  FIRST FRENCH ATTEMPTS TO SETTLE AMERICA Cartier. During the reign of Francis I, the French made the first serious attempts to find a westward route to the Far East and to settle the new lands that seemed to lie directly across the pathway. In 1534 Jacques Cartier was sent with two ships in search of a strait beyond the regions controlled by Spain or Portugal which would lead into the Pacific Ocean. Cartier passed around the northern side of Newfoundland and into the broad expanse of water west of it. This he called the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Cartier at Montreal. Cartier made a second voyage in the following year, exploring the great river which he called the St. Lawrence. He went up the river until the heights of Mount Royal or Montreal, as he called them, appeared on his right hand, and swift rapids in the river blocked his way in front. The name Lachine rapids, or the China rapids, which was afterwards given to these, remains to remind us that Cartier was searching for a passage to China. The First Winter in Canada. Cartier spent the severe winter which followed at the foot of the cliffs which mark the site of the modern city of Quebec. The expedition returned to France with the coming of spring. Attempts to plant a Colony at Quebec. Several years later, in 1541, Cartier and others attempted to establish a permanent settlement on the St. Lawrence. As it was hard to get good colonists to settle in the cold climate so far north, the leaders were allowed to ransack the prisons for debtors and criminals to make up the necessary numbers. They selected the neighborhood of the cliffs where Cartier had wintered in 1535, where Quebec now stands, as the most suitable place for their colony. But the settlers were ill-fitted for the hardships of a new settlement in so cold and barren a country. Diseases and the hostility of the Indians completely discouraged them, and all gladly returned to France.
The zeal of the French for American discovery and settlement on the St. Lawrence ceased with Cartier. His hope that the St. Lawrence would prove the long-sought passage to China had to be given up, but the river which he had discovered and so thoroughly explored proved to be a great highway into the center of North America. Coligny's Plan for a Huguenot Colony. Nearly thirty years later the French Protestant leader, Coligny, formed the plan of establishing a colony in America, which would be a refuge for the Huguenots if their enemies got the upper hand in France. An expedition left France in 1564, and selected a site for a settlement near the mouth of the St. Johns river in Florida. It seemed a good place. A fort, called Fort Caroline, was quickly built. But the first colonists were not well chosen. They were chiefly younger nobles, soldiers unused to labor, or discontented tradesmen and artisans. There were few farmers among them. The Misdeeds of the Colonists. They spent their time visiting distant Indian tribes in a vain search for gold and silver, or plundering Spanish villages and ships in the West Indies. No one thought of preparing the soil and planting seeds for a food supply. It seemed easier to rob neighbors. The provisions which they had brought with them gave out. Game and fish abounded in the woods and rivers about them, but they were without skill in hunting and fishing. Before the first year had passed the miserable inhabitants of Fort Caroline were reduced to digging roots in the forest for food. Starvation and the revenge of angry Indians confronted them. Relief sent to the Colony. In August, 1565, just as the half-starved colonists were preparing to leave the country, an expedition with fresh settlers--mostly discharged soldiers, a few young nobles, and some mechanics with their families, three hundred in all--arrived in the harbor. It brought an abundance of supplies and other things needed by a colony in a new country. It looked then as though these Frenchmen would succeed in their plan and establish a permanent colony in America.
Fort Caroline and the Spaniards. The French had, however, settled in Florida. Indeed, it would have been difficult to settle in America at any place along the Atlantic coast without doing so. The Spaniards regarded all North America from Mexico to Labrador as lying within Florida. The attempt of the French to settle on the lands claimed by the king of Spain was sure to bring on a war, sooner or later. The conduct of the French at Fort Caroline in plundering the Spanish colonies in the West Indies made all Spaniards anxious to drive out such a nest of robbers and murderers. Besides, the Spaniards hated Coligny's followers more than ordinary Frenchmen, because they were Huguenots. Menendez. At the time the news reached Spain of Coligny's settlement at Fort Caroline, a Spanish nobleman, Pedro Menendez, was preparing to establish a colony in Florida, and thus after a long delay carry out the task which De Soto had vainly attempted. Menendez was naturally as eager as the king to drive out the French intruders. So an expedition larger than was planned at first was hurried off. Menendez was to do three things: drive the French out, conquer and Christianize the Indians, and establish Spanish settlements in Florida. The Defeat of the French Fleet. Menendez with a part of his fleet arrived before Fort Caroline just one week after the relief expedition which Coligny had sent over came into harbor. His ships attacked and scattered those of the French. The vessels of the French for the most part sought refuge on the high seas. They were too swift to be overtaken, but no match for the Spanish in battle. Menendez decided to wait for the rest of his ships before making another attack on Fort Caroline. Meanwhile he sailed southward along the coast for fifty miles till he came to an inlet. He called the place St. Augustine. St. Augustine founded. A friendly Indian chief readily gave his dwelling to the Spaniards. It was a huge, barn-like structure, made of the entire trunks of trees, and thatched with palmetto leaves. Soldiers quickly dug a ditch around it and threw up a breastwork of earth and small sticks. The colonists who came with Menendez landed and set about the usual work of founding a settlement. Such was the beginning of the Spanish town of St. Augustine, founded in 1565, and the oldest town in the United States.
French sail to attack St. Augustine. Both sides prepared for a terrible struggle, the French at Fort Caroline and the Spaniards in their new quarters at St. Augustine. The French struck the first blow. A few of the weaker and the sick soldiers were left at Fort Caroline to stand guard with the women and children. The main body aboard the ships advanced by sea to attack St. Augustine, but a furious tempest scattered and wrecked the French fleet before it arrived. Menendez destroys Fort Caroline. Menendez now took advantage of the storm to march overland to Fort Caroline, wading through swamps and fording streams amid a fearful rain and gale. His drenched and hungry followers fell like wild beasts upon the few French left in the fort. About fifty of the women and children were spared to become captives. As many men escaped in the forests around the fort, but the greater part were killed. Capture of the shipwrecked French. The French fleet had been wrecked off the coast of Florida a dozen miles south of St. Augustine. A few days later Menendez discovered some survivors wandering along the coast, half starved, trying to live on the shell-fish they found on the beach, and slowly and painfully working their way back toward Fort Caroline. The Frenchmen begged Menendez to be allowed to remain in the country till ships could be sent to take them off, but he was unwilling to make any terms with them. Murder of the Captives. The unhappy Frenchmen were taken prisoners, and, a few hours later, put to death. Other shipwrecked refugees were captured a few days later, and these suffered the same fate. Nearly three hundred perished in this cold-blooded manner. It was a merciless deed, and yet such was the character of all warfare at the time. Menendez believed that he was doing his duty. Nor did the king of Spain think Menendez unduly cruel, for when he heard the story of the fate of the Frenchmen of Fort Caroline he sent this message to Menendez: "Say to him that, as to those he has killed, he has done well; and as to those he has saved, they shall be sent to the galleys."
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