vengeance. A Frenchman,
himself a Roman Catholic, the Chevalier Dominic de Gourges, determined to
punish the Spaniards for their cruelty. He sold his property to obtain
money to fit out an expedition to Florida. Arriving in Florida in the
spring of 1568, he was joined by the natives in an attack on two forts
occupied by the Spaniards below Fort Caroline. The forts were captured
and their inmates put to the sword, except a few whom de Gourges hung to
trees with the inscription: "Not as Spaniards and mariners, but as
traitors, robbers and murderers."

CHAPTER II.

Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh--English Expedition to North
Carolina--Failure of Attempts to Settle There--Virginia Dare--The Lost
Colony--The Foundation of Jamestown--Captain John Smith--His Life Saved
by Pocahontas--Rolfe Marries the Indian Princess--A Key to Early Colonial
History--Women Imported to Virginia.

The lives of the hapless Huguenots who perished at the hands of Menendez
were, perhaps, not altogether wasted, for it is believed that a refugee
from the Port Royal colony, wrecked on the coast of England, gave Queen
Elizabeth interesting information about the temperate and fruitful
regions north of the Spanish territories and prepared her mind to favor
the projects of Sir Walter Raleigh. That bold and talented adventurer,
whose name will live forever in American annals, and whose monument is
North Carolina's beautiful State capital, is said in the familiar story
to have attracted the notice of Queen Elizabeth by spreading his scarlet
cloak over a miry place for the queen to walk upon. He made rapid
progress in the good graces of his sovereign, who was quick to discern
the men who could be useful to her and to her kingdom. Sir Humphrey
Gilbert, half brother to Sir Walter, had perished on an expedition to
found an English colony in America. A storm engulfed his vessel, the
Squirrel, and he went down with all his crew. Queen Elizabeth graciously
granted to Sir Walter a patent as lord proprietor of the country from
Delaware Bay to the mouth of the Santee River, and substantially
including the present States of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and a
large portion of South Carolina, with an indefinite extension to the
west.

Raleigh sent out an expedition of two ships under the command of Philip
Amidas and Arthur Barlow. They landed upon the coast of North Carolina at
mid-summer, in the year 1584. The scenery and climate were charming,