444 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



Among discoverers of the coast prior to IGIO, as mentioned by Henry 

 Ellis, were Capt. John White in 1587, B.Gosnell in 1602, George Wey- 

 mouth in 1G02, Hendrick Hudson in 1607,^ and John Smith in 160G 

 and 1608. All of whom were of course preceded by the Spanish and 

 Ribault made the coast of Florida in 1562 with a French expedition, 

 who, after discovering the St. Johns liiver, went up the coast to Port 

 Eoyal, located a fort, and returned to Europe. The garrison cpiar- 

 reled, and Laudoniere in 1564 again reached the coast with liibault. 

 The third French expedition carried a thousand men or more, all of 

 whom, it is asserted, were massacred the same year by the Sjianiards, 

 who a few years later were themselves massacred by Gorgues, a French- 

 man. These people were followed by a host of minor adventurers whose 

 names have not survived, and all we know of them is from some casual 

 remark of a certain number of sail being in port, or it may be some 

 writer referring to objects of European manufacture being in the Indians' 

 possession which could only have come from a wreck. From about 1610 

 the American continent became the storehouse which supplied material 

 for European adventurers. They fished the waters and roamed the 

 woods in search of peltries, especially those of the- mink, the beaver, 

 and the otter, which they trapped or bought with trinkets of white 

 man's manufacture always made for aboriginal trade or exchange. 

 Almost annually, beginning with lialeigh's expedition, voyages doubled 

 in number, and after the year 1600 Spanish, French, English, and Dutch, 

 regular traders and pirates, fought and schemed against each other, 

 often publishing erroneous reports, and it is even asserted going to the 

 extent of issuing false maps for the purpose of misleading their rivals. 

 The Spanish and French on the coast of Florida and the Carolinas 

 cut each other's throats until they both abandoned their possessions. 

 Subsequently the English occupied the Carolinas, and on the north- 

 ern coast French, Dutch, and English were repeatedly guilty of the 

 rankest acts of piracy upon each other. The French settled in Can- 

 ada, and the Dutch held tenaciously to the trade of New York, and 

 tobacco became a most important article of merchandise over the greater 

 part of the continent. Gaftarel claims that Thevet, a Frenchman, 

 is entitled to the credit of introducing tobacco into France as early 

 as 1554.^ 



On the other hand, it is asserted that tobacco was first brought into 

 Europe in 1558 by Francisco Fernandez, a physician who had been 

 sent by Philip II of Spain to investigate the products of Mexico.^ 



Jean Nicot, ambassador of Francis II to Don Sebastian, King of 

 Portugal, about 1559, sent seeds of the tobacco plant to Queen Cath- 

 erine De Medici, and his services were commemorated by the scieu- 



1 Henri Ellis, Voyage h la Baye de Hudeoii, Leyden, 1750. 



2 Justin Winsor. Niirrative and Critical History of America, IV, p. 31. 



3 Encyclopa'dia IJritauuica. 



