5: Part 1: Chapter V
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In the little world of Fort Caroline, a miniature France, cliques and
parties, conspiracy and sedition, were fast stirring into life. Hopes
had been dashed, and wild expectations had come to naught. The
adventurers had found, not conquest and gold, but a dull exile in a
petty fort by a hot and sickly river, with hard labor, bad fare,
prospective famine, and nothing to break the weary sameness but some
passing canoe or floating alligator. Gathered in knots, they nursed each
other's wrath, and inveighed against the commandant. Why are we put on
half-rations, when he told us that provision should be made for a full
year? Where are the reinforcements and supplies that he said should
follow us from France? And why is he always closeted with Ottigny,
Arlac, and this and that favorite, when we, men of blood as good as
theirs, cannot gain his ear for a moment?
The young nobles, of whom there were many, were volunteers, who had paid
their own expenses in expectation of a golden harvest, and they chafed
in impatience and disgust. The religious element in the colony—unlike
the former Huguenot emigration to Brazil—was evidently subordinate.
The adventurers thought more of their fortunes than of their faith; yet
there were not a few earnest enough in the doctrine of Geneva to
complain loudly and bitterly that no ministers had been sent with them.
The burden of all grievances was thrown upon Laudonniere, whose greatest
errors seem to have arisen from weakness and a lack of judgment,—fatal
defects in his position.
The growing discontent was brought to a partial head by one La Roquette,
who gave out that, high up the river, he had discovered by magic a mine
of gold and silver, which would give each of them a share of ten
thousand crowns, besides fifteen hundred thousand for the King. But for
Laudonniere, he said, their fortunes would all be made. He found an ally
in a gentleman named Genre, one of Laudonniere's confidants, who, while
still professing fast adherence to his interests, is charged by him with
plotting against his life. "This Genre," he says, "secretly enfourmed
the Souldiers that were already suborned by La Roquette, that I would
deprive them of this great game, in that I did set them dayly on worke,
not sending them on every side to discover the Countreys; therefore that
it were a good deede to dispatch mee out of the way, and to choose
another Captaine in my place." The soldiers listened too well. They made
a flag of an old shirt, which they carried with them to the rampart when
they went to their work, at the same time wearing their arms; and,
pursues Laudonniere, "these gentle Souldiers did the same for none other
ende but to have killed mee and my Lieutenant also, if by chance I had
given them any hard speeches." About this time, overheating himself, he
fell ill, and was confined to his quarters. On this, Genre made advances
to the apothecary, urging him to put arsenic into his medicine; but the
apothecary shrugged his shoulders. They next devised a scheme to blow
him up by hiding a keg of gunpowder under his bed; but here, too, they
failed. Hints of Genre's machinations reaching the ears of Laudonniere,
the culprit fled to the woods, whence he wrote repentant letters, with
full confession, to his commander.
Two of the ships meanwhile returned to France, the third, the "Breton,"
remaining at anchor opposite the fort. The malcontents took the
opportunity to send home charges against Laudonniere of peculation,
favoritism, and tyranny.
On the fourth of September, Captain Bourdet, apparently a private
adventurer, had arrived from France with a small vessel. When he
returned, about the tenth of November, Laudonniere persuaded him to
carry home seven or eight of the malcontent soldiers. Bourdet left some
of his sailors in their place. The exchange proved most disastrous.
These pirates joined with others whom they had won over, stole
Laudonniere's two pinnaces, and set forth on a plundering excursion to
the West Indies. They took a small Spanish vessel off the coast of Cuba,
but were soon compelled by famine to put into Havana and give themselves
up. Here, to make their peace with the authorities, they told all they
knew of the position and purposes of their countrymen at Fort Caroline,
and thus was forged the thunderbolt soon to be hurled against the
wretched little colony.
On a Sunday morning, Francois de la Caille(14) came to Laudonniere's
quarters, and, in the name of the whole company, requested him to come
to the parade ground. He complied, and issuing forth, his inseparable
Ottigny at his side, he saw some thirty of his officers, soldiers, and
gentlemen volunteers waiting before the building with fixed and sombre
countenances. La Caille, advancing, begged leave to read, in behalf of
the rest, a paper which he held in his hand. It opened with
protestations of duty and obedience; next came complaints of hard work,
starvation, and broken promises, and a request that the petitioners
should be allowed to embark in the vessel lying in the river, and cruise
along the Spanish Main, in order to procure provisions by purchase "or
otherwise." In short, the flower of the company wished to turn
buccaneers.
Laudonniere refused, but assured them that, as soon as the defences of
the fort should be completed, a search should be begun in earnest for
the Appalachian gold mine, and that meanwhile two small vessels then
building on the river should be sent along the coast to barter for
provisions with the Indians. With this answer they were forced to
content themselves; but the fermentation continued, and the plot
thickened. Their spokesman, La Caille, however, seeing whither the
affair tended, broke with them, and, except Ottigny, Yasseur, and the
brave Swiss Arlac, was the only officer who held to his duty.
A severe illness again seized Laudonniere, and confined him to his bed.
