Chapter I: Front Matter

Villegagnon, by W.H.G. Kingston. ________________________________________________________________________ The date is sometime during the reign of Philip and Mary, the Catholic interlude between the Protestant times of Henry the Eighth and his son Edward the Sixth, and Queen Elizabeth. Religious intolerance was at an extreme, with burnings at the stake and other very nasty tortures being applied to persons of an opposite sect.

Nigel Melvin comes to the Court of France with some letters to deliver. His young cousin Mary Seton is with him in the opening scene, and she introduces him to the young royals who happen to be walking in the same garden. We find that there are several with Protestant leanings even in that setting. Nigel is conducted to a house where he is to find Admiral Coligny, who is setting up an expedition to found a Protestant colony the other side of the Atlantic in the bay now known as Rio de Janeiro, and idea that had been propounded by Monsieur Villegagnon. Nigel is given command of one of the ships. They set off for Havre, where the vessels are, but on the way Nigel overhears a conversation between Villegagnon and a monk, which makes it plain that Villegagnon is no Protestant, and that there is a dubious motive in all these plans.

On arrival at Rio they meet with a local Indian chief who warns them about some white settlers nearby who appear to have a religion not at all satisfactory to Indian tastes. These are the Portuguese, Catholics. They are permitted to settle on any island in the bay. There is a gale and it becomes plain they must move to a more sheltered island than the one they started on. Nigel falls in love with the fair lady Constance, but so also does the Indian, Tecumah.

Nigel returns to France to pick up more Protestant emigrants, who have to run the gauntlet of a Catholic mob apparently led by the monk who had been plotting before the first voyage, with Villegagnon. The voyage proceeds well but the five French ships were attacked by five Portuguese, whom they routed except for one, which they captured. They were unable to shut up the shot-holes in her, and she sinks. On arrival in Brazil they set her passengers and crew ashore in a Portuguese-held part of the territory, and continue to their settlement in the bay of Rio. Thereafter the story gets more and more exciting, and we hope that you will read it for yourself.

________________________________________________________________________ VILLEGAGNON, BY W.H.G. KINGSTON.