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The fate of a party of Coligny's people, who had gone out as settlers, shall be the last of these stories, illustrating, as it does in the highest degree, the wrath and fury with which the passions on both sides were boiling. A certain John Ribault, with about 400 companions, had emigrated to Florida.
Meantime the raging of the elements had caused the greatest anxiety to those who remained within the fort, for they were fearful of its effect upon the ships of Admiral Ribault; and though they of course knew nothing of their fate, they were already beginning to regard them as lost.
After that the Paracoussy had receiued vs as I haue sayde, hee commaunded his wife to present mee with a certaine number of bullets of siluer, for his owne part bee presented mee with his bowe and his arrowes, as hee had done vnto Captaine Iohn Ribault in our first voyage, which is a signe of a perpetuall amitie and alliance with those which they honour with suche a kinde of present.
Like Ribault, he bore down the opposition of a cautious majority, and with five hundred picked men marched overland through thirty miles of swamp and jungle against the French fort. Thus each commander was exposing his own settlement in order to menace his enemies.
For the future thy welfare and speedy promotion shall be the especial charge of Jean Ribault." For such words as these from such a man, Réné felt that he would gladly face, single-handed, the whole Seminole band; and for the rest of that day he conceived himself to be the happiest boy in the world.
"And on the next morning," says Ribault, "we returned to land againe, accompanied with the Captaines, Gentlemen, and Souldiers, and others of our small troope, carrying with us a Pillour or columne of harde stone, our king's armes graved therein, to plant and set the same in the enterie of the Porte; and being come thither we espied on the south syde of the River a place very fitte for that purpose upon a little hill compassed with Cypres, Bayes, Paulmes, and other trees, with sweete smelling and pleasant shrubbes."
After the death of Ribault and his followers nothing could be looked for but merciless retaliation, and De Gourgues copied the severity, though not the perfidy, of his enemies. The very details of Menendez's act were imitated, and the trees on which the prisoners were hung bore the inscription: "Not as Spaniards, but as traitors, robbers, and murderers."
For this cause we hoysed our sayles about ten of the clocke in the morning: after wee were ready to depart Captaine Ribault commanded to shoote off our Ordinance to giue a farewel vnto our Frenchmen, which failed not to doe the like on their part. This being done wee sayled toward the North: and then we named this Riuer Porte Royal, because of the largenes and excellent fairenes of the same.
Spreading their white wings, the ships sailed northward forty miles during the night, and daylight found them standing off and on at the mouth of the great River of May. By the aid of a chart, made by Admiral Ribault two years before, they crossed its dangerous bar, and sailed up its broad channel.
The expedition of Ribault was the first visit of Europeans to Port Royal or to any part of South Carolina, and the garrison left by him was the first settlement under their auspices ever made on this continent north of Mexico.
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