 Chapter 6 of Pioneers of France in the New World, by Francis Parkman. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ken of Acunes. Pioneers of France in the New World, Chapter 6. Famine, War, Succour. While the mutiny was brewing, one Laroche Ferrier had been sent out as an agent or emissary among the more distant tribes. Sagacious, bold and restless, he pushed his way from town to town and pretended to have reached the mysterious mountains of Appalach. He sent to the fort mantles woven with feathers, quivers covered with choice furs, arrows tipped with gold, wedges of a green stone like beryl or emerald, and other trophies of his wanderings. A gentleman named Groteau took up the quest and penetrated to the dominions of Hostaqua, who it was pretended could muster three or four thousand warriors, and who promised, with the aid of a hundred archboussiers, to conquer all the kings of the adjacent mountains and subject them and their gold mines to the rule of the French. A humbler adventure was Pierre Gambit, a robust and daring youth who had been brought up in the household of Colligny, and was now a soldier under la Donnière. The latter gave him leave to trade with the Indians, a privilege which he used so well that he grew witch with his traffic. Became prime favourite with the chief of the island of Edelano, married his daughter and, in his absence, reigned in his stead. But as his sway verged towards despotism, his subjects took offence and split his head with a hatchet. During the winter, Indians from the neighbourhood of Cape Canaveral brought to the fort two Spaniards, wrecked fifteen years before on the south-western extremity of the peninsula. They were clothed like the Indians, in other words, were not clothed at all, and their uncut hair streamed loose down their backs. They brought strange tales of those among whom they had dwelt. They told of the king of cabs, on whose domains they had been wrecked, a chief mighty in stature and in power. In one of his villages was a pit, six feet deep and as wide as a hog's head, filled with treasure gathered from Spanish wrecks on adjacent reefs and keys. The monarch was a priest, too, and a magician, with power over the elements. Each year he withdrew from the public gaze to hold converse in secret with supernal or infernal powers, and each year he sacrificed to his gods one of the Spaniards whom the fortune of the sea had cast upon his shores. The name of the tribe is preserved in that of the river Cabusa. In close league with him was the mighty Owethkakwa, dwelling near Cape Canaveral, who gave his daughter a maiden of wondrous beauty and marriage to his great ally. But as the bride, with her bridesmaid, was journeying towards Calos, escorted by a chosen band, they were assailed by a wild and warlike race, inhabitants of an island called Sarope, in the midst of a lake, who put the warriors to flight, bore the maidens captive to their watery fastness, espoused them all, and, we are assured, loved them all above measure. Utina, taught by Arlac the efficacy of the French firearms, begged for ten archbousiers to aid him on a new raid among the villages of Potanul. Again alluring his greedy allies by the assurance that, thus reinforced, he would conquer for them a free access to the phantom gold mines of Appalach. Ottigny set forth on this fool's errand with thrice the force demanded. Three hundred Thirnagoas and thirty Frenchmen took up their march through the pine barrens. Utina's conjurer was of the number and had well nigh ruined the enterprise. Kneeling on Ottigny's shield that he might not touch the earth with hideous grimaces, howlings, and contortions, he wrought himself into a prophetic frenzy and proclaimed to the astounded warriors that to advance farther would be destruction. Utina was for instant retreat, but Ottigny's sarcasm shamed him into a show of courage. Again they moved forward and soon encountered Potanul with all his host. The archbous did its work, panic, slaughter, and a plentiful harvest of scalps. But no persuasion could induce Utina to follow up his victory. He went home to dance round his trophies and the French returned disgusted to Fort Caroline. And now in ample measure the French began to reap the harvest of their folly. Conquest, gold, and military occupation had alone been their aims. Not a rod of ground had been stirred with the spade. Their stores were consumed and the expected supplies had not come. The Indians, too, were hostile. Satturiona hated them as allies of his enemies, and his tribesmen, robbed and maltreated by the lawless soldiers, exalted in the miseries. Yet in these their dark and subtle neighbours was their only hope. May Day came, the third anniversary of the day when Rebo and his companions, full of delighted anticipation, had first explored the flowery borders of the St. John's. Conquest was deplorable, for within the precinct of Fort Caroline a homesick, squalid band, dejected and worn, dragged their shrunken limbs about the sun-scorched area, or lay stretched in listless wretchedness under the shade of the barracks. Some were digging roots in the forest or gathering a kind of sorrel upon the meadows. If they had had any skill in hunting and fishing the river and the woods would have supplied their needs, but in this point as in others they were lamentably unfit for the work they had taken in hand. Our misery, says Laudonnière, was so great that one was found that gathered up all the fish-bones that he could find which he dried and beat into powder to make bread thereof. The effects of this hideous famine appeared incontinently among us. For our bones soon began to cleave so near unto the skin that most part of the soldiers had their skins pierced through with them in many parts of their bodies. Yet giddy with weakness they dragged themselves in turn to the top of St. John's Bluff, straining their eyes across the sea to describe the anxiously expected sail. Had Coligny left them to perish or had some new tempest of calamity let loose upon France drown the memory of their exile, in vain the watchmen on the hill surveyed the solitude of waters, a deep dejection fell upon them, a dejection that would have sunk to despair could their eyes have paced the future. The Indians had left the neighbourhood, but from time to time brought in meager supplies of fish which they sold to the famished soldiers at exorbitant prices. Lest they should pay the penalty of their extortion they would not enter the fort, but lay in their canoes on the river beyond gun-shot waiting for their customers to come out to them. Often times, says Lord Donnier, our poor soldiers were constrained to give away the very shirts from their backs to get one fish. If at any time they shooed unto the savages the excessive price which they took these villains would answer them roughly and churlishly if thou make so great a count of thy merchandise eat it and we will eat our fish. Then fell they out a laughing and mocked us with open throat. The spring wore away and no relief appeared. One thought now engrossed the colonists that have returned to France. Vaseurship, the Breton, still remained in the river and they had also the Spanish brigantine brought by the mutineers. But these vessels were insufficient and they prepared to build a new one. The energy of reviving hope lent new life to their exhausted frames. Some gathered pitch in the pine forests some made charcoal some caught cut and sawed timber. The maize began to ripen and this brought some relief but the Indians exasperated and greedy sold it with reluctance and murdered two half-famished Frenchmen who gathered a handful in the fields. The colonists applied to Utina who owed them two victories. The result was a churlish message and a niggardly supply of corn with an invitation to aid him against an insurgent chief, one Astina, the plunder of whose villages would yield an ample supply. The offer was accepted. Ottigny and Vaseurs set out but were