France and England in North America, Part I: Pioneers of France in the New WorldParkman, Francis
History
France and England in North America, Part I: Pioneers of France in the New World
Parkman, Francis
Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Champlain, Samuel de, 1574-1635; Florida -- History -- Huguenot colony, 1562-1565
After the carousal they returned to Charlesfort, where they were soon
pinched with hunger. The Indians, never niggardly of food, brought them
supplies as long as their own lasted; but the harvest was not yet ripe,
and their means did not match their good-will. They told the French of
two other kings, Ouade and Couexis, who dwelt towards the south, and
were rich beyond belief in maize, beans, and squashes. The mendicant
colonists embarked without delay, and, with an Indian guide, steered
for the wigwams of these potentates, not by the open sea, but by a
perplexing inland navigation, including, as it seems, Calibogue Sound
and neighboring waters. Reaching the friendly villages, on or near the
Savannah, they were feasted to repletion, and their boat was laden with
vegetables and corn. They returned rejoicing; but their joy was short.
Their store-house at Charlesfort, taking fire in the night, burned to
the ground, and with it their newly acquired stock.
Once more they set out for the realms of King Ouade, and once more
returned laden with supplies. Nay, the generous savage assured them
that, so long as his cornfields yielded their harvests, his friends
should not want.
How long this friendship would have lasted may well be doubted. With the
perception that the dependants on their bounty were no demigods, but a
crew of idle and helpless beggars, respect would soon have changed to
contempt, and contempt to ill-will. But it was not to Indian war-clubs
that the infant colony was to owe its ruin. It carried within itself
its own destruction. The ill-assorted band of lands-men and sailors,
surrounded by that influence of the wilderness which wakens the dormant
savage in the breasts of men, soon fell into quarrels. Albert, a
rude soldier, with a thousand leagues of ocean betwixt him and
responsibility, grew harsh, domineering, and violent beyond endurance.
None could question or oppose him without peril of death. He hanged
with his own hands a drummer who had fallen under his displeasure, and
banished a soldier, named La Chore, to a solitary island, three leagues
from the fort, where he left him to starve. For a time his comrades
chafed in smothered fury. The crisis came at length. A few of the
fiercer spirits leagued together, assailed their tyrant, murdered him,
delivered the famished soldier, and called to the command one Nicolas
Barre, a man of merit. Barre took the command, and thenceforth there was
peace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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