Henceforth few traces remain of the fortunes of Verrazzano. Ramusio
affirms, that, on another voyage, he was killed and eaten by savages, in
sight of his followers; and a late writer hazards the conjecture that
this voyage, if made at all, was made in the service of Henry the Eighth
of England. But a Spanish writer affirms that, in 1527, he was hanged at
Puerto del Pico as a pirate, and this assertion is fully confirmed by
authentic documents recently brought to light.
The fickle-minded King, always ardent at the outset of an enterprise and
always flagging before its close, divided, moreover, between the smiles
of his mistresses and the assaults of his enemies, might probably have
dismissed the New World from his thoughts. But among the favorites of
his youth was a high-spirited young noble, Philippe de BrionChabot, the
partner of his joustings and tennis-playing, his gaming and gallantries.
He still stood high in the royal favor, and, after the treacherous
escape of Francis from captivity, held the office of Admiral of France.
When the kingdom had rallied in some measure from its calamnities, he
conceived the purpose of following up the path which Verrazzano had
opened.
The ancient town of St. Malo--thrust out like a buttress into the sea,
strange and grim of aspect, breathing war front its walls and
battlements of ragged stone, a stronghold of privateers, the home of a
race whose intractable and defiant independence neither time nor change
has subdued--has been for centuries a nursery of hardy mariners.
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