The pinnace, meanwhile, lay at anchor, the tide being against them; with the dawn of day the voyage was resumed, and the ships were reached in safety where they lay in the roadstead. Transferred to these, the two captives continued to deplore their fate. Every effort was made to reconcile them to their situation, and nothing was withheld which experience had shown to be especially grateful to the savage fancy. But they rejected everything; even the food which had now become necessary to their condition. They held out till nearly sunset, in their rejection of the courtesies, which, with a show of kindness, deprived them of the most precious enjoyment and passion of their lives. But the inferior nature at length insisted upon its rights. “In the end they were constrained to forget their superstitions,” and to eat the meat which was set before them. They even received the gifts which they had formerly rejected; and, as if reconciled to a condition from which they found it impossible to escape, they put on a more cheerful countenance. “They became, therefore, more jocunde; every houre made us a thousand discourses, being marveillous sorry that we could not understand them.” Laudonniere set himself to work to acquire their language. He strove still more to conciliate their favor; engaged them in frequent conversation; and, by showing them the objects for which he sought their names, picked up numerous words which he carefully put on paper. In a few days he was enabled to make himself understood by them, in ordinary matters, and to comprehend much that they said to him. They flattered him in turn. They told him of their feats and sports, and what pleasures they could give him in the chase. They would take food from no hands but his; and succeeded in blinding the vigilance of the Frenchmen. They were not more reconciled to their prison-bonds than before. They had simply changed their policy; and, when, after several days’ detention, they had succeeded in lulling to sleep the suspicions of their captors, they stole away at midnight from the ship, leaving behind them all the gifts which had been forced upon them, as if, to have retained them, would have established, in the pale-faces, a right to their liberties—thus showing, according to Laudonniere, “that they were not void of reason.”
Ribault was not dissatisfied with this result of his endeavor to comply with the commands of the Queen-mother. His sense of justice probably revolted at the proceeding; and the escape of the Indians, who would report only the kindness of their treatment, would, in all likelihood, have an effect favorable to his main enterprise,—the establishment of a colony. This design he now broached to his people in an elaborate speech. He enlarged upon the importance of the object, drawing numerous examples from ancient and modern history, in favor of those virtues in the individual which such enterprise must develope. There is but one passage in this speech which deserves our special attention. It is that in which he speaks to his followers of their inferior birth and condition. He speaks to them as “known neither to the king nor to the princes of the realme, and, besides, descending from so poore a stock, that few or none of your parents, having ever made profession of armes, have beene knowne unto the great estates.” This is in seeming conflict with what Laudonniere has already told us touching the character and condition in society of the persons employed in the expedition. He has been careful to say, at the opening of the narrative, that the two ships were “well furnished with gentlemen (of whose number I was one) and old soldiers.”[5] The apparent contradiction may be reconciled by a reference to the distinction, which, until a late period, was made in France, between the noblesse and mere gentlemen. The word gentleman had no such signification, in France, at that period, as it bears to-day. To apply it to a nobleman, indeed, would have been, at one time, to have given a mortal affront, and a curious anecdote is on record, to this effect in the case of the Princess de la Roche Sur Yon, who, using the epithet “gentilhomme” to a nobleman, was insulted by him; and, on demanding redress of the monarch, was told that she deserved the indignity, having been guilty of the first offence.
But Ribault’s speech suggested to his followers that their inferior condition made nothing against their heroism. He, himself, though a soldier by profession, from his tenderest years, had never yet been able to compass the favor of the nobility. Yet he had applied himself with all industry, and hazarded his life in many dangers. It was his misfortune that “more regard is had to birth than virtue.” But this need not discourage them, as it has never discouraged him from the performance of his duties. The great examples of history are in his eyes, and should be in theirs.
