=15. Arrival of Huguenots.=—France was now torn with civil and religious discord, and, as a result, Admiral Coligny, the great leader of the Huguenots, determined to found a place of refuge for his co-religionists in a more tempting part of America than Canada. Accordingly, in 1562, Jean Ribaut, under his orders, sailed for the Southern coast and discovered the present St. John’s River in Florida. He left a small colony on Port Royal Sound, but it was soon scattered. Two years later, René de Laudonnière established another settlement on the St. John’s, but the colonists were disorderly. Some of them mutinied and attempted to plunder the Spaniards in the West Indies. Learning thus of the existence of the French settlement, the Spaniards under Menendez organized a strong expedition against it. The French had meanwhile been reënforced by a fleet under Ribaut and by Sir John Hawkins, the English slave-trader and famous fighter. But in spite of these reënforcements the French did not use their opportunities, and their vessels were soon scattered by a storm. Then Menendez, who had just established himself at St. Augustine (1565), destroyed the French fort and killed or captured nearly all the Frenchmen at that time in Florida. St. Augustine, the oldest town in the United States, still stands to record this savage warfare. A little later a French soldier, Dominic de Gourges, partly avenged his countrymen; but St. Augustine was not taken, and the French crown relinquished all claims to Florida. [Illustration: CHAMPLAIN.] =16. Champlain.=—In the progressive reign of Henry IV. of France, attention was once more paid to Canada. After a colony had failed on the Isle of Sable, near Nova Scotia, and another had all but come to grief in Nova Scotia proper, Samuel de Champlain[16] succeeded in establishing a permanent post at Quebec in 1608. In a few years, owing to the zeal of the Jesuit missionaries and the enterprise of the fur-traders, the French had obtained a firm grip upon Canada and were rapidly pushing inland. THE ENGLISH EXPLORERS. [Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.]