"When they (the conspirators) were come home againe, they assembled themselves together to choose one to be Governor over them." In this selection there was no difficulty. Jealousies and dissensions had ceased to exist, and the choice naturally fell upon Nicholas Barré,[15] whose former position, as Lieutenant under Albert, and whose recent connection with the party by which he was slain, had naturally given him a large influence among the colonists. He was equal to his new duties. He "knewe so well to quite himself of this charge that all rancour and dissention ceased among them, and they lived peaceably one with another." But, though harmony was restored among them, it was a harmony without hope. They had been abandoned by their countrymen. The supplies which Ribault had promised them had utterly failed. They had never, indeed, been levied. Ribault returned to France only to find it convulsed with a renewal of the civil war, under the auspices of that incarnate mischief, Catherine de Medicis, and her fatherless and cruel son, in whose name she swayed the country to its ruin. Coligny, the father of the colony, had enough to do in fighting the battles of the Huguenots at home. He could do nothing for those whom he had sent abroad. The peace of Longjumean had been of short duration, and there had been really no remission of hostilities on the part of the Catholics. In the space of three months more than two thousand of the former fell victims to the rage of the populace; and, though reluctantly, the Prince of Condé and Coligny were forced into a resumption of arms for the safety of their own persons. The immediate necessities of their situation were such as to defeat their efforts in behalf of the remote settlement at Fort Charles. They needed all their soldiers and Huguenots in France. Feeling themselves abandoned--they knew not why--the colonists in Florida ceased to behold a charm or solace in their solitary realm of refuge. Its securities were no longer sufficient to compensate for its loneliness. Better the strife, perhaps, than this unmeaning and unbroken silence. They were too few for adventure, and the discouragements resulting from their domestic grievances were enough to paralyze any such spirit. But for this there had been no lack of the necessary inducements. In their second voyage to King Ouade, seeking "mil and beans," they had learned some of the secrets of the country which made their eyes brighten. They had discovered that there was gold in the land, and that the gold of the land was good. This prince had freely given them of his treasure. He had bestowed on them pearls of the native waters, stones of finest chrystal, and certain specimens of silver ore, which he described, in reply to their eager inquiries, as having been gathered at the foot of certain high mountains, the bowels of which contained it in greatest quantity. These were the mountains of Apalachia, and the truth of Ouade's