Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. SECOND COLONY.?FORT CAROLINE. Meanwhile, a treacherous peace had been made between the imbecile Charles, and the Protestant portion of his subjects. This peace enabled Coligny to direct his attention to the forlorn colony which had been left in Carolina. Its fate was as yet unknown in France. To relieve the colonists, three ships were given for the service, and placed under the command of Rene Laudonniere; a man of intelligence, a seaman rather than a soldier, who had been upon the American coast in a former voyage, and was supposed to be the most fitting that could be chosen, from many offering, to lead forth the present colony. Emigrants offered themselves in numbers; for Florida was, at this time, a country of romance. Men dreamed of rich mines of gold and silver in its bowels; they had heard truly of its fruits and flowers; and they believed, in addition, that, under its bland airs and genial influence, the duration of human life was extended. Laudonniere himself tells of natives whom he had seen, who were two hundred and fifty years old, yet had a reasonable hope of living forty or fifty years longer. These idle fancies, which could only have found credence at a period when the wonderful discoveries of Columbus and other captains, had opened the fountains of the marvellous beyond the control of the ordinary standards of human judgment, readily stimulated the passion for adventure, and the armament of Laudonniere was soon rendered complete and ready for the sea. A voyage of sixty days brought the voyagers to the shores of New France, which they reached the 25th of June, 1564.They proceeded to May river, were they were received by the Indians with the warmest shows of friendship. They carried Laudonniere to see a pillar of stone which Bibault had set…
