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 young
girls regarded Cousin Pierre as a hero, especially when they learned
that the bearskin on the floor of their palmetto hut had but a few
months ago been the coat of a live black bear.
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