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Updated: June 13, 2025
Why not take them, with all his men and all of Laudonnière's that were fit for service, sail at once, and strike the Spaniards before they could complete their defences, instead of waiting for them to collect their full force and come and attack him, cooped up on the St. John's? Such bold moves make the fame of commanders when they succeed, and when they fail are called criminal folly.
In fact they wanted to become pirates like those mutineers who had already sailed away. Laudonnière refused to listen to this request. But he promised that as soon as the two ships were finished they should be allowed to set out in search of gold mines. The mutineers separated with gloomy faces; they were by no means satisfied with Laudonnière's answer, and the discontent was as deep as ever.
These pirates joined with others whom they had won over, stole Laudonniere's two pinnaces, and set forth on a plundering excursion to the West Indies. They took a small Spanish vessel off the coast of Cuba, but were soon compelled by famine to put into Havana and give themselves up.
Here, to make their peace with the authorities, they told all they knew of the position and purposes of their countrymen at Fort Caroline, and thus was forged the thunderbolt soon to be hurled against the wretched little colony. On a Sunday morning, Francois de la Caille came to Laudonniere's quarters, and, in the name of the whole company, requested him to come to the parade ground.
The chief, at length convinced, led the party to his lodge, and entertained them with a decoction of the herb called Cassina. Satouriona, elated by Laudonniere's delusive promises of aid, had summoned his so-called vassals to war. Ten chiefs and some five hundred warriors had mustered at his call, and the forest was alive with their bivouacs.
But the craze for gold was now at fever-heat, and they had little notion of keeping faith with mere savages. Outina promised Vasseur, Laudonnière's lieutenant, that if he would join him against Potanou, the chief of a third tribe, each of his vassals would reward the French with a heap of gold and silver two feet high. So, at least, Vasseur professed to understand him.
La Grange and other officers took part with Landonniere, and opposed the plan of an attack by sea; but Ribaut's conviction was unshaken, and the order was given. All his own soldiers fit for duty embarked in haste, and with them went La Caille, Arlac, and, as it seems, Ottigny, with the best of Laudonniere's men.
To their great disgust, Ottigny permitted the Thimagoas to run their canoes ashore and escape to the woods. Far from keeping Laudonniere's senseless promise to light them, he wished to make them friends; to which end he now landed with some of his men, placed a few trinkets in their canoes, and withdrew to a distance to watch the result.
In an instant he was seized by the arms and legs and, crying lustily for help, was borne off to a great fire to be roasted on the spot, his shipmates did not doubt. On the contrary, the natives warmed and rubbed him, then took him down to the shore and watched him swim back to his friends. René de Laudonnière's Expedition to the St. John's. Absurd Illusions of the Frenchmen.
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