that distant land. The Admiral Gaspard
de Coligni was the first to press upon the king the importance of
obtaining a footing in South America, and dividing the magnificent prize
with the Portuguese monarch. This celebrated man was convinced that an
extensive system of colonization was necessary for the glory and
tranquillity of France. He purposed that the settlement in the New World
should be founded exclusively by persons holding that Reformed faith to
which he was so deeply attached, and thus would be provided a refuge for
those driven from France by religious proscription and persecution. It
is believed that Coligni's magnificent scheme comprehended the
possession of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi, gradually colonizing
the banks of these great rivers into the depths of the Continent, till
the whole of North America, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Gulf of
Mexico, should be hemmed in by this gigantic line of French outposts.
However, the first proposition was to establish a colony on the coast of
Brazil; the king approved the project, and Durand de Villegagnon,
vice-admiral of Brittany, was selected to command in 1555; the
expedition, however, entirely failed, owing to religious differences.

Under the reigns of Francis II. and Charles IX., while France was
convulsed with civil war, America seemed altogether forgotten. But
Coligni availed himself of a brief interval of calm to turn attention
once more to the Western World. He this time bethought himself of that
country to which Ponce de Leon had given the name of Florida, from the
exuberant productions of the soil and the beauty of the scenery and
climate. The River Mississippi[94] had been discovered by Ferdinand de
Soto,[95] about the time of Jacques Cartier's last voyage, 1543;
consequently, the Spaniards had this additional claim upon the
territory, which, they affirmed, they had visited in 1512, twelve years
before the date of Verazzano's voyage in 1524. However, the claims and
rights of the different European nations upon the American Continent
were not then of sufficient strength to prevent each state from pursuing
its own views of occupation. Coligni obtained permission from Charles
IX. to attempt the establishment of a colony in Florida,[96] about the
year 1562. The king was the more readily induced to approve of this
enterprise, as he hoped that it would occupy the turbulent spirits of
the Huguenots, many of them his bitter enemies, and elements