e ships he had and returning to France.

Matters were in this unsatisfactory state when Captain John Hawkins in
his great seven-hundred-ton ship the _Jesus_, with three smaller ones,
the _Solomon_, the _Tiger_ and the _Swallow_, put in at the River of May
for a supply of fresh water. He gave them provisions, and offered
readily to take them back to France on his way to England, but this
offer Laudonniere declined.

"Monsieur Hawkins is a good fellow," he observed dryly to La Caille,
"and I am grateful to him, but that is no reason why I should abandon
this land to his Queen, and that is what he is hoping that I may do."

Others were not so long-sighted. The soldiers and hired workmen raised a
howl of wrath and disappointment when they heard that they were not to
sail with Hawkins, and openly threatened to desert and sail without
leave. Laudonniere answered this threat by the cool statement that he
had bought one of the English ships, the _Tiger_, with provisions for
the voyage, and that if they would have a little patience they might
soon sail for France in their own fleet. Somewhat taken aback they
ceased their clamor and awaited a favoring wind. Before it came, Ribault
came sailing back with seven ships, plenty of supplies, and three
hundred new colonists.

The fleet approached as cautiously as if it were coming to attack the
colony instead of relieving it, and Laudonniere, who saw many of his
friends among the new arrivals, presently learned that his enemies among
the colonists had written to Coligny describing him as arrogant and
cruel and charging that he was about to set up an independent monarchy
of his own. The Admiral, three thousand miles away, had decided to ask
the Governor to resign. Ribault advised him to stay and fight it out,
but Laudonniere was sick and disheartened. Life was certainly far from
simple when to use authority was to be accused of treason, and not to
use it was to foster piracy, and he had had enough of governing colonies
in remote jungles of the New World. He was going home.

To most of the colonists, however, Ribault's arrival promised an end of
all their troubles. Stores were landed, tents were pitched, and the
women and children were bestowed in the most comfortable quarters which
could be found for them just then. To his great satisfaction Pierre
found among the arrivals his cousin Barbe and her husband, a carpenter,
and her three children, Marie, Suzanne and little Rene. The two y