16 The Beginning of British Honduras

dows to the churches of Normandy. In spite of the Spanish
and Portuguese pretensions, French corsairs traded openly
with the natives of the coast of Guinea and the Caribbean
lands, and held their own upon the seas.
 Jacques Cartier of Saint Malo made his three voyages to
Terre Neuve and the St. Lawrence from 1534-41. In July
1543 a fleet of French corsairs took Cartagena Indias, and in
1555 the Norman captain Francois Le Clerc, a la jambe de
bois, a friend of Admiral Coligny, commanded the expedi-
tion against Havana. In the same year another Norman
Huguenot captain, Jacques de Sores, sacked and destroyed
Havana. On May 3rd 1537 from ten to a dozen of these
French corsair vessels were seen in the Bay of Honduras by
one Garcia de Celis who stated that they had taken ten ships
and had no less than forty vessels lying in wait for the Span-
ish galleons in those waters. The viceroy of Mexico protested
against the blockade of the Yucatan Channel by French cor-
sairs, and reported to Havana in 1544 the presence of six of
their vessels on his coast. The Bahama Channel was then very
rarely used on account of difficulties with the violent cur-
rents. Hispaniola and Puerto Rico were constantly harassed
by the corsairs. Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, the Isle of
Pines, and the Cockscomb Coast often served them as bases
in the 16th century when their depredations were severely
felt at the Casa de Contratacion in Seville.
 In 1553 Francois Le Clerc of St. Vaast La Hougue, Jacques
de Sores, Paul Blondel of St. Valery, and Jean Bontemps with
a dozen vessels and a thousand men harassed the Caribbean
and continued for some twenty years. On September 30,
1558 the viceroy of New Spain reported the capture of Puerto
Caballos and Truxillo by the French. Their vessels were
named in the French equivalent of "cock-eyed-beggar," "red-
haired-hussy," and "mangy dog." Norman and Breton sailors
were early familiar with Brazil, and in 1555 Villegagnon
established a French colony in the Bay of Rio de Janeiro, the
first attempt of Admiral Coligny to found a Protestant set-