grossly deceived led against a different enemy and sent back empty-handed and half-starved. They returned to the fort in the words of Laudanier angry and pricked deeply to the quick for being so mocked and joined by all the comrades fiercely demanded to be led against Utina to seize him, punish his insolence and extort from his fears the supplies which could not be looked for from his gratitude. The commandant was forced to comply. Those who could bear the weight of their armor put it on embarked to the number of fifty in two barges and sailed up the river under Laudanier himself. Having reached Utina's landing the march dynland entered his village, surrounded his mud-plastered palace, seized him amid the yells and howlings of his subjects and led him prisoner to their boats. Here anchored in midstream they demanded a supply of corn and beans as the price of his ransom. The alarm spread. Excited warriors, bedobbed with red came thronging from all his villages. The forest along the shore was full of them The wife of the chief, followed by all the women of the place uttered moans and outcries from the strand. Yet no ransom was offered since reasoning from their own instincts they never doubted that after the price was paid the captive would be put to death. Laudanier waited two days and then descended the river with his prisoner. In a rude chamber of Fort Caroline the sentinels stood his guard, pike in hand while before him crouched the captive chief mute, impassive and brooding on his woes. His old enemy, Sartoriona, keen as a hound on the scent of prey tried by great offers to bribe Laudanier to give Otina into his hands but the French captain refused treated his prisoner kindly and assured him of immediate freedom on payment of the ransom. Meanwhile his captivity was bringing grievous affliction on his tribesmen for despairing of his return but they mustered for the election of a new chief. Party strife ran high some were for a boy, his son and some for an ambitious kinsman. Otina chafed in his prison on learning these dissensions and eager to convince his overhasty subjects that their chief still lived he was so profuse of promises that he was again embarked and carried up the river. At no great distance from Lake George a small affluent of the St. John's gave access by water to a point within six French leagues of Otina's principal town. The two barges, crowded with soldiers and bearing also the captain of Otina rode up this little stream. Indians awaited them at the landing with gifts of bread, beans and fish and piteous prayers for their chief upon whose liberation they promised an ample supply of corn. As they were deaf to all other terms La Donnière yielded, released his prisoner and received in his place two hostages who were fast bound in the boats. Otigny and Arlac with a strong detachment of Archboussier went to receive the promised supplies for which from the first full payment in merchandise had been offered. On their arrival at the village they filed into the great central lodge within whose dusky precincts were gathered the magnets of the tribe. Council chamber, forum, banquet hall and dancing hall all in one the spacious structure could hold half the population. Here the French made their abode with armour buckled and Archbouss matches lighted they watched with anxious eyes the strange dim scene half revealed by the daylight that streamed down through the hole at the apex of the roof. Tall dark forms stocked to and fro with quivers at their backs and bows and arrows in their hands while groups crouched in the shadow beyond eyed the hated guests with inscrutable visages and malignant side long eyes. Corn came in slowly but warriors mustered fast. The village without was full of them. The French officers grew anxious and urged the chiefs to greater alacrity in collecting the promised ransom. The answer boated no good. Our women are afraid when they see the matches of your guns burning put them out and they will bring the corn faster. Utina was nowhere to be seen. At length they learned that he was in one of the small huts adjacent. Several of the officers went to him complaining of the slow payment of his ransom. The kindness of his captors at Fort Caroline seemed to have won his heart. He replied that such was the rage of his subjects that he could no longer control them, that the French were in danger and that he had seen arrows stuck in the ground by the side of the path in token that war was declared. The peril was thickening hourly and Utina resolved to regain the boats while there was yet time. On the twenty-seventh of July at nine in the morning he set his men in order. Each shouldering a sack of corn they marched through the rows of huts and out betwixt the overlapping extremities of the palisade that encircled the town. Before them stretched a wide avenue three or four hundred paces long flanked by a natural growth of trees, one of those curious monuments of native industry to which allusion has already been made. Here Utini halted and formed his line of march. Our luck with eight matchlock men was sent in advance and flanking parties were thrown into the woods on either side. Utini told his soldiers that if the Indians meant to attack them they were probably ambushed at the other end of the avenue. He was right. As our luck's party reached the spot the whole pack gave tongue at once. The war-whoops rose and a tempest of stone-headed arrows clattered against the breastplates of the French or scorching light fire tore through their unprotected limbs. They stood firm and sent back their shot so steadily that several of the assailants were laid dead and the rest, two or three hundred in number, gave way as Utini came up with his men. They moved on for a quarter of a mile through a country, as it seems, comparatively open, when again the war cry peeled in front and three hundred savages bounded to the assault. Their hoops were echoed from the rear. It was the party whom our luck had just repulsed and who, leaping and showering their arrows, were rushing on again with a ferocity restrained only by their lack of courage. There was no panic among the French. The men threw down their bags of corn and took to the weapons. They blew their matches and under two excellent officers stood well to their work. The Indians on their part showed good discipline after their fashion and were perfectly under the control of their chiefs. With cries that imitated the yell of owls the scream of cougars and the howl of wolves they ran up in successive bands, let fly their arrows and instantly fell back giving place to others. At the sight of the levelled archibuce they dropped flat on the ground. Whenever the French charged upon them sword in hand they fled through the wood like foxes and whenever the march was resumed the arrows were showering again upon the flanks and rear of the retiring band. As they fell the soldiers picked them up and broke them. Thus beset with swarming savages the handful of Frenchmen pushed slowly onward fighting as they went. The Indians gradually drew off and the forest was silent again. Two of the French had been killed and twenty-two wounded several so severely that they were supported to the boats with the utmost difficulty. Of the corn two bags only had been brought off. Famine and desperation now reigned at Fort Caroline. The Indians had killed two of the carpenters hence long delay in the finishing of the new ship. They would not wait but resolved to put to sea in the Breton and the Brigantine. The problem was to find food for the voyage for now in their extremity they roasted and ate snakes a delicacy in which the neighbourhood abounded. On the 3rd of August la Danière, perturbed and oppressed was walking on the hill. When looking seaward he saw a sight that sent a thrill through his exhausted frame. A great ship was standing towards the river's mouth. Then another came in sight and another and another. He dispatched a messenger with