In 1565 a third French expedition was fitted out, again under Ribault,
to supply, reinforce, and support Laudonnière. After many disappointing
and vexatious delays, Ribault, late in the season, put to sea, but by
stress of weather was forced into Portsmouth, where he remained a
fortnight. This gave England still more information respecting the
French Protestant projects of southern colonization, as well as of
Florida, which at that time extended very far north of its present
limits. At length on the 14th of June Ribault left the hospitable shores
of England with a fair north east wind to waft his seven ships,
freighted with above three hundred colonists including sailors and
soldiers, and taking the new ' French route' north of the Azores and
south of Bermuda, entered the river of May on the 27th of August, just
one month after the departure of Hawkins, and just one day before the
arrival of the Spaniards at the river of St John, a few miles south.

We find no hint of any opposition in England to these French colonizing
schemes, but on the contrary they were looked upon as an advantageous
barrier to Spanish greed of territorial extension northward under the
vicegerent's gift. There are still existing hints of English projects of
western voyages at this time, about the year 1565, to the American
coast. Elizabeth, however, was friendly to the Huguenots, and evinced
great sympathy with their Florida colonial scheme. England's claim to
Newfoundland and Labrador, through discovery by the Cabots, had been
allowed to lapse chiefly from the Protestant doctrine of non-occupation.
The French occupation of Canada was not disputed. There was some doubt,
however, about the intermediate country between the New France of Canada
and the New France of Florida, and hence we find that private plans of
English occupation were hatching at this early period, but they were not
encouraged. This delicate question between France and Spain was,