Here a fort was constructed and named Coligny, and one of the ships were sent back to France to report the successful establishment of the colony, and to ask for further supplies. In the following November a second expedition, under the command of Bois le Comte, comprising three vessels with 18 guns and 300 men, left Honfleur for the new colony, but did not arrive at its destination until March 16th, 1557.

Among these new comers was jean de Lery, a Calvinist minister, who in 1578 published an account of the expedition under the title of “Histoire d’un voyage fait en la terre du Brésil” which is highly esteemed for its sketches of the natives. The French succeeded in making alliances with the native tribes surrounding them, in which they were greatly assisted by the enmity felt by the Indians toward the Portuguese on account of their inveterate slave-hunting propensities. Secure in their island fortress, and greatly strengthened by the new arrivals, the French had a good prospect before them of making their settlement on the bay of Rio de Janeiro permanent and prosperous, and this would probably have been the result had it not been for the subsequent dissensions, and the betrayal of the Protestant cause by Villegagnon himself.