the tidings to the fort below. The languid forms of his sick and despairing men rose and danced for joy and voices shrill with weakness joined in wild laughter and acclamation. In so much he says that one would have thought them to be out of their wits. A doubt soon mingled with their joy. Who were the strangers? Were they the friends so long hoped for in vain? Or were they Spaniards, their dreaded enemies? They were neither. The foremost ship was a stately one of seven hundred tonnes a great burden at that day. She was named the Jesus and with her were three smaller vessels the Solomon, the Tiger and the Swallow. Their commander was a right worshipful and valiant knight for so the record styles him a pious man and a prudent to judge him by the order he gave his crew when ten months before he sailed out of Plymouth. Serve God daily love one another preserve your victuals beware of fire and keep good company. Nor were the crew unworthy the graces of chief the devout chronicler of the voyage ascribes their deliverance from the perils of the sea to the almighty God who never suffereth his elect to perish. Who were they then this chosen band serenely conscious of a special providential care? They were the pioneers of that detested traffic destined to inoculate with its infection nations yet unborn the parent of discord and death filling half a continent with the tramp of armies and the clash of fratricidal swords their chief was Sir John Hawkins father of the English slave trade he had been to the coast of Guinea where he bought and kidnapped a cargo of slaves these he had sold to the jealous Spaniards of Hispaniola forcing them with sword matchlock and culverine to grant him free trade and then to sign testimonials that he had borne himself as became a peaceful merchant prospering greatly by this summary of commerce but distressed by the want of water he had put into the river of May to obtain a supply among the rugged heroes of the British Marine Sir John stood in the front rank and along with Drake his relative is extolled as a man born for the honour of the English name neither did the west of England yield such an Indian-Neptunian pair as were these two ocean peers Hawkins and Drake so writes the old chronicler purchase and all England was of his thinking a hardy and skillful seamen a bold fighter a loyal friend and a stern enemy overbearing towards equals but kind in his bluff way to those beneath him rude in speech somewhat crafty with all and avaricious he buffeted his way to riches and fame and died at last full of years and honour as for the abject humanity stowed beneath the reeking decks of the ship Jesus they were merely in his eyes so many black cattle tethered for the market Hawkins came up the river in a pinnace and landed at Fort Caroline accompanied, says Lord Donier with gentlemen honourably apparelled yet unarmed between the Hugenots and the English Puritans there was a double tie of sympathy both hated priests and both hated Spaniards wakening from their apathetic misery the starveling garrison hailed him as a deliverer yet Hawkins secretly rejoiced when he learned their purpose to abandon Florida for although not to tempt his cupidity they hid from him the secret of their appellation goldmine he coveted for his royal mistress the possession of this rich domain he shook his head however when he saw the vessels in which they proposed to embark and offered them all a free passage to France in his own ships this from obvious motives of honour and prudence Lord Donier declined upon which Hawkins offered to lend or sell him one of his smaller vessels Lord Donier hesitated and here upon arose a great clamour a mob of soldiers and artisans beset his chamber threatening loudly to desert him and take passage with Hawkins unless the offer were accepted the commandant accordingly resolved to buy the vessel the generous slaver whose reputed avarice nowhere appears in the transaction desired him to set his own price and in place of money took the cannon of the fort with other articles now useless to their late owners he sent them to a gift of wine and biscuit and supplied them with provisions for the voyage receiving in payment Lord Donier's note for which, adds the latter until present I am indebted to him with a friendly leave taking he returned to his ships and stood out to sea leaving golden opinions among the grateful inmates of Fort Caroline before the English top sails had sunk beneath the horizon the colonists bestowed themselves to depart in a few days their preparations were made they waited only for a fair wind it was long in coming and meanwhile their troubled fortunes assumed a new phase on the 28th of August the two captains Vassur and Verdier came in with tidings of an approaching squadron again the fort was wild with excitement friends or foes French or Spaniards sucker or death betwixt these were their hopes and fears divided on the following morning they saw seven barges rowing up the river bristling with weapons and crowded with men in armour the sentries on the bluff challenged and received no answer one of them fired at the advancing boats and still there was no response Lord Donier was almost defenceless he had given his heavier cannon to Hawkins and only two field pieces were left they were levelled at the foremost boats and the word to fire was about to be given when a voice from among the strangers called out that they were French commanded by Jean Ribaud at the 11th hour the long looked for sucker was come Ribaud had been commissioned to sail with seven ships for Florida a disorderly concourse of disbanded soldiers mixed with artisans and their families and young nobles weary of a two years peace were mustered at the port of Dieppe and embarked to the number of 300 men bearing with them all things thought necessary to a prosperous colony no longer in dread of the Spaniards the colonists saluted the newcomers with the cannon by which a moment before they had hoped to blow them out of the water Lord Donier issued from his stronghold to welcome them and regaled them with what cheer he could Ribaud was present conspicuous by his long beard an astonishment to the Indians and here too were officers old friends of Lord Donier why then had they approached in the attitude of enemies the mystery was soon explained for they expressed to the commandant their pleasure at finding that the charges made against him had proved false he begged to know more on which Ribaud, taking him aside told him that the returning ships had brought home letters filled with accusations of arrogance tyranny, cruelty and a purpose of establishing an independent command accusations which he now saw to be unfounded but which had been the occasion of his unusual and startling precaution he gave him too a letter from Admiral Colligny in brief but courteous terms it required him to resign his command and requested his return to France to clear his name from the imputations cast upon it Ribaud warmly urged him to remain but Lord Donier declined his friendly proposals worn in body and mind mortified and wounded he soon fell ill again a peasant woman attended him who was brought over, he says to nurse the sick and take charge of the poultry and of whom Le Moyne also speaks as a servant but who had been made the occasion of additional charges against him most offensive to the austere admiral stores were landed, tents were pitched women and children were sent on shore feathered Indians mingled in the throng and the borders of the river of May swarmed with busy life but lo how often times misfortune doth search and pursue us even then when we think to be at rest exclaimed the unhappy Lord Donier admits light and cheer of renovated hope a cloud of blackest omen was gathering in the east at half past eleven on the night of Tuesday the 4th of September the crew of Ribaud's flagship anchored on the still sea outside the bar saw a huge hulk grim with the throats of cannon drifting