Nation in a Nutshell | Page 5

the beauty, fertility, and noble harbors of the country.
[Sidenote: Jacques Cartier.]
Within ten years France sent forth another expedition, under the command of the famous Jacques Cartier, which was destined to acquire for that nation its claim to the possession of Canada. Cartier sailed from St. Malo to Newfoundland in twenty days. He went up the St. Lawrence, and returned home to tell the thrilling tale of his adventures. The next year he came back to discover the sites of Montreal and Quebec; and he made two more voyages, in 1540 and 1542.
[Sidenote: Ponce de Leon.]
Meanwhile, Spain was resolved to sustain the great prestige she had gained by the expeditions of Columbus, and to yield to no rival her claims to dominion on the new continent. In 1512, Don Juan Ponce de Leon, a brave soldier and adventurous man, who had accompanied Columbus on his second voyage, landed on the peninsula of Florida, and established the right of Spain to its possession. Five years after, Fernandez landed on the coast of Yucatan; and ere long Garay explored the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
[Sidenote: De Soto.]
It is not possible, in this survey, to follow, or even to name, the Spanish expeditions of discovery and conquest between 1512 and 1550. Suffice it to say that during this period subjects of the Spanish king landed on the coast of South Carolina, entered the harbors of New York and New England, crossed Louisiana and northern Mexico to the Pacific, explored Mexico and Peru, marched across Georgia under the lead of the renowned Ferdinand de Soto, penetrated to the interior, and, after many romantic adventures and desperate hardships, discovered the magnificent river which we call the Mississippi; made perilous excursions into the wild depths of Arkansas and Missouri, and even to the remote banks of the Red River.
[Sidenote: Character of the Discoverers.]
The enterprises of Spaniards, English, Portuguese, and French were alike prompted by the greed of gain. All sought the fabled El Dorado; all craved the power of colonial dominion. None the less were the navigators and soldiers, whom the nations sent forth to reveal a new world to civilization, men of courage and fortitude, able in achieving the momentous tasks assigned to them. Columbus and Cabot, at least, thought less of riches and fleeting honors than of the proper and noble glories of discovery; it was left to their Spanish successors to kidnap the Indians, to rob their settlements and murder their women, and to invade the peaceful wilds of America, with fire and the sword.

III.
THE ERA OF COLONIZATION.
[Sidenote: Voyages of Colonization.]
To acquire a title to the fertile and fruitful lands and fabled riches of the newly discovered continent, became the aspiration of the great maritime states of Europe, which had shared between them the honors of its discovery. From the middle of the sixteenth to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the voyages of adventure and projected colonization were almost continuous. Spaniards, Frenchmen, and Englishmen fitted out vessels and crossed the ocean, to make more extended researches, and to found, if possible, permanent settlements. Although failure generally attended these attempts at colonization, they gradually led the way to the final occupation of the continent.
[Sidenote: The Huguenots in America.]
Of these abortive efforts, that of Admiral Coligny to found a settlement of the Huguenots, who were persecuted in France, on the new shores, was the earliest and one of the most romantic. As long ago as 1562, America became a refuge of the oppressed for conscience's sake. The Huguenot colony, taking up their residence on the River May, gave the name of "Carolina" (from King Charles IX.) to their new domain. After many and terrible hardships, they returned again to France, to be soon succeeded by another colony of Huguenots, also sent out by brave old Coligny, which settled on the same soil of Carolina.
[Sidenote: Menendez in Florida]
This aroused the jealousy and cupidity of Spain. The "most Catholic" king was not only enraged to find the soil which he claimed as his own by right of discovery, taken possession of by the subjects of his French rival, but was scandalized that the new colonists should be Calvinistic heretics. It was the very height of the gloomiest period of religious fanaticism and persecution in Europe. Menendez was accordingly sent out to Florida by King Philip, and assumed its governorship; and on September 8, 1565, Saint Augustine, the oldest town in the United States, was founded, and Philip of Spain was solemnly proclaimed sovereign of all North America. Menendez lost no time in attacking the Huguenot colonists of Carolina. They were speedily defeated, and most of them were ruthlessly massacred; and our almost virgin soil was thus early the scene of another St. Bartholomew.
Meanwhile, England was not idle in contesting with France and Spain the supremacy of