I. That no evidence of the Verrazzano discovery ever existed in France, is not only necessarily presumed from the circumstance that none has ever been produced, but is inferentially established by the fact that all the French writers and historians, who have had occasion to consider the subject, have derived their information in regard to it from the Italian so-called copies of the letter, and until recently from that in Ramusio alone. No allusion to the discovery, by any of them, occurs until several years after the work of Ramusio was published, when for the first time it is mentioned in the account written by Ribault, in 1563, of his voyage to Florida and attempted colonization at Port Royal in South Carolina, in the previous year. Ribault speaks of it very briefly, in connection with the discoveries of Sebastian Cabot and others, as having no practical results, and states that he had derived his information in regard to it, from what Verrazzano had written, thus clearly referring to the letter. He adds that Verrazzano made another voyage to America afterwards, "where at last he died." As Ramusio is the only authority known for the latter statement, it is evident that Ribault must have had his work before him, and consequently his version of the letter, when he prepared this account. [Footnote: The original narrative of Ribault, in French, has never appeared in print. It was probably suppressed at the time for political reasons, as the colony was intended for the benefit of the protestants of France. It was, however, translated immediately into English and printed in 1563, under the following title: "The whole and true discoverye of Terra Florida &c never found out before the last year, 1562. Written in French by Captain Ribault &c and now newly set forthe in Englishe the XXX of May, 1563. Prynted at London, by Rowland Hall, for Thomas Hacket." This translation was reprinted by Hakluyt in his first work, Divers Voyages, in 1582; but was omitted by him in his larger collections, and the account by Laudoniere, who accompanied Ribault, of that and the two subsequent expeditions, substituted in its stead.] In the relation written by Laudoniere in 1566, but not printed until 1586, of all three of the expeditions sent out from France, for the colonization of the French protestants, mention is again made of the discoveries of Verrazzano. Laudoniere gives no authority, but speaks of them in terms which show that he made his compend from the discourse of the French captain of Dieppe, published by Ramusio in the same volume, in connection with the Verrazzano letter. He says that Verrazzano "was sent by King Francis the First and Madame the Regent, his mother, into these new countries." In thus associating the queen mother with the king in the prosecution of the enterprise Laudoniere commits the same mistake as is made in the discourse in that respect. Louise did not become regent until after the return of Verrazzano is stated to