towards them through the gloom and from its stern rolled on the sluggish air the portentous banner of Spain End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Part 1 of Pioneers of France in the New World Part 1 The Huguenots in Florida This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Pioneers of France in the New World by Francis Partman Part 1 Huguenots in Florida Chapter 7 The Monk the Inquisitor and the Jesuit were lords of Spain sovereigns of her sovereign for they had formed the dark and narrow mind of that tyrannical recluse they had formed the minds of her people quenched in blood every spark of rising heresy and given over a noble nation to a bigotry blind and inexorable as the doom of fate linked with pride, ambition, avarice, every passion of a rich, strong nature potent for good and ill it made the Spaniard of that day a scourge as dire as ever fell on man Day was breaking on the world light, hope and freedom pierced with vitalizing ray the clouds and the miasma that hung so thick over the prostrate middle age once noble and mighty now a foul image of decay and death Kindled with new life the nations gave birth to a progeny of heroes and the stormy glories of the 16th century rose on awakened Europe but Spain was the citadel of darkness a monastic cell an inquisitorial dungeon where no ray could pierce she was the bulwark of the church against whose adamantine wall the waves of innovation beat in vain in every country of Europe the party of freedom and reform was the national party the party of reaction and absolutism was the Spanish party leaning on Spain looking to her for help above all it was so in France and while within her bounds there was for a time some semblance of peace the national and religious rage burst forth on a wilder theater thither it is for us to follow where on the shores of Florida the Spaniard and the Frenchman the bigot and the Huguenot met in the grapple of death in a corridor of his palace Philip II was met by a man who had long stood waiting his approach and who with proud reverence placed a petition in the hand of the pale and somber king the petitioner was Pedro Menendez de Aviles one of the ableist and most distinguished officers of the Spanish Marine he was born of an ancient Austerian family his boyhood had been wayward ungovernable and fierce he ran off at eight years of age and when after a search of six months he was found and brought back he ran off again this time he was more successful escaping on board a fleet bound against the Barbary corsairs where his precocious appetite for blood and blows had reasonable contentment a few years later he found means to build a small vessel in which he cruised against the corsairs and the French and those still hardly more than a boy displayed a singular address and daring the wonders of the new world now seized his imagination he made a voyage thither and the ships under his charge backfrated with wealth the war with France was then at its height as captain general of the fleet he was sent with troops to Flanders and to their prompt arrival was due it is said the victory of Saint Quentin two years later he commanded the luckless Armada which bore back Phillip to his native shore on the way the king narrowly escaped drowning in a storm off the port of Laredo this mischance or his own violence and insubordination wrought to the prejudice of Menendez he complained that his services were ill repaid Phillip lent him a favouring ear and dispatched him to the Indies as general of the fleet and army here he found means to amass vast riches and in 1561 on his return to Spain charges were brought against him of a nature which his two friendly biographer does not explain the council of the Indies arrested him he was imprisoned and sentenced to a heavy fine but gaining his release hastened to court to throw himself on the royal clemency his petition was most graciously received Phillip restored his command but remitted only half his fine a strong presumption of his guilt Menendez kissed the royal hand he had another petition in reserve his son had been wrecked near the Bermudas and he would feign to go thither to find tidings of his fate the pious king bad him to trust in God and promised that he should be dispatched without delay to the Bermudas and Florida with a commission to make an exact survey of the neighbouring seas for the profit of future voyages but Menendez was not content with such an errand he knew, he said, nothing of greater moment to his majesty than the conquest and settlement of Florida the climate was healthful the soil fertile and worldly advantages aside sunk in the thickest change of infidelity such grief he pursued seizes me when I behold this multitude of wretched Indians that I should choose the conquest and settling of Florida above all commands offices and dignities which your majesty might bestow those who take this for hypocrisy do not know the Spaniard of the 16th century the king was edified by his zeal an enterprise of such spiritual and temporal promise was not to be slided and Menendez was empowered to conquer and convert Florida at his own cost the conquest was to be affected within three years Menendez was to take with him five hundred men and supply them with five hundred slaves besides horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs villages were to be built with forts to defend them and sixteen ecclesiastics of whom four should be Jesuits were to form the nucleus of a florid in church the king on his part granted Menendez free trade with Hispaniola Puerto Rico, Cuba, and Spain the office of Adelantado of Florida for life with the right of naming his successor and large emoluments to be drawn from the expected conquest the compact struck Menendez hastened to his native Asturias to raise money among his relatives scarcely was he gone when tidings reached Madrid that Florida was already occupied by a colony of citizens and that a reinforcement under Rebeau was on the point of sailing thither a French historian of high authority declares that these advices came from the Catholic party at the French court in whom every instinct of patriotism was lost in their hatred of colony and the Huguenots of this there can be little doubt though information also came about this time from the Buccaneer Frenchman captured in the West Indies foreigners had invaded the territory of the Buccane the trespassers too were heretics foes of God and leech men of the devil their doom was fixed but how would France endure an assault in time of peace on subjects who had gone forth on an enterprise sanctioned by the crown and undertaken in its name and under its commission the throne of France in which the corruption of the nation seemed gathered to a head was trembling between the two parties of the Catholics and the Huguenots whose chiefs aimed at royalty flattering both, caressing both playing one against the other and betraying both Catherine de' Medici by a thousand crafty arts and expedience of the moment sought to retain the crown on the head of her weak and vicious son of late her crooked policy had led her towards the Catholic party in other words the party of Spain and she had already given ear to the savage Duke of Alva urging her to the course which seven years later led to the carnage of Palomí in short the Spanish policy was in the ascendant and no thought of the national interest or honor could restrain that basis of courts from abandoning by hundreds to the national enemy those whom it was itself meditating to emulate by the thousands it might protest for form's sake or to quiet public clamor but Philip of Spain well knew that it would end in patience of mission Menendez was summoned back in haste to the Spanish court and the force must be strengthened 394 men were added at the royal charge and a corresponding number of transport and supply ships it was a holy war a crusade and as such it was preached by priest and monk along the western coasts