We lose trace of Verrazano after his return from this voyage. Francis I. was in no condition to profit from the opportunity offered him to colonize a new world. He had engaged in a struggle with the Emperor; was soon after the date of this letter busily occupied in fighting battles; and at that of Pavia, Feb. 24, 1525, was taken prisoner, and spent the next year in captivity in Spain. It has been suggested that Verrazano went to England, and there offered his services to Henry VIII., and there are contemporary allusions supporting the suggestion. Mr. Biddle, in his _Memoir of Sebastian Cabot_, advances the opinion that Verrazano was the Piedmontese pilot who was killed and eaten by the savages in Rut’s expedition of 1527, which would harmonize Ramusio’s statement that he made a second voyage to America and lost his life there. But this is extremely doubtful.[15] We know from French sources that in 1526 Verrazano joined with Admiral Chabot, Jean Ango, and others, in an agreement for a voyage to the Indies for spices, with a proviso inserted for the equitable division of any booty taken “from the Moors or others, enemies of the faith and the King our lord.” Spanish documents of official character show that Juan Florin, with other French pirates, was captured at sea in 1527, and hung at the small village of Colmenar, between Salamanca and Toledo, in November of that year. But it has been also lately stated that a letter has been found, dated at Paris, Nov. 14, 1527, which speaks of Verrazano as _then_ preparing an expedition of five ships for America, expecting to sail the following spring. If this statement is accurate, and the date of the letter has been correctly read, grave doubts are thrown upon the Spanish story of his execution. Either Florin was not Verrazano, or he was not hanged at the time stated. I cannot undertake to reconcile all these statements, but must leave them as I find them. * * * * *