Two books in one: The Huguenots in Florida and Samuel de Champlain and his Associates.

Francis Parkman seems to be the only English American who writes on French Canadian and Indians in New France.

See what he had to say about our country. And the question If Champlain an Huguenot seems to be real. What do you think of ?

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Summary

Introduction

HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA

Prefatory note to the Huguenots in Florida

Early Spanish Adventure (1512-1561)

Villegagnon (1550-1558)

Jean Ribaut (1562-1563)

Laudonnière (1564)

Conspiracy (1564-1565)

Famine War Succor (1564-1565)

Menendez (1565)

Massacre of the Heretics (1565)

Charles IX and Phillip II (1565-1567)

Dominique de Gourgues (1567-1583)

SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN AND HIS ASSOCIATES

Early French Adventure in North America (1488-1543)

Jacques Cartier

Sieur de Roberval

La Roche (1542-1604)

Pontgrave with Chauvin

Samuel de Champlain

Sieur de Monts

Acadia occupied (1604-1605)

New England

Lescarbot and Champlain (1605-1607)

The Jesuits and their Patroness

Jesuits in Acadia

La Saussaye - Argall (1613)

Ruin of French Acadia (1613-1615)

Champlain at Quebec (1608-1609)

Lake Champlain

War - Trade - Discovery (1610-1612)

Montreal

The Impostor Vignau (1612-1613)

Discovery of Lake Huron (1615)

The Great War Party (1615-1616)

Hostile Sects - Rival Interests (1617-1627)

The English at Quebec (1628-1629)

Quebec a Mission (1632-1635)

Death of Champlain (1635)

Note about the cover: From a Beautiful Illustration signed J. D. Belly (1996), from detourimprovise.blogspot.com

Conspiracy (1564-1565)

In the little world of Fort Caroline, a miniature France, cliques and parties, conspiracy and sedition, were fast stirring into life. Hopes had been dashed, and wild expectations had come to naught.

The adventurers had found, not conquest and gold, but a dull exile in a petty fort by a hot and sickly river, with hard labor, bad fare, prospective famine, and nothing to break the weary sameness but some passing canoe or floating alligator.

Gathered in knots, they nursed each other's wrath, and inveighed against the commandant. Why are we put on half-rations, when he told us that provision should be made for a full year? Where are the reinforcements and supplies that he said should follow us from France? And why is he always closeted with Ottigny, Arlac, and this and that favorite, when we, men of blood as good as theirs, cannot gain his ear for a moment?

The young nobles, of whom there were many, were volunteers, who had paid their own expenses in expectation of a golden harvest, and they chafed in impatience and disgust.

The religious element in the colony – unlike the former Huguenot emigration to Brazil – was evidently subordinate. The adventurers thought more of their fortunes than of their faith. Yet there were not a few earnest enough in the doctrine of Geneva to complain loudly and bitterly that no ministers had been sent with them.

The burden of all grievances was thrown upon Laudonnière, whose greatest errors seem to have arisen from weakness and a lack of judgment, – fatal defects in his position.

The growing discontent was brought to a partial head by one La Roquette, who gave out that, high up the river, he had discovered by magic a mine of gold and silver, which would give each of them a share of ten thousand crowns, besides fifteen hundred thousand for the King.

But for Laudonnière, he said, their fortunes would all be made. He found an ally in a gentleman named Genre, one of Laudonnière's confidants, who, while still professing fast adherence to his interests, is charged by him with plotting against his life. "This Genre," he says, "secretly informed the Soldiers that were already suborned by La Roquette, that I would deprive them of this great game, in that I did set them daily on work, not sending them on every side to discover the countries. Therefore that it were a good deed to dispatch me out of the way, and to choose another Captain in my place."

The soldiers listened too well. They made a flag of an old shirt, which they carried with them to the rampart when they went to their work, at the same time wearing their arms. And, pursues Laudonnière, "these gentle Soldiers did the same for none other end but to have killed me and my Lieutenant also, if by chance I had given them any hard speeches."

About this time, overheating himself, he fell ill, and was confined to his quarters. On this, Genre made advances to the apothecary, urging him to put arsenic into his medicine. But the apothecary shrugged his shoulders.

They next devised a scheme to blow him up by hiding a keg of gunpowder under his bed. But here, too, they failed. Hints of Genre's machinations reaching the ears of Laudonnière, the culprit fled to the woods, whence he wrote repentant letters, with full confession, to his commander.

Two of the ships meanwhile returned to France, the third, the "Breton," remaining at anchor opposite the fort. The malcontents took the opportunity to send home charges against Laudonnière of peculation, favoritism, and tyranny.

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