of Spain all the besky and ports flamed with zeal and adventurers crowded to enroll themselves since to plunder heretics is good for the soul as well as the purse and broil and massacre have double when promoted into a means of salvation it was a fervor deep and hot but not of celestial kindling nor yet that buoyant aspiring zeal which when the middle age was in its youth in prime glowed in the souls of Tancred Godfrey and St. Louis and which when its day was long since past could still find its home in the great heart of Columbus a darker spirit urged the new crusade born not of hope but fear slavish in its nature the creature and the tool of despotism for the typical spanured of the 16th century was not in strictness of an attic he was bigotry incarnate heresy was a plague spot and also to be eradicated with fire and the knife and this foul abomination was infecting the shores which the vice-regent of Christ had given to the king of Spain and which the most Catholic king had given to the Adalantado thus would countless heathen tribes be doomed to an eternity of flame and the Prince of Darkness hold his ancient sway unbroken and for the Adalantado himself the vast outlays the vast debts of his bold Florida and adventure would be all in vain and his fortunes be wrecked past redemption through these tools of Satan as a Catholic as a spanured and as an adventurer his course was clear the work assigned him was prodigious he was invested with power almost absolute not merely over the peninsula which now retains the name of Florida but over all North America from Labrador to Mexico for this was the Florida of the old Spanish geographers and the Florida designated in the commission of Menendez it was a continent which he was to conquer and occupy out of his own purse the impoverished king contracted with his daring and ambitious subject to win and hold for him the territory of the future United States and British provinces his plan as afterwards exposed at length in his letters to Philip II was first to plant a garrison at Port Royal and next to fortify strongly on Chesapeake Bay called by him St. Mary's he believed that adjoining this bay was an arm of the sea running northward and eastward and communicating with the Gulf of St. Lawrence thus making New England with adjacent districts and island his proposed fort on the Chesapeake securing access by this imaginary passage to the seas of New Finland would enable the Spaniards to command the fisheries on which both the French and the English had long encroached to the great prejudice of Spanish rights. Doubtless too these inland waters gave access to the South Sea and their occupation was necessary to prevent the French from penetrating thither for that ambitious people since the time of Cartier had never abandoned their schemes of seizing this portion of the dominions of the country. Five hundred soldiers and one hundred sailors must, he urges, take possession without delay of Port Royal and the Chesapeake. Preparation for his enterprise was pushed with furious energy. His whole force, when the several squadrons were united, amounted to 2,646 persons in 34 vessels one of which, the son Palayo bearing Menendez himself was of 996 tons and is described as one of the finest ships afloat. There were twelve Franciscans and eight Jesuits besides other ecclesiastics and many knights of Galicia, Biscay and the Asturias took part in the expedition. With a slight exception the whole was at the Atalantados charge. Within the first fourteen months according to his admirer Barcia the adventure cost him a million ducats. Before the close of the year Sancho de Arseniega was commissioned to join Menendez with an additional force of 1,500 men. Red hot with a determined purpose the Atalantado would brook no delay. To him, says the chronicler, every day seemed a year. He was eager to anticipate Rebault, of whose designs and whose force he seems to have been informed to the minutest particular, but whom he hoped to thwart and ruin by gaining Fort Caroline before him. In eleven ships, therefore, he sailed from Quediz on the twenty-ninth of June, 1565, leaving the smaller vessels of his fleet to follow with what speed they might. He touched first at the Canaries and on the eighth of July left them steering for Domenica. A minute account of the voyage has come down to us, written by Mendoza, chaplain of the expedition, a somewhat dull and illiterate person, who busily jots down the incidents of each passing day constantly betraying, with a certain awkward simplicity, how the cares of this world and of the next jostle each other in his thoughts. On Friday the twentieth of June a storm fell upon them with appalling fury. The pilots lost their wits and the sailors gave themselves up to their terrors. Throughout the night they beset Mendoza for confession and absolution, a boon not easily granted, but the seas swept the crowded decks with cataracts of foam, and the shriekings on the rigging overpowered the exhortations of the half-drowned priest. Cannon, cables, spars, water casks were thrown overboard, and the chests of the sailors would have followed had not the latter, in spite of their fright, raised such a howl of remonstrance that the order was revoked. At length day dawn, plunging, reeling, half underwater, quivering with the shock of the seas, whose mountain ridges rolled down upon her before the gale. The ship lay parallel from Friday to Monday noon. Then the storm abated, the sun broke out, and again she held her course. They reached Domenica on Sunday, the 5th of August. The chaplain tells us how he went on shore to refresh himself. How, while his Italian servant washed his linen at a brook, he strolled along the beach and picked up shells, and how he was scared first by a prodigious turtle, and next by a vision of the cannibal natives, which caused a lot of trouble. On the 10th they anchored in the harbor of Puerto Rico, where they found two ships of their squadron from which they had parted in the storm. One of them was a San Palayo, with Menendez on board. Mendoza informs us that in the evening the officers came on board the ship to which he was attached, when he, the chaplain, regaled them with sweet-meats, and that Menendez invited him not only to supper that night, but invite him as reason was, says the gratified churchman. Here thirty men deserted, and three priests also ran off, of which Mendoza bitterly complains as increasing his own work. The motives of the clerical truance may perhaps be inferred from a worldly temptation to which the chaplain himself was subjected. I was offered the service of a chapel where I should have got a peso for every mass I set, the whole year round, but I did what I here said of the other three would be said of me. Besides, it is not a place where one can hope for any great advancement, and I wish to try whether, in refusing a benefit for the love of the Lord, he will not repay me with some other stroke of fortune before the end of the voyage, for it is my aim to serve God and his blessed mother. The original design had been to rendezvous at Havana, but with the Adolantado the advantages of dispatch outweighed every other ship were resolved to push directly for Florida. Five of his scattered ships had by this time rejoined the company, comprising, exclusive of officers, a force of about five hundred soldiers, two hundred sailors, and one hundred colonists. Bearing northward, he advanced by unknown and dangerous course along the coast of Haiti and through the intricate passes of the Bahamas. On the night of the twenty-sixth, the San Palio struck three times on the ship. In as much as our enterprise was undertaken for the sake of Christ and his blessed mother, two heavy seas struck her abaffed and said her afloat again. At length the ships lay becalmed in the Bahama Channel, slumbering on the glassy sea, torpid with the heats of a West Indian August. Menendez called a council of the commanders. There