Improving their advantage, the malcontents gained over nearly all the
best soldiers in the fort. The ringleader was one Fourneaux, a man of
good birth, but whom Le Moyne calls an avaricious hypocrite. He drew up
a paper, to which sixty-six names were signed. La Caille boldly opposed
the conspirators, and they resolved to kill him. His room-mate, Le
Moyne, who had also refused to sign, received a hint of the design from
a friend; upon which he warned La Caille, who escaped to the woods. It
was late in the night. Fourneaux, with twenty men armed to the teeth,
knocked fiercely at the commandant's door. Forcing an entrance, they
wounded a gentleman who opposed them, and crowded around the sick man's
bed. Fourneaux, armed with steel cap and cuirass, held his arquebuse to
Laudonniere's throat, and demanded leave to go on a cruise among the
Spanish islands. The latter kept his presence of mind, and remonstrated
with some firmness; on which, with oaths and menaces, they dragged him
from his bed, put him in fetters, carried him out to the gate of the
fort, placed him in a boat, and rowed him to the ship anchored in the
river.
Two other gangs at the same time visited Ottigny and Arlac, whom they
disarmed, and ordered to keep their rooms till the night following, on
pain of death. Smaller parties were busied, meanwhile, in disarming all
the loyal soldiers. The fort was completely in the hands of the
conspirators. Fourneaux drew up a commission for his meditated West
India cruise, which he required Laudonniere to sign. The sick
commandant, imprisoned in the ship with one attendant, at first refused;
but receiving a message from the mutineers, that, if he did not comply,
they would come on board and cut his throat, he at length yielded.
The buccaneers now bestirred themselves to finish the two small vessels
on which the carpenters had been for some time at work. In a fortnight
they were ready for sea, armed and provided with the King's cannon,
munitions, and stores. Trenchant, an excellent pilot, was forced to join
the party. Their favorite object was the plunder of a certain church on
one of the Spanish islands, which they proposed to assail during the
midnight mass of Christmas. whereby a triple end would be achieved:
first, a rich booty; secondly, the punishment of idolatry; thirdly,
vengeance on the arch-enemies of their party and their faith. They set
sail on the eighth of December, taunting those who remained, calling
them greenhorns, and threatening condign punishment if, on their
triumphant return, they should be refused free entrance to the fort.
They were no sooner gone than the unfortunate Laudonniere was gladdened
in his solitude by the approach of his fast friends Ottigny and Arlac,
who conveyed him to the fort and reinstated him. The entire command was
reorganized, and new officers appointed. The colony was wofully
depleted; but the bad blood had been drawn off, and thenceforth all
internal danger was at an end. In finishing the fort, in building two
new vessels to replace those of which they had been robbed, and in
various intercourse with the tribes far and near, the weeks passed until
the twenty-fifth of March, when an Indian came in with the tidings that
a vessel was hovering off the coast. Laudonniere sent to reconnoitre.
The stranger lay anchored at the mouth of the river. She was a Spanish
brigantine, manned by the returning mutineers, starving, downcast, and
anxious to make terms. Yet, as their posture seemed not wholly pacific,
Landonniere sent down La Caille, with thirty soldiers concealed at the
bottom of his little vessel. Seeing only two or three on deck, the
pirates allowed her to come alongside; when, to their amazement, they
were boarded and taken before they could snatch their arms. Discomfited,
woebegone, and drunk, they were landed under a guard. Their story was
soon told. Fortune had flattered them at the outset, and on the coast of
Cuba they took a brigantine laden with wine and stores. Embarking in
her, they next fell in with a caravel, which also they captured. Landing
at a village in Jamaica, they plundered and caroused for a week, and had
hardly re-embarked when they met a small vessel having on board the
governor of the island. She made a desperate fight, but was taken at
last, and with her a rich booty. They thought to put the governor to
ransom but the astute official deceived them, and, on pretence of
negotiating for the sum demanded,—together with "four or six parrots,
and as many monkeys of the sort called sanguins, which are very
beautiful," and for which his captors had also bargained,—contrived to
send instructions to his wife. Hence it happened that at daybreak three
armed vessels fell upon them, retook the prize, and captured or killed
all the pirates but twenty-six, who, cutting the moorings of their
brigantine, fled out to sea. Among these was the ringleader Fourneaux,
and also the pilot Trenchant, who, eager to return to Fort Caroline,
whence he had been forcibly taken, succeeded during the night in
bringing the vessel to the coast of Florida. Great were the wrath and
consternation of the pirates when they saw their dilemma; for, having no
provisions, they must either starve or seek succor at the fort. They
chose the latter course, and bore away for the St. John's. A few casks
of Spanish wine yet remained, and nobles and soldiers, fraternizing in
the common peril of a halter, joined in a last carouse. As the wine
mounted to their heads, in the mirth of drink and desperation, they
enacted their own trial. One personated the judge, another the
commandant; witnesses were called, with arguments and speeches on either
side.
"Say what you like," said one of them, after hearing the counsel for the
defence; "but if Laudonniere does not hang us all, I will never call him
an honest man."
They had some hope of getting provisions from the Indians at the month
of the river, and then putting to sea again; but this was frustrated by
La Caille's sudden attack. A court-martial was called near Fort
Caroline, and all were found guilty. Fourneaux and three others were
sentenced to be hanged.
"Comrades," said one of the condemned, appealing to the soldiers, "will
you stand by and see us butchered?"
"These," retorted Laudonniere, "are no comrades of mutineers and
rebels."
At the request of his followers, however, he commuted the sentence to
shooting.
A file of men, a rattling volley, and the debt of justice was paid. The
bodies were hanged on gibbets, at the river's mouth, and order reigned
at Fort Caroline.
__________
(14) La Caille, as before mentioned, was Laudonniere's sergeant.
The feudal rank of sergeant, it will be remembered, was widely different
from the modern grade so named, and was held by men of noble birth.
Le Moyne calls La Caille "Captain."
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