he arrived there, and probably had intended to do so from
the first, for he took with him a Frenchman who had been in Ribaut's
colony two years before, and Sparke significantly says that 'the land is
more than any [one] king Christian is able to inhabit.' However this may
be, Hawkins found the second French colony as well as 'a French ship of
fourscore ton, and two pinnaces of fifteen ton apiece by her ... and a
fort, in which their captain Monsieur Laudonniere was, with certain
soldiers therein.' The colony had not been a success. Nor is this to be
wondered at when we remember that most of the 'certain soldiers' were
ex-pirates, who wanted gold, and 'who would not take the pains so much
as to fish in the river before their doors, but would have all things
put in their mouths.' Eighty of the original two hundred 'went a-roving'
to the West Indies, 'where they spoiled the Spaniards ... and were of
such haughty stomachs that they thought their force to be such that no
man durst meddle with them.... But God ... did indurate their hearts in
such sort that they lingered so long that a [Spanish] ship and galliasse
being made out of St. Domingo ... took twenty of them, whereof the most
part were hanged ... and twenty-five escaped ... to Florida, where ...
they were put into prison [by Laudonniere, against whom they had
mutinied] and ... four of the chiefest being condemned, at the request
of the soldiers did pass the arquebusers, and then were hanged upon a
gibbet.' Sparke got the delightful expression 'at the request of the
soldiers did pass the arquebusers' from a 'very polite' Frenchman. Could
any one tell you more politely, in mistranslated language, how to stand
up and be shot?

Sparke was greatly taken with the unknown art of smoking. 'The
Floridians ... have an herb dried, who, with a cane and an earthen cup
in the end, with fire and the dried herbs put together, do suck through
the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and
therewith they live four or five days without meat or drink. And this
all the Frenchmen used for this purpose; yet do they hold opinion withal
that it causeth water and steam to void from their stomachs.' The other
'commodities of the land' were 'more than are yet known to any man.' But
Hawkins was bent on trade, not colonizing. He sold the _Tiger_, a barque
of fifty tons, to Laudonniere for seven hundred crowns and sailed north
on the first voyage ever made along the coast of t