was doubt and indecision. Perhaps Ribo had already reached the French fort, and then to attack the United Force would be an inspiration. Far better to await their lagging comrades. But the Atalantado was of a different mind, and even had his enemy arrived, he was resolved that he should have no time to fortify himself. It is God's will, he said, that our victory should be due not to our numbers, but to his all powerful aid. Therefore he has stricken us with tempests and scattered our ships. And he gave his voice for instant advance. There was much dispute, even when the Kaplan remonstrated, but nothing could bend the iron will of Menendez. Nor was a sign of celestial approval wanting. At nine in the evening a great meteor burst forth in mid-heaven, and blazing like the sun rolled westwards toward the coast of Florida. The fainting spirits of the crusaders were revived. Diligent preparation was begun. Prayers and masses were said, and that the temporal arm might not fail, the men were daily shooting at marks. In order, says the chroniclers, that the recruits might learn not to be afraid of their guns. The dead calm continued. We were all very tired, says the chaplain, and I above all, with praying to God for a fair wind. Today at about two in the afternoon he took pity on us and sent a breeze. Before night they saw land the faint line of forest traced along the watery horizon that marked the coast of Florida. But where, all this vast monotony was the lurking place of the French. Menendez anchored and sent a captain with twenty men ashore who presently found a band of Indians and gained from them the needed information. He stood northward till, on the afternoon of Tuesday, the fourth of September, he described four ships anchored near the mouth of a river. It was the river St. John's, and the ships were four of Rebeau's squadron. The pray was in sight. The Spaniards were in battle and bore down upon the Lutherans, for with them all Protestants alike were branded with the name of Archheretic. Slowly before the faint breeze the ships glided on their way, but while excited and impatient the fierce crews watched their decreasing space and when they were still three leagues from their prize the air ceased to stir, the sails flapped against the mast, a black cloud with thunder arose above the coast and the warm rain of the southless sea. It was dark before the winds started again and the ships resumed their course. At half past eleven they reached the French. The San Palio slowly moved windward of Rebeau's flagship, the Trinity, and anchored very near her. The other ships took similar stations. While these preparations were making, a work of two hours, the men labored in silence and the French, thronging their gangways, looked on in equal silence. Never since I came into the world, writes the chaplain, did I know such a stillness. It was broken at length by a trumpet from the deck of the San Palio. A French trumpet answered. Then Menendez, with much courtesy says his Spanish eulogist, inquired, gentlemen, whence does this wheat come? From France, was the reply. What are you doing here? pursued the Edelantado. Bringing soldiers and supplies for a fort which the king of France has built in this country others which he soon will have. Are you Catholics or Lutherans? Many voices cried out together, Lutherans of the new religion. Then in their turn they demanded who Menendez was, and whence he came. He answered, I am Pedro Menendez, general of the fleet of the king of Spain, Don Philip II, who have come to this country to hang and behead all Lutherans whom I shall find by land or sea, according to instructions from my king, that I have the power to pardon none, and these commands I shall fulfill as you will see. At daybreak I shall board your ships, and if I find there any Catholic he shall be well treated, but every heretic shall die. The French, with one voice, raised to cry of wrath and defiance. If you are a brave man, don't wait until day. Come on now and see what you will get. And they assailed the Edelantado with a shower of scoffs and insults. Menendez broke into a rage and gave the order to board. The men slipped the cables, and the sullen black hulk of the San Palayo drifted down upon the trinity. The French did not make good their defiance. Indeed they were incapable of resistance, rebelled with his soldiers being assured at Fort Caroline. They cut their cables, left their anchors, made sail and fled. The Spaniards fired, the French replied. The other Spanish ships had imitated the movement of the San Palayo. Ed writes the chaplain, Mendoza, these devils are such adroit sailors and maneuvered so well that we did not catch one of them. Pursuers and pursued ran out to sea, firing useless follies at each other. In the morning Menendez gave over the chase, turned, and with the San Palayo alone ran back for the St. John's. But here a welcome was prepared for him. He saw bands of armed men drawn up on the beach, and the smaller vessels of the coast squadron which had crossed the bar several days before anchored behind it to oppose his landing. He would not venture an attack, but steering southward sailed along the coast till he came to an inlet which he named St. Augustine, the same which Laudanière had named River of Dolphins. Here he found three of his ships already debarking their troops, guns, and stores. Two officers, Patiflo and Vincente, had taken possession of the dwelling of the Indian chief Saloi, a huge barn-like structure strongly framed of entire trunks of trees, and thatched with palmetto leaves. Around it they were throwing up entrenchments of fascines and sand, and gangs of degros were toiling at the work. Such was the birth of St. Augustine, the oldest town of the United States. On the 8th Menendez took formal possession of his domain. Cannon were fired, trumpets sounded, and banners displayed, and landed in state at the head of his officers and nobles. Mendoza, crucifix in hand, came to meet him chanting to-day Amlaudamus, while the Atalantado and all his company, kneeling, kissed the crucifix, and the assembled Indians gazed in silent wonder. End of Chapter 7 Part 1. Chapter 7 Part 2 of Pioneers of France in the New World Part 1 The Huguenots in Florida. This is a LibriVox recording. LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Pioneers of France in the New World by Francis Parkman. Part 1 Huguenots in Florida. Chapter 7 Menendez, Part 2 1565 Meanwhile the tenants of Fort Caroline were not idle. Two or three soldiers strolling along the beach in the afternoon had first seen the Spanish ships and quickly summoned Ribo. He came down to the mouth of the river followed by an anxious and excited crowd, but as they strained their eyes through the darkness they could see nothing but the flashes of the distant guns. At length the returning light showed, far out at sea, the Atalantado and hot chase of their flying comrades. Pursuers and pursued were soon out of sight. The drums beat to arms. After many hours of suspense the San Palio reappeared, in the mouth of the river, then bearing away towards the south. More anxious hours ensued when three other sail came in sight and they recognized three of their own returning ships. Communication was opened, a boat's crew landed, and they learned from Cassette, one of the French captains, that, confiding in the speed of his own ship, he had followed the Spaniards to St. Augustine, reconnoitred their position La Danière lay sick in bed in his chamber at Fort Caroline when Ribeau entered, and with him La Grange, Saint-Marie, Autinier, Jean-Villa, and other officers. At the bedside of the displaced commandant they held their council of war. Three plans were proposed, first to remain where they were and fortify themselves, next to push overland for St. Augustine and attack the invaders in their entrenchments, and finally to embark and assail them by sea. The first plan would leave their ships prey to the Spaniards, and