The young nobles, of whom there were many, were volunteers, who had paid
their own expenses in expectation of a golden harvest, and they chafed
in impatience and disgust. The religious element in the colony--unlike
the former Huguenot emigration to Brazil--was evidently subordinate.
The adventurers thought more of their fortunes than of their faith; yet
there were not a few earnest enough in the doctrine of Geneva to
complain loudly and bitterly that no ministers had been sent with them.
The burden of all grievances was thrown upon Laudonniere, whose greatest
errors seem to have arisen from weakness and a lack of judgment,--fatal
defects in his position.

The growing discontent was brought to a partial head by one La Roquette,
who gave out that, high up the river, he had discovered by magic a mine
of gold and silver, which would give each of them a share of ten
thousand crowns, besides fifteen hundred thousand for the King. But for
Laudonniere, he said, their fortunes would all be made. He found an ally
in a gentleman named Genre, one of Laudonniere's confidants, who, while
still professing fast adherence to his interests, is charged by him with
plotting against his life. "This Genre," he says, "secretly enfourmed
the Souldiers that were already suborned by La Roquette, that I would
deprive them of this great game, in that I did set them dayly on worke,
not sending them on every side to discover the Countreys; therefore that
it were a good deede to dispatch mee out of the way, and to choose
another Captaine in my place." The soldiers listened too well. They made
a flag of an old shirt, which they carried with them to the rampart when
they went to their work, at the same time wearing their arms; and,
pursues Laudonniere, "these gentle Souldiers did the same for none other
ende but to have killed mee and my Lieutenant also, if by chance I had
given them any hard speeches." About this time, overheating himself, he