“Howe much then ought so many worthy examples move you to plant here? Considering, also, that hereby you shall be registered forever as the first that inhabited this strange country. I pray you, therefore, all to advise yourselves thereof, and to declare your mindes freely unto me, protesting that I will so well imprint your names in the King’s eares, and the other princes, that your renowne shall hereafter shine unquenchable through our realm of France.”
Ribault was evidently not insensible to fame. Had his thoughts been those of his sovereign, also, how different would have been the history! His soldiers responded in the proper spirit, and declared their readiness to establish a colony in the wild empire, the grandeur and beauty of which had already commended it to their affections. Delighted with the readiness and enthusiasm of his men, he weighed anchor the very next day, in order to seek out the place most fit and convenient for his settlement. “Having sayled up the great river on the north side, in coasting an isle which ended with a sharpe point toward the mouth of the river;—having sailed awhile he discovered a small river which entered into the islande, which hee would not faile to search out, which done, he found the same deep enough to harbour therein gallies and galliots in good number. Proceeding farther, he found an open place joyning upon the brinke thereof, where he went on land, and seeing the place fit to build a fortresse in, and commodious for them that were willing to plant there, he resolved incontinently to cause the bignesse of the fortification to be measured out.” The colony was to be a small one. Twenty-six persons had volunteered to establish it; as many, perhaps, as had been called for. The dimensions of the fort were small accordingly. They were taken by Laudonniere, and one Captain Salles, under Ribault’s directions. The fort was at once begun. Its length was sixteen fathoms, its breadth thirteen, “with flanks according to the proportion thereof.” Then, for the first time, the European axe was laid to the great shafts of the forest trees of America, waking sounds, at every stroke, whose echoes have been heard for three hundred years, sounding, and destined to resound, from the Atlantic to the Pacific seas; leaving no waste of wood and wild, unawakened by this first music of civilization.
The site thus chosen by Ribault for his colony, though no traces have been left of the labor of his hands, is scarcely doubtful to the present possessors of the country. All the proofs concur in placing Fort Charles somewhere between North Edisto and Broad River, and circumstances determine this situation to be that of the beautiful little town of Beaufort, in South Carolina. The Grande Riviere of the French is our Broad River.[6] It was at the mouth of this river, in an island with a safe and commodious port, that the fort was established; and of the numerous islands which rise everywhere along the coast in this region, as a fortress to defend the verdant shores from the assaults of ocean, there is none which answers so well as this all the requisitions of this description. Besides, it is actually in the very latitude of the site, as given by Laudonniere; and the tradition of the Indians, as preserved by our own people, seems to confirm and to conclude the conjectures on this subject. They state that the first place in which they saw the pale faces of the Europeans was at Coosawhatchie, in South Carolina. Now, the Coosawhatchie is the principal stream that forms the Grande Riviere of the Frenchmen; and was, questionless, the first of the streams that was penetrated by the pinnace of Ribault. It is highly probable that it bore the name of Coosawhatchie through its entire course, until it emptied itself into the ocean. The testimony of the Indians, based simply upon their tradition, is of quite as much value as that of any other people. It is well known with what tenacity they preserve the recollection of important events, and with what singular adherence to general truthfulness. The island upon which Beaufort now stands was most probably that which yielded the first American asylum to the Huguenots of France!