so too in all likelihood would the second, besides the uncertainties of an overland march through an unknown wilderness. By sea the distance was short and the route explored. By a sudden blow they could capture or destroy the Spanish ships and master the troops on shore before reinforcements could arrive and before they had time to complete their defences. Such were the views of Ribeau with which, not unnaturally, Laudanier finds fault and Lemoine echoes the censures of his chief. And yet the plan seems as well conceived as it was bold, lacking nothing but success. The Spaniards, stricken with terror, owed their safety to the elements or, as they say, to the special interposition of the Holy Virgin. Menendez was a fit leader to stand with Cortes and Pizarro, but he was matched with a man as cool, skillful, prompt and daring as himself. The traces that have come down to us indicate in Ribeau one far above the common stamp, a distinguished man of many high qualities, as even the fault-finding Lemoine calls him, devout after the best spirit of the reform and with a human heart under his steel breastplate. La Grange and other officers took part with Laudanier and opposed the plan of an attack by sea. But Ribeau's conviction was unshaken and the order was given. All his soldiers fit for duty and for the rest of his life all his soldiers fit for duty embarked in haste and with them let La Caille, Arlac and, as it seems, Atanie with the best of Laudanier's men. Even Lemoine, though wounded in the fight with Otina's warriors, went on board to bear his part in the fray and would have sailed with the rest had not Atanie seeing his disabled condition ordered him back to the fort. On the tenth the ships, crowded with troops, set sail. Ribeau was gone and with him the bone and sinew of the colony. The miserable remnant watched his receding sails with jury foreboding, a foreboding which seemed but too just when on the next day a storm more violent than the Indians had ever known held through the forest and lashed the ocean into fury. Most forlorn was the plight of these exiles left it might be the prey of a band of ferocious bigots more terrible than the fiercest towards of the wilderness and when night closed on the stormy river and the gloomy waste of pines what dreams of terror may not have haunted the helpless women who crouched under the hovels of Fort Caroline. The fort was in a ruinous state with the palisade on the waterside broken down and three breaches in the rampart. In the driving rain urged by the sick Laudanier the men, bedrenched and disheartened labored as they could to strengthen their defences. Their muster-roll shows but a beggarly array. Now, says Laudanier, let them which have been bold to say that I had men enough left me so that I had means to defend myself give a care little now unto me and if they have eyes in their heads let them see what men I had. Of Rebo's followers left at the fort only nine or ten had weapons while only two or three knew how to use them. Four of them were boys who kept Rebo's dogs and another was his cook. Besides these he had left a brewer an old crossbow-maker two shoemakers, a player on the spinnet four valets a carpenter of three score Shalom, no doubt, who has left us the story of his woes with a crowd of women, children, and eighty-six camp-followers. To these were added the remnant of Laudanier's men, of whom seventeen could bear arms, the rest being sick or disabled by wounds received in the fight with Otina. Laudanier divided his force such as it was into two watches over which he placed two officers St. Clair and Lavenia gave them lanterns for going the rounds and an hourglass for setting the time while he himself, giddy with weakness and fever was every night at the guard room. It was the night of the nineteenth of September the season of tempests floods of rain drenched the sentries on the rampart and as day dawned on the dripping ferrets and deluged parade the storm increased in violence. What enemy could venture out on such a night? Lavenia, who had the watch, took pity on the sentries and on himself, dismissed them and went to his quarters. He little knew what human energies urged by ambition, avarice, bigotry and desperation will dare and do. To return to the Spaniards at St. Augustine. On the morning of the eleventh the crew of one of their vessels, lying outside the bar with Menendez himself on board saw through the twilight of early dawn two of Ribo's ships close upon them. Not a breath of air was stirring. There was no escape and the Spaniards fell on their knees in supplication to Our Lady of Ritrera explaining to her that the heretics were upon them and begging her to send them a little wind. Fourth with, says Mendoza, one would have said that Our Lady herself came down upon the vessel. A wind sprang up and the Spaniards found refuge behind the bar. The returning days showed to their astonished eyes all the ships of Ribo their decks black with men hovering off the entrance of the port but heaven had them in its charge and again they experienced its protecting care. The breeze sent by Our Lady of Ritrera rose to a gale then to a furious tempest and the grateful Adelantado saw through rain and mist the ships of his enemy cast wildly among the raging waters as they struggled to gain an outing. With exultation in his heart the skillful seamen read their danger and saw them, in his mind's eye, dash to utter wreck among the sandbars and breakers off the lee shore. A bold thought seized him. He would march overland with five hundred men and attack Fort Caroline while its defenders were absent. First he ordered a mass and then he called a council. Doubtless it was in that great Indian lodge of Siloi where he had made his headquarters and here in the dim and smoky abode nobles, officers, and priests gathered at his summons. There were fears and doubts and murmurings but Menendez was desperate not with the mad desperation that strikes wildly and at random but the still white heat that melts and burns and sieves with an unsteady unquenchable fierceness. Comrades he said the time has come to show our courage and our zeal. This is God's war and we must not flinch. It is war with Lutherans and we must wage it with blood and fire. But his hearers gave no response. They had not a million of dook-its at stake and were not ready for a cast so desperate. A clamour of remonstrance rose from the circle. Many voices, that of Mendoza among the rest urged waiting till their main forces should arrive. The excitement spread to the men without and the swarthy, black-bearded crowd into tumults, mounting almost to mutiny while an officer was heard to say that he would not go on such a hare-brained errand to be butchered like a beast. But nothing could move the Atalantado. His appeals or his threats did their work at last, the confusion was quelled and preparation was made for the march. On the morning of the seventeenth five hundred archboussiers and pikemen were drawn up before the camp. To each was given six pounds of biscuit and a canteen filled with wine. Two Indians and a renegade Frenchman called François Jean were to guide them, and twenty Biscayen Axemen moved to the front to clear the way. Through floods of driving rain a horse-voice shouted the word of command and the sullen march began. With dismal misgiving Mendoza watched the last files as they vanished in the tempestuous forest. Two days of suspense ensued when a messenger came back with a letter from the Atalantado announcing that he had nearly reached the French fort and that on the morrow, September the twentieth, at sunrise he hoped to assault it. May the Divine Majesty dain to protect us, for he knows we have need of it," writes the scared chaplain. The Atalantado's great zeal and courage make us hope he will succeed, but for the good of his majesty's service he ought to be a little less ardent in pursuing his schemes. Meanwhile the five hundred pushed their