shipwrecked Frenchmen were on the beach not far off. Menendez soon found them. They were exhausted and practically helpless. They surrendered and were murdered. Next came the news that Jean Ribaut himself, with a large number of men who had been wrecked in like manner, was a few miles away.1 When Menendez came up to the French, Ribaut with a hundred and fifty of his followers surrendered. The rest, who numbered two hundred, escaped in the night. They were eventually taken, and made slaves for life. Out of those who had surrendered with Ribaut five were for some reason spared. The hands of the others a hundred and forty-six in all- were tied behind them; then they were marched to St. Augustine, or its vicinity, and deliberately massacred. Thus the foundation of the oldest town in the United States (1565) may be said to have been laid in blood.

25. Revenge by De Gourgues.2-The king of France treated the affair with indifference; but a French Catholic named De Gourgues vowed vengeance on the murderers of his countrymen. He fitted out an expedition at his own expense and sailed for Florida. Reaching the St. John's River, he surprised and captured the Spanish garrison that Menendez had left there when he took the French fort. Having bound the prisoners, he hung them. Over their heads he placed a pine board on which these words were burned with a hot iron: "I do this not as to Spaniards; but as to assassins." Then De Gourgues, not having sufficient force to attack the Spaniards at St. Augustine, set sail for France. The French never made a second attempt to colonize Florida, and the Spaniards were left in full possession.

26. English Exploration: Frobisher; Davis. Since the voyages of the Cabots (1497-1498) the English had been occupied with other matters, and hence sent out no more exploring

1 They appear to have been on Anastasia Island, about five miles from St. Augustine.

2 De Gourgues (Deh Goorg, g hard; French pronunciation).

2

DRAKE'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.

333

expeditions to the west.1 But in 1576, nearly eighty years after the English flag had been planted on the North American continent, Sir Martin Frobisher set out to see if he could not discover a northwestern passage to Asia. His object was to reach the Indies, and secure part of the trade for England; for since the Portuguese had opened up a route to that country by way of the Cape of Good Hope,3 they held the control of that commerce.

Frobisher crossed the Atlantic and cruised about in the seas and straits north of North America, but accomplished nothing. Among the curiosities he carried back was a black stone. When examined in London this was said to have gold in it. The story soon got into circulation that the lucky captain had actually found the spot in those frozen regions of the north where King Solomon dug the gold for his temple in Jerusalem! A stock company was formed, and Frobisher went out and brought back several shiploads of black stones. What became of them does not appear.

It was a subject the stockholders preferred not to talk about. That was the last heard of "Solomon's mines"; and a few years later we find Frobisher's wife begging help of the government, and calling herself "the most miserable poor woman in the world." These expeditions were followed by a persistent attempt on the part of Captain John Davis to push his way through the same He, like Frobisher, left his name on the map of that desolate region, but that was all.

seas.

27. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Expedition; Drake's Voyage round the World. The next two expeditions by the English

1 See "The Leading Facts of English History," in this series. 2 See Paragraph 14.

3 Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese navigator (see Map, page 12), succeeded in doubling the Cape of Good Hope in 1497. He reached Calicut on the Malabar coast of India in 1498, and at a later period established a trading post there. The Portuguese thus became "the sole masters and dispensers of the treasure of the East," and held control of India for over a century.

4 The Map on page 33 is interesting as showing how little was then really known of the North American continent. By examining it, it will be seen that the upper

were of a different character. In 1578 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother to Sir Walter Raleigh, of whom we shall presently speak, obtained a charter from Queen Elizabeth granting him any new lands he might discover in America or the west. Gilbert started the next year, with his little fleet; but one ship was lost, and he was compelled to turn back. In 1583 he made a second attempt, and landed on Newfoundland, of which he took possession for the queen. Not long after, his largest ship was wrecked. But two vessels of the fleet were now left; and Gilbert started in the smaller of them, a tiny craft of only ten tons, on his homeward voyage. The weather was tempestuous, and the captain of the larger vessel begged Gilbert to go in the ship with him; but he would not forsake his crew. "We are as near to heaven by sea as by land," said he. That was the last heard of him; that night his little vessel was swallowed up by the waves. Let us trust that he found his brave words true.

Meantime Sir Francis Drake had sailed (1577) on a piratical expedition against the Spaniards and their settlements in South America. He passed through Magellan's Strait, entered the Pacific, and made havoc as he went along. He kept on northward until he reached what is now the coast of Oregon.1 He hoped, in this part of his voyage, to find a passage opening through to the Atlantic which might be used for trade with the Indies. He landed at several points, and refitted his ships at a place now called Drake's Bay, about thirty miles north of San Francisco. The Spaniards, who had been there before him, had named the country California.2 Drake took possession of the whole coast, and gave it the name of New Albion. He then

3

part was supposed to be very narrow, from north to south, with a broad channel through to the Pacific; for Frobisher Strait and Davis Strait, see Map, page 35.

1 He reached latitude 43°, in Southern Oregon; or, as some accounts say, 48°. 2 California: a name probably derived from a Spanish romance of 1510, in which a fabulous island rich in gold and precious stones is so called.

8 England is called Albion, a name once supposed to mean the Country of the White Cliffs. Drake saw a part of the shore of the Pacific coast of America, which, perhaps, reminded him of the chalk cliffs of his native land.