Our Frenchmen travailed so diligently that, in a short space, the fortress was in some sort prepared for the colonists. It was soon in a defensible condition. “Victuals and warlike munition” were transferred from the shipping to the shore, and the garrison were furnished with all things necessary for the maintenance of their fortress and themselves. The fort was christened by the name of Charles, the King of France; while the small river upon which it was built received the name of Chenonceau. All things being provided, the colonists marched into their little and lovely place of refuge. They were confided to the charge of one Captain Albert, to whom, and to whose followers, Ribault made a speech at parting. His injunctions were of a parental and salutary character. He exhorted their Captain to justice, firmness and moderation in his rule, and his people to obedience; promising to return with supplies from France, and reinforcements before their present resources should fail them. But these exhortations do not seem to have been much regarded by either party. It will be for us, in future chapters, to pursue their fortunes, and to pluck, if possible, from the unwritten history, the detailed events of their melancholy destiny. Sad enough will it have been, even if no positive evil shall befall them,—that severance from their ancient comrades—that separation from the old homes of their fathers in La Belle France—that lonesome abode, on the verge of “ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,” on the one hand, and the dense, dark, repelling forests of Apalachia on the other;—doubtful of all they see,—in spite of all that is fresh and charming in their sight;—apprehensive of every sound that reaches them from the wilderness,—and filled with no better hope than that which springs up in the human bosom when assured that all hope is cut off—that one hope excepted, which is born of necessity, and which blossoms amid the nettles of despair. The isolation was the more oppressive and likely to be grievous, as we have reason to doubt that, though founding a colony for the refuge of a religious and persecuted people, they brought any becoming sense of religion with them. Our progress thus far with the adventurers has shown us but few proofs of the presence among them of any feelings of devotion. Ribault himself was but a soldier, and his ambition was of an earthly complexion. Had they been elevated duly by religion, they would have been counselled and strengthened in the solitude by God. Unhappily, they were men only, rude, untaught, and full of selfish passions,—badly ruled and often ill-treated, and probably giving frequent provocation to the pride and passions of those who had them under rule. But they began their career in the New World with sufficient cheerfulness. Its climate was delicious, like that of their own country. Its woods and forests were of a majesty and splendor beyond any of which their wildest fancies had ever dreamed; and the security which the remoteness of the region promised them, and the novelty which invested every object in their eyes made the parting from their comrades a tolerably easy one. They heard with lively spirits the farewell shouts of their companions, and answered them with cheers of confidence and pride. The simple paragraph which records the leave-taking of the parties, is at once pleasing and full of pathos. “Having ended his (Ribault’s) exhortations, we took our leaves of each of them, and sayled toward our shippes. We hoysed our sayles about ten of the clocke in the morning. After wee were ready to depart, Captain Ribault commanded to shoote off our ordnance, to give a farewell unto our Frenchmen; which fayled not to do the like on their part. This being done, wee sayled toward the north.” That last shout, that last sullen roar of their mutual cannon, and the great waves of the Atlantic rolled, unbroken by a sail, between our colonists and La Belle France.
[II.]
THE COLONY UNDER ALBERT.
The Colonists, thus abandoned by their countrymen, proceeded to make themselves secure in their forest habitations. Day and night did they address themselves to the completion of their fortress. They have seen none of the natives in the immediate neighborhood of the spot in which they had pitched their tents; but, aware of the wandering habits of the red-men, they might naturally look for them at any moment. Their toils, quickened by their caution, enabled them to make rapid progress. While they labored, they felt nothing of their loneliness. The employments which accompanied their situation, and flowed from its necessities, might be said to exercise their fancies, and to subdue the tendency to melancholy which might naturally grow out of their isolation. Besides, the very novelty of the circumstances in which they found themselves had its attractions, particularly to a people so lively as the French. Our Huguenots, at the outset, were very sensible to the picturesque beauties of their forest habitation. For a season, bird, and beast, and tree, and flower, presented themselves to their delighted eyes, in guises of constantly varying attraction. The solitude, itself, possessed its charm, most fascinating of all,—until it became monotonous—to those who had been little favored of fortune in the crowded world of civilization; and, with the feeling of a first freshness in their hearts, and, while in the performance of duties which were equally necessary to their safety, and new to their experience, the whole prospect before them was beheld through that rose-colored atmosphere which the fancy so readily flings before the mind, beguiling the soberer thought into forgetfulness. During this period they toiled successfully upon their fortifications. They raised the parapet, they mounted the cannon for defence; built rude dwellings within the walls, and in their boundless contiguity of shade, with the feeling that they were in some sort “monarchs of all they beheld;” they felt neither loneliness nor fear.