and their intrepid navigators were soon known among the fisheries of Newfoundland and the Canadian coast.  As early as 1506 a chart of the St. Lawrence was drawn by John-Denis, who came from Honfleur in Normandy.  Before long the fishers began to approach the coasts, attracted by the fur-trade; they entered into relations with the native tribes, buying, very often for a mere song, the produce of their hunting, and , introducing to them, together with the first fruits of civilization, its corruptions and its dangers.  Before long the savages of America became acquainted with the fire-water.

Policy was not slow to second the bold enterprises of the navigators.  France was at that time agitated by various earnest and mighty passions; for a moment the Reformation, personified by the austere virtues and grand spirit of Coligny, had seemed to dispute the empire of the Catholic church.  The forecasts of the admiral became more and more sombre every day; he weighed the power and hatred of the Guises as well as of their partisans; in his anxiety for his countrymen and his religion he determined to secure for the persecuted Protestants a refuge, perhaps a home, in the new world, after that defeat of which he already saw a glimmer.

A first expedition had failed, after an attempt on the coasts of Brazil; in 1562, a new flotilla set out from Havre, commanded by John Ribaut of Dieppe.  A landing was effected in a beautiful country, sparkling with flowers and verdure; the century-old trees, the vast forests, the unknown birds, the game, which appeared at the entrance of the glades and stood still fearlessly at the unwonted apparition of man—­this spectacle, familiar and at the same time new, presented by nature at the commencement of May, caused great joy and profound gratitude amongst the French, who had come so far, through so many perils, to the borders of Florida; they knelt down piously to thank God; the savages, flocking together upon the shore, regarded them with astonishment mingled with respect.  Ribaut and his companions took possession of the country in the name of France, and immediately began to construct a fort, which they called Fort Charles, in honor of the young king, Charles IX.  Detachments scoured the country, and carried to a distance the name of France:  during three years, through a course of continual suffering and intestine strife more dangerous than the hardships of nature and the ambushes of savages, the French maintained themselves in their new settlement, enlarged from time to time by new emigrants.  Unhappily they had frequently been recruited from amongst men of no character, importing the contagion of their vices into the little colony which Coligny had intended to found the Reformed church in the new world.  In 1565 a Spanish expedition landed in Florida.  Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who commanded it, had received from King Philip II. the title of adelantado (governor) of Florida; he had pledged