me," he said, satirically, "that clause in the will of Father Adam which divides the earth between the Spanish and the Portuguese and excludes the French." Verrazano (vārrä-tsä'no), a Florentine sailor in the French service, was sent out by Francis in 1524, and traced the coast northward from Cape Fear, North Carolina, to some point in New England. He probably entered the Hudson River and the harbor of Newport. He, like others, was seeking a passage to India, but concluded that none such existed.

Cartier's Voyages.-Ten years passed before another effort was made. Then, in 1534, Jacques Cartier (zhåk cärtya') sailed to America and entered and named the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He landed and took possession of the country in the name of the King of France. The next year he sailed up the St. Lawrence River as far as an Indian village named Hochelaga. This he named Montreal (Royal Mountain) from the lofty hill behind it. He called the whole country New France.2

The Huguenots in Florida. The religious wars of France gave rise to the next attempt to found a colony. In 1562, Coligny (cō-lēn-yē'), the great Protestant leader, sent out a body of Huguenot (French Protestant) colonists under Jean Ribault (zhän rē-bō'), who sailed to Florida, entered the St. John's River, and then went north to a harbor which he named Port Royal. This effort failed. The colonists, weary of the wilderness, and pining for

1 It is said that Baron de Lery, a French nobleman, tried to plant a colony on Sable Island in 1518. But hunger assailed him and his colonists, and they were glad to escape starvation by flight.

2 Cartier returned in 1541 as an agent of the Lord of Roberval, who made an attempt to found a colony in Canada. This effort ended in failure in 1543. Religious wars in France hindered any further effort by the French for a half-century.

France, built a rude vessel and sailed for home. They were rescued from probable death by an English ship.

In 1564 a second expedition, under Laudonnière (lōdon-yair'), landed on the St. John's River, and built a fort which they called Fort Carolina.1 Ribault afterward brought out reinforcements.

The Spanish Massacre. This region was claimed by Spain, and as soon as news of the French settlement

reached that country an expedition was sent out, under Pedro Menendez, a naval officer, with orders to drive the intruders off the land. Menendez landed in Florida in

1 Laudonnière's colonists suffered greatly. Food grew so scarce that they were obliged to eat sorrel, roots, pounded fish-bones, and roasted snakes. They traded their clothes with the Indians for fish, and found their sufferings treated with mockery by the savages.

1565, built a fort which he named St. Augustine, and then marched overland to the French colony, which he overcame by surprise and treachery. Obtaining possession of the fort, he murdered every soul in it,-men, women, and children. A few had escaped to the woods, and these, after strange adventures, got back to France.

Ribault had meanwhile set sail with a force to attack the Spanish, but his fleet was wrecked in a tempest, and the shipwrecked colonists were found by Menendez on his return. Two hundred escaped, but the remainder, one hundred and fifty in number, surrendered, and were marched to St. Augustine, with their hands tied behind them. Here they were ruthlessly massacred. Those who had escaped were afterward captured and made slaves for life.

The Massacre Revenged.-No notice was taken of this deed of blood by the government of France. But a private gentleman, named Dominique de Gourgues (dō-mi-nēk' du goorg'), determined to revenge his murdered countrymen, even if they did differ with him in religion. He fitted out a secret expedition, sailed to Florida, and surprised the Spanish garrison at Fort Carolina, putting every soul to death. Being too weak to attack St. Augustine, he returned in triumph to France.1

First Settlements in Canada.-Not until after 1600 did the French succeed in planting a permanent colony. Their religious wars had ended in 1598, and they then first became free for enterprise. The fisheries not only attracted

1 Menendez had hanged his captives at Fort Carolina, placing over their heads the inscription, "I do this not as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans." De Gourgues retorted in kind, hanging his prisoners where the French had been hung, and placing over them the inscription, "I do this not as to Spaniards, but as to assassins.”

them, but the fur-trade also had now begun, and hopes of profit in this direction were large. Fish and furs alike drew them to the north, and all their later attempts at settlement were made in Canada.1

In 1603, Henry IV. gave to a Huguenot nobleman named De Monts (mong) the right to plant a colony in Acadia, a

treal). This name was afterward restricted to the region which was finally named by the English New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In the same year a French adventurer named Samuel de Champlain sailed up the St. Lawrence as far as Montreal. In 1604 a settlement called Port Royal

In 1598 the Marquis de la Roque established a colony on Sable Island, his colonists being taken from the prisons of France. It was abandoned after a few years, the prisoners being pardoned and permitted to return.

was made in Acadia by Poutrincourt (poo-trăng-cōōr'), a companion of De Monts. It was the first permanent French settlement in America, and preceded by three years the first English settlement. It was afterward named Annapolis in honor of the English Queen Anne.

Champlain's Career.-Champlain returned in 1608 and built a fort at Quebec, as a fur-trading post. This place became the centre of wide-spread French explorations, in the interests of trade, missionary work, and discovery.

THE HEIGHTS OF QUEBEC.

Champlain discovered the beautiful lake which bears his name, and pushed his explorations westward as far as Lake Huron. He found himself in a centre of Indian war, and was induced by the Hurons to take their part in their wars with the Iroquois,-the powerful Indian confederacy of New York.

The first Indian battle in which the whites took part was fought in 1609, at a point near the site of Fort Ticonderoga, to which the Hurons, with their French allies, had ascended in canoes up Lake Champlain. The muskets of the whites, new and terrible weapons to the Indians, won Champlain and his followers an easy victory. But it was