CHAPTER XX.-HISTORY.

DISCOVERY AND COLONIZATION.

It is a singular fact that the science and energy of Italian navigators opened the new world to Europe, though adventurers from other countries derived the benefit of their discoveries, and established colonies on its shores. Columbus, Cabot, Verazzani, and Americo Vespucci, were all Italians; and though the latter gave his name to a hemisphere, he acquired no particular advantage for himself or his native country.

men.

The exploits of Columbus had excited a spirit of enterprise among the English merchants, and a commission was granted by Henry VII. to John Cabot and his three sons, giving them full liberty to sail to all parts of the east, west and north; to discover countries of the heathen; to occupy all countries they could subdue, and set up the king's banners in them; to exercise jurisdiction over them, and pay to the king one fifth part of all their gains. A small fleet was thus equipped, with about three hundred Cabot sailed north-west a few weeks, till his course was arrested by icebergs; he then steered south, subsequently changed his course, and again resumed it, till further prosecution of the voyage was finally abandoned in consequence of a mutiny which broke out on board. It is doubtful whether he ever landed in the new world. From this voyage, the English derived their claims to the territory which they subsequently acquired in this continent. For a period of sixty successive years, the English monarchs gave themselves no further trouble about the progress of discoveries in America.

During this time, France and Spain were on the alert. In a voyage patronized by Francis I., the Florentine navigator Verazzano discovered and described with considerable accuracy the coast of Florida. In a second voyage, undertaken in the following year, he landed with some of hris crew, was killed by the savages, and devoured in the presence of his companions. This melancholy event for a time damped the spirit of discovery, and it was not till after a lapse of ten years that any other French expedition was fitted out to America. In 1534, Jacques Cartier was supplied with two ships under the direction of the vice-admiral of France, and discovered the Baye des Chaleurs and the gulf of St. Law rence. In the following spring a larger expedition was equipped under. the same direction, and they proceeded direct to Newfoundland. They sailed up the river of Canada three hundred leagues, formed alliances with the natives, built a fort, and wintered in the country. This colony was afterwards broken up, and for fifty years the French made no effort to establish themselves in Canada.

To trace the course of Spanish discovery-in the year 1528, Pamphilc de Narvaez received from Charles V. of Spain, a grant of all the lands extending from the river of Palms to the cape of Florida, with a commission to conquer and govern all the provinces within these limits. Landing

at Florida, he marched to Apalache, and lost many of his troops in encounters with the natives. Being forced to direct his course towards the sea, and sailing to the westward, he was lost in a violent storm, and the enterprise frustrated. Calamitous as was the issue of this expedition, it did not deter others from pursuing the same course. In May, 1539, Fernando de Soto sailed from Havana on an exploring expedition, and landed on the western coast of Florida. Of nine hundred men engaged in this voyage, but three hundred and eleven survived it; the remainder perished in battles with the natives. Poverty and ruin involved all who were concerned in it. Soto died at the confluence of the Guacoya and Mississippi; and to prevent the Indians from obtaining a knowledge of his death, his body was deposited in a hollowed oak and sunk in the river.

About the year 1562, a party of Huguenots, under the command of Ribault, sailed with a view of colonizing Florida. After a favorable voyage, he arrived at the entrance of a river which he called May, from the month in which he reached the coast. Here he erected a fort, and then sailed for France to bring out a reinforcement. Two years afterwards a fresh expedition was fitted out, under M. René Laudonniere, who arrived in the river May in the latter part of June. He proved incompetent to manage the affairs of the new colony, and he was on the point of leaving for Europe, when a new expedition under the command of Ribault entered the river. That officer superseded Laudonniere only, however, to experience more melancholy disasters. Scarcely a week had passed after his arrival, when eight Spanish ships were seen in the river. After a variety of misfortunes which befell Laudonniere, he escaped with some of his followers in a French shallop, and finally reached in a miserable condition the port of Bristol. A more tragic end awaited Ribault. His vessels were dashed to pieces during a storm, and their crews with great difficulty succeeded in reaching the shore. They directed their steps towards the fort, and found it to their great surprise in the hands of their inveterate enemies, the Spaniards. It was determined to open a parley, and the Spanish commander pledged his honor that they should be unharmed. Notwithstanding this pledge they were inhumanly massacred, and their dead bodies treated with the most shocking indignities. A number of the mangled limbs of the victims were then suspended to a tree, to which was attached the following inscription: 'Not because they are Frenchmen, but because they are heretics and enemies of God.'

