The glowing accounts of the delights of the Floridian Eden which were brought by our returning voyagers, were not sufficient to persuade the garrison to forego their anxious desire to return to France. The home-sickness under which they labored had now reached such a height as to suffer no appeal or opposition. Nothing but the stern decree of authority could have silenced the discontents; and the authority lay neither in the will nor in the numbers under the control of Laudonniere. To such a degree of impatience had this passion for their European homes arisen, that, when it was found that the building of the vessel for their deportation would be delayed beyond the designated period, in consequence of the death, in battle with the savages, of two of the carpenters, the multitude rose in mutiny setting upon Jean de Hais, the master-carpenter,--who had innocently declared the impossibility of doing the work within the given time,--with such ferocity, as to make it scarcely possible to save his life. With this spirit prevailing among his garrison, Laudonniere was compelled to abandon the idea, altogether, of building the ship; and to address all his energies to the repair, for the desired purpose, of the old brigantine, which had been brought back to La Caroline, by the returning pirates. To work, with this object, all parties were now set with the utmost expedition. The houses which had been built without the fort were torn down, in order that the timber should be converted into coal for the uses of the forge; this being a labor much easier than that of using the axe upon the trees of the forest. The palisade which conducted from the fort to the river was torn down also by the soldiery, for the same purpose, in spite of the objections of Laudonniere. It was their policy to make their determination to depart inevitable, by rendering the place no longer habitable. The fort, itself, it was determined to destroy, when they were ready to sail, "lest some new-come guest should have enjoyed and possessed it." Our Frenchmen were very jealous of the designs of the English queen. They well knew that the haughty and courageous Elizabeth was meditating a British settlement in the New World; and though, after their own voluntary abandonment of the country, they had no right to complain that another should occupy the waste places, yet their jealousy was too greatly that of the dog in the manger, to behold, with pleased eye, the possession by another of the things which they themselves had been unable to enjoy. "In the meanwhile," says Laudonniere--seeking to excuse his own unwise management and feeble policy--"In the meanwhile, there was none of us to whome it was not an extreme griefe to leave a country wherein wee had endured so greate travailes and necessities, to discover that which wee must forsake through our owne countrymen's default. For if wee had beene succoured in time and place, and according to the promise that was made unto us, the