longer listen to the plea of revenge. While preparing to render himself to the Portuguese prince, he fell ill at Tours, where he died, universally regretted, and with the reputation of being one of the most valiant and able captains of the day—equally capable as a commander of an army and a fleet. We cannot qualify our praise of this remarkable man by giving heed to the moral doubts which would seek to impair the glory, not only of the most remarkable event of his life, but of the century in which he lived. We owe it to his memory to write upon his monument, that his crimes, if his warfare upon the Spaniards shall be so considered, were committed in the cause of humanity!
Our chronicle is ended. The expedition of Dominique de Gourgues concludes the history of the colonies of France in the forests of the Floridian.
[APPENDIX.]
Originally, it was the design of the Author, to write a religious narrative poem on the subject of the preceding history. The following sections, however, were all that were written.
I.
THE VOICE.
A midnight voice from Heaven! It smote his ear,
That stern old Christian warrior, who had stood,
Fearless, with front erect and spirit high,
Between his trembling flock and tyranny,
Worse than Egyptian! It awakened him
To other thoughts than combat. “Dost thou see;”—
Thus ran the utterance of that voice from Heaven,—
“The sorrows of thy people? Dost thou hear
Their groans, that mingle with the old man’s prayer,
And the child’s prattle, and the mother’s hymn?
Vain help thy cannon brings them, and the sword,
Unprofitably drunk with martyr blood,
Maintains the Christian argument no more.
Arouse thee for new labors. Gird thy loins
For toils and perils better overcome
By patience, than the sword. Thou shalt put on
Humility as armor; and set forth,
Leading thy flock, whom the gaunt wolf pursues,
To other lands and pastures. ’T is no home
For the pure heart in France! There, Tyranny
Hath wed with Superstition; and the fruit—
The foul, but natural issue of their lusts,
Is murder!—which, hot-hunting fresher feasts,
Knows never satiation;—raging still,
Where’er a pure heart-victim may be found
In these fair regions. It will lay them waste,
Leaving no field of peace,—leaving no spot
Where virtue may find refuge from her foes,
Permitted to forbear defensive blows,
Most painful, though most needful to her cause!
The brave shall perish, and the fearful bend,
Till unmixed evil, rioting in waste,
Wallows in crime and carnage unrebuked!
Vain is thy wisdom,—and the hollow league,
That tempts thee to forbearance, worse than vain.
Flight be thy refuge now. Thou shalt shake off
The dust upon thy sandals, and go forth
To a far foreign land;—a wild, strange realm,
That were a savage empire, most unmeet
For Christian footstep, and the peaceful mood,
But that it is a refuge shown by God
For shelter of his people. Thither, then,
Betake thee in thy flight. Let not thy cheek
Flush at the seeming shame. It is no shame
To fly from shameless foes. This truth is taught
By him, the venerable sire who led
His people from the Egyptians. Lead thou thine!
Forbear the soldier’s fury. I would rouse
The Prophet and the Patriarch in thy breast,
And make thee better seek the peaceful march,
Than the fierce, deadly struggle. Thou shouldst guide,
With pastoral hand of meekness, not of blood,
The tribes that still have followed thee, and still,
Demand thy care. Far o’er the western deeps
Have I prepared thy dwelling! A new world,
Full of all fruits and lovely to the eye,—
Various in mount and valley, sweet in stream,
Cool in recesses of the ample wood,
With climate bland, air vigorous, sky as pure
As is the love that proffers it to faith—
Await thee; and the seas have favoring gales
To waft thee on thy path! Delay and die!”