This outrage was fully avenged by Dominique de Gourgues, who devoted himself and his fortune to effect a signal retribution. Finding means to equip three small vessels, he crossed the Atlantic, sailed along the coast of Florida, and landed at a river about fifteen leagues distant from the May. The Spaniards to the number of four hundred were well stationed in different fortresses; they were all slain or taken captive. The surviving prisoners were led away, and were hung on the boughs of the same trees from which the Frenchmen had before been suspended. Gourgues attached to them the retaliatory label-'I do not this as to Spaniards, nor as to mariners, but as to traitors, robbers, and murderers.' Thus terminated the attempts of the French Protestants to colonize Florida. In 1578, Sir Walter Raleigh, in conjunction with his half-brother and kindred spirit, Sir Humphry Gilbert, projected the establishment of a colony in that quarter of America which the Cabots had visited in the reign of

Henry VII.; and a patent for this purpose was procured without difficulty in favor of Gilbert, from Elizabeth. As this is the first charter to a colony granted by the crown of England, the articles in it merit particular attention, as they unfold the ideas of that age with respect to the nature cf such settlements. Elizabeth authorizes him to discover and take possession of all remote and barbarous lands, unoccupied by any Christian prince or people; invests in him the full right of property in the soil of those countries whereof he shall take possession; empowers him, his heirs and assigns, to dispose of whatever portion of those lands he shall judge meet, to persons settled there, in fee simple, according to the laws of England; and ordains, that all the lands granted to Gilbert shall hold of the crown of England by homage, on payment of the fifth part of the gold or silver ore found there. The charter also gave Gilbert, his heirs and assigns, full power to convict, punish, pardon, govern, and rule, by their good discretion and policy, as well in causes capital or criminal as civil, both marine and other, all persons who shall, from time to time, settle within the said countries; and declared, that all who settled there should have and enjoy all the privileges of free denizens and natives of England, any law, custom, or usage to the contrary notwithstanding. And, finally, it prohibited all persons from attempting to settle within two hundred leagues of any place which Sir Humphry Gilbert, or his associates, shall have occupied during the space of six years.

Invested with these extraordinary powers, Gilbert began to collect associates, and to prepare for embarkation. The first equipment, however, of Sir Humphry, may be said to have failed, even before it set out. Being composed in a great measure of voluntary men of diverse dispositions,' there was a great falling off when it came to the point, and Sir Humphry was at last obliged to set out with only a few of his own tried friends. He encountered the most adverse weather, and was obliged to return, 'with the loss of a tall ship, and, more to his grief, of a valiant gentleman, Miles Morgan.' This was a severe blow, as Sir Humphry had embarked a large portion of his property in this undertaking. However, his determination continued unshaken; and by the aid of Sir George Peckham, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other persons of distinction, he was enabled to equip another expedition, with which, in the year 1583, he again put to

sea.

On the 30th of July, Gilbert discovered land in about fifty-one degrees north latitude; but, finding nothing but bare rocks, he shaped his course to the southward, and on the 3d of August arrived at St. John's harbor, at Newfoundland. There were at that time in the harbor thirty-six vessels, belonging to various nations, and they refused him entrance; but, on sending his boat with the assurance that he had no ill design, and that he had a commission from queen Elizabeth, they submitted, and he sailed into the port. Having pitched his tent on shore in sight of all the shipping, and being attended by his own people, he summoned the merchants and masters of vessels to be present at the ceremony of his taking possession of the island. When assembled his commission was read and interpreted to the foreigners. A turf and twig was then delivered to him; and procla mation was immediately made, that, by virtue of his commission from the queen, he took possession of the harbor of St. John, and two hundred leagues every way around it, for the crown of England.

This formal possession, in consequence of the discovery by the Cabots, is considered the foundation of the right and title of the crown of England to the territory of Newfoundland, and to the fishery on its banks. Gilbert, intending to bring the southern parts of the country within his patent, the term of which had now nearly expired, hastened to make further discoveries before his return to England. He therefore embarked from St. John's harbor with his little fleet, and sailed for the isle of Sable by the way of cape Breton. After spending eight days in the navigation from cape Race towards cape Breton, the ship Admiral was cast away on some shoals before any discovery of land, and nearly one hundred persons perished; among these was Stephen Parmenius Budeius, a learned Hungarian, who had accompanied the adventurers, to record their discoveries and exploits. Two days after this disaster, no land yet appearing, the waters being shallow, the coast unknown, the navigation dangerous, and the provisions scanty, it was resolved to return to England. Changing their course ac cordingly, they passed in sight of cape Race on the 2d of September; but when they had sailed more than three hundred leagues on their way home, the frigate, commanded by Sir Humphry Gilbert himself, foundered in a violent storm, at midnight, and every soul on board perished.

