Florida, where we received no advancement.” Muñoz appended the following note to this memoir: “Excellent account, though of a man unaccustomed to writing, which is the cause of the numerous meaningless passages it contains.” Ternaux-Compans adds: “Without finding, as Muñoz, this account excellent, I thought it best to insert it here as containing valuable notices of the geography of Florida. It is often unintelligible; and notwithstanding all the pains I have taken in the translation, I must beg the indulgence of the reader.” The geographical notices are indeed valuable, particularly in locating the ancient Indian tribes. The style is crude and confused, but I find few passages so unintelligible as not to yield to a careful study and a comparison with cotemporary history. The memoir is addressed, “Tres puissant Seigneur,” and was probably intended to get its author a position. The date of writing is nowhere mentioned, but as it was not long after the death of Aviles (1574), we cannot be far wrong in laΔιονυσιαying it about 1580. § 2.--THE FRENCH COLONIES. 1562-1567. Several distinct events characterize this period of Floridian history. The explorations and settlements of the French, their extirpation by the Spaniards and the founding of St. Augustine, the retaliation of De Gourgues ----, as they constitute separate subjects of investigation, so they may be assumed as nuclei around which to group extant documents. Compendiums of the whole by later writers form an additional class. First in point of time is Jean Ribaut’s report to Admiral Coligny. This was never printed in the original, but by some chance fell into the hands of an Englishman, who published it less than ten months after its writer’s return.[29] “The style of this translation is awkward and crude, but the matter is valuable, embracing many particulars not to be found in any other account; and it possesses a peculiar interest as being all that is known to have come from the pen of Ribault.”[30] René Laudonniére, Ribaut’s companion and successor in command, a French gentleman of good education and of cultivated and easy composition, devotes the first of his three letters to this voyage. For the preservation of his writings we are indebted to the collector Basanier, whose volume of voyages will be noticed hereafter. The two narratives differ in no important particulars, and together convey a satisfactory amount of information.