George Fairbanks - The Spaniards in Florida

"After he had thus spoken, the greater part of our number were of his opinion, and praised his counsel. Notwithstanding, I pointed out the cruel animosity still unappeased of our enemies, and that it was not for any human cause of quarrel, that they had carried out with such fury their enterprise, but mainly (as would appear by the notice they had already given us) because we were of those who were reformed by the preaching of the Gospel; that we should be cowards to trust in men, rather than in God, who gives life to his own in the midst of death, and gives ordinarily his assistance when the hopes of men entirely fail.

"I also brought to their minds examples from Scripture, instancing Joseph, Daniel, Elias, and the other prophets, as well also the apostles, as St. Peter and St. Paul, who were all drawn out of much affliction, as would appear by means extraordinary and strange to the reason and judgment of men. His arm, said I, is not shortened, nor in any wise enfeebled; his power is always the same. Do you not recollect, said I the flight of the Israelites before Pharaoh? What hope had that people of escaping from the hands of that powerful tyrant? He had them, as it were, under his heel. Before them they had the sea, on either side inaccessible mountains.

"What then? He who opened the sea to make a path for his people, and made it afterwards to swallow up his enemies, can not he conduct us by the forest places of this strange country? While thus discoursing, six of the company followed out the first proposition, and abandoned us to go and yield themselves up to our enemies, hoping to find favor before them. But they learned, immediately and by experience, what folly it is to trust more in men than in the promise of the Lord. For having gone out of the wood, as they descended to the fort they were immediately seized by the Spaniards and treated in the same fashion as the others had been. They were at once killed and massacred, and then drawn to the banks of the river, where the others killed at the fort lay in heaps. We who remained in the wood continued to make our way, and drawing towards the sea, as well as we could judge, and as it pleased God to conduct our paths and to straiten our course, we soon arrived at the brow of a mountain and from there commenced to see the sea, but it was still at a great distance; and what was worse, the road we had to take showed itself wonderfully strange and difficult. In the first place, the mountain from which it was necessary for us to descend, was of such height and ruggedness, that it was not possible for a person descending to stand upright; and we should never have dared to descend it but for the hope we had of sustaining ourselves by the branches of the bushes, which were frequent upon the side of the mountain, and to save life, not sparing our hands which we had all gashed up and bloody, and even the legs and nearly all the body was torn. But descending from the mountain, we did not lose our view of the sea, on account of a small wood which was upon a little hill opposite to us; and in order to go to the wood it was requisite that we should traverse a large meadow, all mud and quagmire, covered with briars and other kind of strange plants; for the stalk was as hard as wood, and the leaves pricked our feet and our hands until the blood came, and being all the while in water up to the middle, which redoubled our pain and suffering. The rain came down upon us in such manner from heaven, that we were during all that time between two floods; and the further we advanced the deeper we found the water.

"And then thinking that the last period of our lives had come, we all embraced each other, and with a common impulse, we commenced to sigh and cry to the Lord, accusing our sins and recognizing the weight of his judgment upon us. 'Alas! Lord,' said we, 'what are we but poor worms of the earth? Our souls weakened by grief, surrender themselves into thy hands. Oh, Father of Mercy and God of Love, deliver us from this pain of death! or if thou wilt that in this desert we shall draw our last breath, assist us so that death, of all things the most terrible, shall have no advantage over us, but that we may remain firm and stable in the sense of thy favor and good-will, which we have too often experienced in the cause of thy Christ to give way to the spirit of Satan, the spirit of despair and of distrust; for if we die, we will protest now before thy Majesty, that we would die unto thee, and that if we live it may be to recount thy wonders in the midst of the assembly of thy servants.' Our prayers concluded, we marched with great difficulty straight towards the wood, when we came to a great river which ran in the midst of this meadow; the channel was sufficiently narrow but very deep, and ran with great force, as though all the field ran toward the sea. This was another addition to our anguish, for there was not one of our men who would dare to undertake to cross over by swimming. But in this confusion of our thoughts, as to what manner to pass over, I bethought myself of the wood which we had left behind us. After exhorting my comrades to patience and a continued trust in the Lord, I returned to the wood, and cut a long pole, with the good size clasp knife which remained in my hand from the hour the fort was taken; and I returned to the others, who awaited me in great perplexity, 'Now, then, comrades,' said I, 'let us see if God, by means of this stick, will not give us some help to accomplish our path.' Then we laid the pole upon the water, and each one by turn taking hold of the end of the pole, carried it by his side to the midst of the channel, when losing sight of him we pushed him with sufficient force to the other bank, where he drew himself out by the canes and other bushes growing along its borders; and by his example we passed over, one at a time; but it was not without great danger, and not without drinking a great deal of salt water, in such manner that our hearts were all trembling, and we were as much overcome as though we had been half drowned. After we had come to ourselves and had resumed courage, moving on all the time towards the wood, which we had remarked close to sea, the pole was not even needed to pass another creek, which gave us not much less trouble than the first; but by the grace of God, we passed it and entered the wood the same evening, where we passed the night in great fear and trembling, standing about against the trees.

"And, as much as we had labored, even had it been more, we felt no desire to sleep; for what repose could there be to spirits in such mortal affright? Near the break of day, we saw a great beast, like a deer, at fifty paces from us, who had a great head, eyes flaming, the ears hanging, and the higher parts elevated. It seemed to us monstrous, because of its gleaming eyes, wondrously large; but it did not come near us to do us any harm.

"The day having appeared, we went out of the wood and returned towards the sea, in which we hoped, after God, as the only means of saving our lives; but we were again cast down and troubled, for we saw before us a country of marsh and muddy quagmires, full of water and covered with briars, like that we had passed the previous day. We marched across this salt marsh; and, in the direction we had to take, we perceived among the briars a body of men, whom we at first thought to be enemies, who had gone there to cut us off; but upon close observation, they seemed in as sad a plight as ourselves, naked and terrified; and we immediately perceived that they were our own people. It was Captain Laudonnière, his servant-maid, Jacques Morgues of Dieppe (the artist), Francis Duval of Rouen, son of him of the iron crown of Rouen, Niguise de la Cratte, Nicholas the carpenter, the Trumpeter of Sieur Laudonnière, and others, who all together made the number of twenty-six men. Upon deliberating as to what we should do, two of our men mounted to the top of one of the tallest trees and discovered from thence one of our vessels, which was that of Captain Maillard, to whom they gave a signal, that he might know that we were in want of help. Thereupon he came towards us with his small vessel, but in order to reach the banks of the stream, it was necessary for us to traverse the briars and two other rivers similar to those which we passed the previous day; in order to accomplish which, the pole I had cut the day before was both useful and necessary, and two others which Sr. de Laudonnière had provided; and we came pretty near to the vessel, but our hearts failed us from hunger and fatigue, and we should have remained where we were unless the sailors had given us a hand, which aid was very opportune; and they carried us, one after the other, to the vessel, on board of which we were all received well and kindly. They gave us bread and water, and we began afterwards, little by little, to recover our strength and vigor; which was a strong reason that we should recognize the goodness of the Lord, who had saved us against all hope from an infinity of dangers and from death, by which we had been surrounded and assaulted from all quarters, to render him forevermore our thanks and praises. We thus passed the entire night recounting the wonders of the Lord, and consoled each other in the assurances of our safety.