VIRGINIA, FROM ITS SETTLEMENT TO 1756.

Terrible as was the fate of Gilbert and his associates, the ardor of Raleigh was not daunted, nor his energies depressed. High in favor with Elizabeth, he found no difficulty in procuring a patent similar to that which had been granted to his unfortunate brother. Prompt in the execution, as intrepid in the projection of his plans, he speedily equipped two small vessels, under Amadas and Barlow, to obtain further information of the coasts, the soil, and the inhabitants of the regions he designed to colonize. Approaching America by the gulf of Florida, they touched first at the island of Ocakoke, which runs parallel to the greater part of North Carolina, and then at Roanoke, near the mouth of Albemarle sound. In both they had some intercourse with the natives, whom they found to be savages, with all the characteristic qualities of uncivilized life-bravery, aversion to labor, hospitality, a propensity to admire and a willingness to exchange their rude productions for English commodities, especially for ron, or any of the useful metals of which they were destitute. After spending a few weeks in this traffic, and in visiting some parts of the adjacent continent, Amadas and Barlow returned to England, and gave a most fervid description of the country they had been sent to explore.

Delighted with the prospect of possessing a territory so far superior to any hitherto visited by her subjects, Elizabeth was pleased to honor both the newly discovered country and herself, by bestowing upon it the title of Virginia.

These favorable circumstances not only encouraged the enterprising spirit of Raleigh, but, by their effect on public opinion, assisted him in his arrangements to form a permanent settlement; and he was soon enabled to dispatch seven ships, under the command of Sir Richard Grenville, one of the most valorous spirits of the age, with Ralph Lane, as governor of the colony, accompanied by Heriot, a mathematician of celebrity, and some other men of science. Sailing from Plymouth on the 9th of April,

they proceeded to Virginia by the way of the West Indies, and, having narrowly escaped shipwreck at cape Fear, anchored at Wocokon, on the 26th of June. From this island Grenville went to the continent, accom panied by several gentlemen, and discovered various Indian towns. He then proceeded to cape Hatteras, where he was visited by Granganinio, the prince seen by Amadas and Barlow the preceding year; and having viewed the island of Roanoke, he embarked for England, leaving one hundred and seven persons under the government of Mr. Lane, to form a plan tation, and to commence the first English colony ever planted in America. The chief employment of this party, during their year's residence in the "ew world, consisted in obtaining a more correct and extensive knowledge of the country; a pursuit in which the persevering abilities of Heriot were exercised with peculiar advantage. His unremitting endeavors to instruct the savages, and diligent inquiries into their habits and character, by adding to the stock of human knowledge, rendered the expedition not wholly unproductive of benefit to mankind. He endeavored to avail himself of the admiration expressed by the savages for the guns, the clock, the telescopes, and other implements that attested the superiority of the colonists, in order to lead their minds to the great source of all sense and science. But, unfortunately, the majority of the colonists were much less distinguished by piety or prudence, than by a vehement impatience to acquire sudden wealth; their first pursuit was gold; and, eagerly listening to the agreeable fictions of the natives, the adventurers consumed their time, and endured amazing hardships, in pursuit of a phantom, to the utter neglect of the means of providing for their future subsistence. The stock of provisions brought from England was exhausted; and the colony, reduced to the utmost distress, was preparing to disperse into different districts of the country in quest of food, when Sir Francis Drake appeared with his fleet, returning from a successful expedition against the Spaniards in the West Indies. A scheme which he formed, of furnishing Lane and his associates with such supplies as might enable them to remain with comfort in their station, was disappointed by a sudden storm, in which the vessel he had destined for their service was dashed to pieces; and as he could not supply them with another, at their joint request, as they were worn out with fatigue and famine, he carried them home to England.

Had the Virginia adventurers, however, remained but a little time longer at their plantation, they would have received supplies from home; for, a few days after their departure, a ship, sent by Sir Walter Raleigh to their relief, arrived at Hatteras, and made diligent search for them, but, not finding them, returned to England. Within a few days after this ship had left the coast, Sir Richard Grenville arrived at Virginia with three new vessels laden with provisions. Searching in vain for the colony that he planted, but yet unwilling to lose possession of the country, he left fifty of his crew to keep possession of the island of Roanoke, and returned to England. This was, indeed, but an inauspicious commencement for English attempts at transatlantic colonization; but, though its immediate results did not realize the high expectations which had been formed, its consequences were indirectly very beneficial. It gave Heriot opportunity to describe its soil, climate, productions, and the manners of its inhabitants, with a degree of accuracy which merits no inconsiderable praise, when compared with the childish and marvellous tales published by several of the early visitants of the new world.