There were no more vivid episodes in the colonization of the New World than those resulting from the attempts of the French people to gain a permanent foothold on our shores. This fact has long been recognized by sober historians as well as by the writers of fiction, for all the fascination of romance holds over the whole field of inquiry.

The most thrilling chapter in all this history, strangely neglected or overlooked by the romantic writers, is that of the struggle between the Spanish and French colonists for dominion over our own land of Florida. To me, whose profession it is to see pictures in the words of other men and to produce them, this historic page has appealed very strongly as the proper setting for a human drama—an inviting canvas upon which the imagination may paint a moving picture of the emotions, desires and passions—the loves and hates—of men and women like ourselves—against the somber and sometimes lurid background of historic fact.

I have tried, so far as I have used history, to be scrupulously exact. I have carefully read the original or authorized editions of the writings of Hakluyt, RÉnÉ de LaudonniÈre, and a number of others; but there is little to be found in them which will not also be found much more vividly depicted in the writings of Mr. Francis Parkman. Some of the names will be recognized. Jean Ribault, LaudonniÈre, Menendez, the Indians Satouriona, Olotoraca and Emola, and others, were all real men. As for those others who are of the imagination—as for Mademoiselle and those who searched for her, it is to be hoped that they will not be found at odds with the events and scenes in which they are placed. These things, or others like them, must have been, for the writer of historic fiction may rely on the fact that human nature remains much the same, no matter how great the lapse of years.

G. G.

Bryn Mawr, March, 1901.