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which the remains of his slaughtered countrymen yet hung, and having upbraided them in the strongest terms for their treachery and cruelty, he hanged them all; suspending a number of their bodies on the same trunk, and substituting the following inscription: -"Not because they are Spaniards, but because they are traitors, robbers, and murderers." Had this execution been confined to a few of the ringleaders, it might have been held as a just retribution; but being inflicted on so large a scale, it almost rivalled the atrocity which it was meant to avenge.

De Gourgues had not come with any intention of settlement. Embarking, therefore, with whatever was valuable in the forts, he sailed for Rochelle, and was received in that Protestant capital with the loudest acclamations. His reception at Bordeaux was equally flattering; but it was very different at Paris, where Charles showed no little inclination to transmit his head to Philip, who loudly demanded it. Steps were even taken for bringing him to trial; but they were found so excessively unpopular, that it was deemed expedient to withdraw them, and allow him to retire into Normandy.

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LTHOUGH North America was claimed by the French and English, the Spaniards were the only Europeans who had succeeded in getting into actual possession of any part of it. In the reign of Henry VIII., the English undertook several voyages, with the object of discovering a northwest passage to India.

In 1536, a voyage of discovery to the northwest parts of America was projected by a per

son named Hore, of London-"a man of goodly stature, great courage and given to the study of cosmographie." Of one hundred and twenty persons who accompanied him, thirty were members of the Inns of Court and Chancery. The voyage was extremely disastrous. After their arrival in Newfoundland, they suffered so much from famine, that they were driven to cannibalism. At length, a French ship arrived on the coast, and the adventurers captured it by stratagem and returned home. The Frenchmen were indemnified by Henry VIII., who pardoned the violence of necessity.

When Sebastian Cabot was appointed "Grand Pilot of England," by Edward VI., he awakened the ambition and enlarged the views of the English. By his advice, and under his direction, a voyage was undertaken in 1553, for the discovery of a northeast passage to Cathay, or

India. Three ships were fitted out, and placed under the command of Sir Hugh Willoughby. Richard Chancelor

was appointed pilot-major. The expedition received every mark of royal favor before it started from Greenwich. But the result was as disastrous as the beginning was brilliant. Sir Hugh Willoughby with the whole of two ships' companies perished miserably on the barren and uninhabited part of the eastern coast of Lapland, not far from the harbor of Kegor. Richard Chancelor, in the other vessel was more fortunate. He reached Archangel, travelled to Moscow, and opened the commercial intercourse which has since continued between Russia and England.

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Henry VIII.

The next voyage was for the purpose of discovering a northwest passage to Cathay. Martin Frobisher, a mariner of great courage, skill, and experience, conceived that the voyage was not only feasible, but of easy execution; and "as it was the only thing of the world that was left yet undone whereby a notable mind

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might be made famous and fortunate," he persisted for 15 years in striving

to procure the equipment of the expedition which was the constant object of his hopes and speculations.

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In 1576, by the patronage of Dudley, Earl of Warwick, Frobisher was enabled to fit out two vessels one of 35, and the other of 30 tons. As the vessels passed Greenwich, where the court then resided, Queen Elizabeth gave the adventurers an encouraging farewell by waving her hand to them from the window. On the 11th of July, Frobisher reached the southern part of Greenland, which he supposed to be the Friezeland of Zeno. The floating ice compelled him to steer southwest till he reached the coast of Labrador. Sailing northward, he entered a strait afterwards called Lumley's Inlet. The Esquimaux excited the wonder of the voyagers; and Frobisher took one of them, and soon after sailed for England, which he reached on the 2d of October. He had then obtained the fame he sought.

Frobisher.

One of Frobisher's seamen brought home with him a stone as a memorial of his visit to those distant lands. But his wife, throwing it into the fire, "it glistened with a bright marquesset of gold." This accident was soon noised abroad, and the gold-liners of London, being called upon to assay the stone, reported that it contained a considerable quantity of gold. Here was an additional lure to adventurers. The queen now openly favored the enterprise; and in 1577, Frobisher again set sail, with three ships. He steered for the strait where his previous voyage had terminated and sought the spot where the supposed gold ore had been picked up, but could not find on the whole island a piece "as big as a walnut." On the neighboring islands, however, the ore was found in large quantities. As gold was the real object of most of the adventurers, they secured about two hundred tons of the glittering ore, and sailed for England, where the vessels arrived separately, having been dispersed by a storm.

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HE queen was delighted with the results of the voyage, and resolved to establish a colony in the new country, to which she gave the name of Meta Incognita. A fleet of fifteen ships was equipped, and one hundred persons appointed to form a settlement, and remain there the whole year, with three ships. The remainder were to bring back cargoes of gold ore. Frobisher was appointed

admiral in general of the expedition, and before he sailed, received as a mark of approbation, a gold chain from the queen.

The fleet sailed on the 31st of May, 1578, and in three weeks reached Friezeland. It then proceeded towards Frobisher's straits. Distresses and vexations of every kind thwarted the attempt to fix a colony. Storms dispersed the fleet. Ice choked up the strait; and one small bark, on board of which was the house intended for the settlers, was crushed by the icebergs. At length, after enduring extreme hardships, it was resolved to return and postpone the settlement until the next year. The storms pursued the fleet on its homeward passage, but the vessels all arrived at various ports before October.

Frobisher's zeal in the pursuit of northwestern discoveries is supposed to have been fostered by the writings of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a gentleman of brilliant talents and romantic temper. After Frobisher's failure, Sir Humphrey Gilbert resolved to undertake a voyage for the same purposes. In 1578, he obtained a patent, authorizing him to make western

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