Villegagnon

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.

Kingston, William Henry Giles (1814-1880), English novelist, son of Lucy Henry Kingston, was born in London on the 28th of February 1814. Much of his youth was spent at Oporto, where his father was a merchant, but when he entered the business, he made his headquarters in London. He early wrote newspaper articles on Portuguese subjects. These were translated into Portuguese, and the author received a Portuguese order of knighthood and a pension for his services in the conclusion of the commercial treaty of 1842.

In 1844 his first book, The Circassian Chief, appeared, and in 1845 The Prime Minister, a Story of the Days of the Great Marquis of Pombal. The Lusitanian Sketches describe Kingston’s travels in Portugal.

In 1851 Peter the Whaler, his first book for boys, came out. These books proved so popular that Kingston retired from business, and devoted himself to the production of tales of adventure for boys. Within thirty years he wrote upwards of one hundred and thirty such books. He had a practical knowledge of seamanship, and his stories of the sea, full of thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes, exactly hit the taste of his boy readers.

Characteristic specimens of his work are The Three Midshipmen; The Three Lieutenants; The Three Commanders; and The Three Admirals. He also wrote popular accounts of famous travellers by land and sea, and translated some of the stories of Jules Verne.

In all philanthropic schemes Kingston took deep interest; he was the promoter of the mission to seamen; and he acted as secretary of a society for promoting an improved system of emigration. He was editor of the Colonist for a short time in 1844 and of the Colonial Magazine and East Indian Review from 1849 to 1851. He was a supporter of the volunteer movement in England from the first.

He died at Willesden on the 5th of August 1880.

The above is substantially an extract from the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

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These transcriptions of books by various nineteenth century authors of instructive books for teenagers, were made during the period 1997 to the present day by Athelstane e-Books. Most of the books are concerned with the sea, but in any case all will give a good idea of life in the nineteenth century, and sometimes earlier than that. This of course includes attitudes prevalent at the time, but frowned upon nowadays.

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