R. Nisbet Bain - The Cambridge Modern History

Although such ideas were doubtless widely entertained, the short reign of Mary afforded no scope for realising them; and the new Anglo-Spanish connexion left in the New World but a single and fleeting trace. A South-American official, when planning a town in a remote valley of the Argentine Andes, named it Londres, or London, in honour of the union of Philip and Mary. This was the first place in America named after an English city. Its existence was of short duration; the Indians expelled the colonists, who were fain to choose another site. The only noteworthy fact during this reign bearing upon the present subject was, that a remarkable maritime project was disastrously proved to be impracticable. Its aim was the discovery of a North-eastern passage to the Far East, answering to the South-eastern passage that was now commonly made by the Portuguese round the Cape of Good Hope. Shortly before Edward’s death Sir Hugh Willoughby sailed for this purpose with three vessels. Winter came suddenly on; Willoughby laid up his ships in a harbour of Russian Lapland, where he and the crews of two of his vessels were frozen to death; while Chancellor, the captain of the third, with difficulty reached the White Sea, landed at Archangel, and returned by Moscow. This disaster stopped further search for the passage; seamen and traders henceforth turned in the opposite direction, and speculated on the discovery of a North-west passage. Elizabeth had been on the throne eighteen years, when Frobisher, a Yorkshireman who had constituted himself the pioneer of this project, obtained the means of bringing it to the test, and commenced a fruitless search, which lasted two centuries and a half, for a passage first proved in our own generation to have a geographical existence, but to be nautically impossible. Frobisher’s voyages did little towards effecting their ostensible purpose. Led astray by the quest of the precious metals, he loaded his ships with immense quantities of a deceptive pyrites, which contained a small proportion of gold, but far less than enough to pay the cost of extracting it; and the scheme, which had degenerated into a mere mining adventure, was quietly abandoned.

Meanwhile the attention of Western Europe was still concentrated on “Florida,”—a term denoting all the North American continent as far northward as the Newfoundland fishery, and bestowed on it by its discoverer Ponce de Leon, who reached it on Easter Day (Pascua Florida), 1513. Eden’s preface conveys the impression that the Spaniards had neglected this vast tract of the continent; nothing however could be less true. The most strenuous efforts had been made to penetrate it, in the confident expectation that it would prove as rich in treasure as Mexico itself; and Pamphilo de Narvaez, chiefly known to fame by his futile mission to arrest the campaign of Cortes, had landed here in 1528 with the object of emulating that supremely fortunate adventurer’s exploits. Repulsed and forced back to the coast, he took refuge in his ships and perished in a storm. Five only of his three hundred men regained Mexico, where they published the exciting news that Florida was simply the richest country in the world. This statement was probably made in irony rather than in seriousness; yet it was not without foundation in fact, for the Appalachian mountains contain mines of gold and silver which are profitably worked to this day. By the conquest of Peru adventure to Florida received for the second time a powerful stimulus. Hernan de Soto, a lieutenant of Pizarro, who had been appointed Governor of Cuba, undertook to annex it to the Spanish dominions (1538). His ill-fated expedition, commenced in the next year, forms a well-known episode in American history. During four years De Soto persevered in a series of zigzag marches through a sparsely peopled country, containing no pueblos larger than the average village of hunting tribes, and showing no trace whatever of either gold or silver. In descending the Mississippi he sickened and died; the miserable remnant of his troops sailed from its mouth to the Panuco river in Mexico, bringing back tidings of a failure more disheartening, because the result of a more protracted effort, than that of Narvaez. In 1549 some friars of the Dominican order, elsewhere so successful in dealing with the American aborigines, landed in Florida, only to be at once set upon and massacred. By this time the Indians knew the general character and aims of the new-comers who styled themselves “Christians,” and dealt with them accordingly. Outside Spain it was generally thought that Providence had prescribed limits to Spanish conquest, and reserved the Northern continent for some other European people—obviously either the French or the English.

Hence, when in 1558 a Protestant princess succeeded to the English throne, she found the policy which she was expected to pursue in this direction defined for her in public opinion. Here was Florida, the “richest country in the world,” still without any owner, or even any pretender to its ownership, though sixty years had passed since Colombo discovered the continent of which it formed a large and prominent part. A whole generation had passed away since the heroic period of Spanish-American history—the conquest of Mexico and Peru; and that period had evidently closed. Clearly Providence forbade Spain to cherish the hope of succeeding in any further attempt to subjugate Florida. France, though ambitious as ever, was hopelessly entangled in civil broils. Everyone expected Elizabeth, who was in truth no bigot, to found colonies in this vast and fertile tract, so near to England and so easily reached from it; where, perhaps, her Catholic and her Protestant subjects might settle in peace, each group respectively occupying some large and well-defined district of its own. The name itself, bandied about for half a century, had by this time become a household word which was not without humorous suggestions. Satirists travestied it as “Stolida,” or land of simpletons, and “Sordida,” or land of muckworms; pirates, arrested on suspicion and examined, mockingly avowed themselves bound for Florida. In France experiences of a certain kind—unedifying transactions of gallantry in the base sense of the word—were called “adventures of Florida.” The world was eagerly expecting the impending revelation, which should disclose the future fate of the temperate regions of North America. To the pretensions of France the fortune of events soon gave a negative answer. Nothing daunted by the failure of Ribault’s party, Coligny in 1565 despatched René Laudonniere, a captain who had served under Ribault, to make a second effort. Laudonnière chose as the site of his settlement the mouth of the river called by Ribault the River of May (St John’s River), from its discovery by him on the first day of that month in 1562; and here he arrived in the midsummer of 1564, with a strong and well-armed party, built a fort, and began exploring the country. Most of the intending settlers had been pirates, whom, in the close proximity of St Domingo and Jamaica, it was impossible to keep from resuming their old trade; others joined an Indian chief, and followed him to war with a neighbouring tribe in hope of plunder. The stores of Fort Caroline were soon exhausted; and, but for the timely relief obtained from John Hawkins, who passed the Florida coast on his homeward way, the emigrants must have starved, or have returned to Europe, or have been dispersed among the wild aborigines. In the next year (1565) the Spaniards destroyed what was in effect a mere den of pirates, and built the fort of St Augustine to protect their own settlements and commerce, as well as the still unspoiled treasures of Appalachia, and to prevent the heretics of France from gaining a footing on American soil; and in a few years (1572) the massacre of St Bartholomew put an end to the Huguenot designs on Florida.