march, now toiling across the inundated savonarius, waist-deep in bulrushes and mud, now filing through the open forest to the moan and roar of the storm-wracked pines, now hacking their way through palmetto-thickets, and now turning from their path to shun some pool, quagmire, cypress-swamp, or hummock, matted with impenetrable bushes, brambles, and vines. As they bent before the tempest the water trickling from the rusty head-piece crept clammy and cold betwixt the armor and the skin, and when they made their wretched bivouac their bed was the spongy soil and the exhaustless clouds their tent. The night of Wednesday the nineteenth found their vanguard in a deep forest of pines, less than a mile from Fort Caroline, and near the low hills which extended in its rear, and formed a continuation of St. John's Bluff. All around was one great morass. In pitchy darkness, knee-deep in weeds and water, half-starved, worn with toil and lack of sleep, drenched to the skin, their provisions spoiled, their ammunition wet, and their spirit chilled out of them, they stood in shivering groups, cursing the enterprise and the author of it. Menendez heard Fernando Perez and Ensign, say aloud to his comrades, this Austurian Corrito, who knows no more of war on shore than an ass, has betrayed us all. By God if my advice had been followed he would have had his desserts the day he set out on this cursed journey. The Atalantado pretended not to hear. Two hours before dawn he called his officers about him. All night he said he had been praying to God and the Virgin. Seniors, what shall we resolve on? Our ammunition and provisions are gone, our case is desperate. And he urged a bold rush on the fort. But men and officers alike were disheartened and disgusted. They listened coldly and sullenly. Many were for returning at every risk. None were in the mood for fight. Menendez put forth all his eloquence till at length the dashed spirits of his followers so were so far revived that they consented to follow him. All fell on their knees in the marsh. Then rising they formed their ranks and began to advance, guided by the renegade Frenchman, whose hands, to make sure of him, were tied behind his back. Groping and stumbling in the dark among trees, roots, and underbrush, buffeted by wind and rain, and lashed in the face by the recoiling boughs which they could not see, they soon lost their way, fell into confusion, and came to a stand, in a more savagely desponding mood than before. But soon a glimmer of returning day came to their aid and showed them the dusky sky and the dark columns of the surrounding pines. Menendez ordered the men forward on pain of death. They obeyed and presently, emerging from the forest, could dimly discern the ridge of a low hill, behind which the Frenchman told them was the fort. Menendez, with a few officers and men, cautiously mounted to the top. Beneath lay Fort Caroline, three bow-shots distant, but the rain, the imperfect light, and a cluster of intervening houses prevented his seeing clearly, and he sent two officers to reconnoiter. As they descended they met a solitary Frenchman. They knocked him down with a sheath's sword, wounded him, took him prisoner, kept him for a time, and then stabbed him as they returned towards the top of the hill. Here, clutching their weapons, all the gang stood in fierce expectancy. Santiago, cried Menendez, at them, God is with us, victory. And shouting their horse-war cries the Spaniards rushed down the slope like starved wolves. Not a century was on the rampart. La Vina, the officer of the guard, had just gone to his quarters. But a trumpeter, who chanced to remain, saw, through sheets of rain, the swarm of assailants sweeping down the hill. He blew the alarm, and at the summons a few half-naked soldiers ran wildly out of the barracks. It was too late. Through the breeches and over the ramparts the Spaniards came pouring in with shouts of Santiago, Santiago. Sick men leaped from their beds. Women and children, blind with fright, darted shrieking from the houses. A fierce gaunt visage, the thrust of a pike, or a blow of a rusty halberd, such was the greeting that met all alike. La Danière snatched his sword and target and ran towards the principal breach, calling to his soldiers. A rush of Spaniards met him. His men were cut down around him, and he, with a soldier named Bartholomew, was forced back into the yard of his house. Here stood a tent, and as the pursuers stumbled among the cords he escaped behind Autigny's house, spraying through the breach in the western rampart and fled for the woods. Le Moyne had been one of the guard. Scarcely had he thrown himself into a hammock which was slung in his room when a savage shout and a wild uproar of shrieks, outcries, and the clash of weapons brought him to his feet. He rushed by two Spaniards in the doorway, ran behind the guard-house, leaped through an embrasure into the ditch, and escaped to the forest. Shalu, the carpenter, was going betimes to his work, a chisel in his hand. He was old, but Pike and Partizan, brandished at his back, gave wings to his flight. In the ecstasy of his terror he leapt upward, clutched at the top of the palisade, and threw himself over with the agility of a boy. He ran up the hill, no one pursuing, and as he neared the edge of the forest, turned and looked back. From the high ground where he stood he could see the butchery, the conquerors, and the agonizing gestures of the victims. He turned again in horror and plunged into the woods. As he tore his way through the briars and thickets, he met several fugitives escaped like himself. Others presently came up, haggard and wild, like men broken loose from the jaws of death. They gathered together and consulted. One of them, known as Master Robert, in great repute for his knowledge of the Bible, was for returning and surrendering to the Spaniards. For men, he said, perhaps when their fury is over they will spare our lives, and even if they kill us it will only be a few moments' pain. Better so than to starve here in the woods or be torn to pieces by wild beasts. The greater part of the naked and despairing company assented, but Shalu was of a different mind. The old Huguenot quoted Scripture and called the names of prophets and apostles to witness that in the direst extremity God would not abandon those who rested their faith in him. Six of the fugitives, however, still held to their desperate purpose. Issuing from the woods, they descended towards the fort, and as with beating hearts their comrades watched the result, a troop of Spaniards rushed out, hewed them down with swords and halberds, and dragged their bodies to the brink of the river, where the victims of the massacre were already flung in heaps. Lemoine, with a soldier named Grandemine, whom he had met in his flight, toiled all day through the woods and marshes, in the hope of reaching the small vessels anchored behind the bar. Knight found them in a morass. No vessel could be seen, and the soldier, in despair, broke into angry upbratings against his companion, saying that he would go back and give himself up. Lemoine at first opposed him, then yielded. But when they drew near the fort and heard the uproar of savage revelry that rose from within, the artist's heart failed him. He embraced his companion, and the soldier advanced alone. A party of Spaniards came out to meet him. He kneeled and begged for his life. He was answered by a death-blow, and the horrified Lemoine, from his hiding-place in the thicket, saw his limbs hacked apart, stuck on pikes, and borne off in triumph. Meanwhile, Menendez, mustering his followers, had offered thanks to God for their victory, and this pious butcher wept with emotion as he recounted the favors which Heaven had showed upon their enterprise. His admiring historian gives it in proof of his humanity, that after the rage of the assault was spent, he ordered that women, infants, and boys under fifteen should thenceforth be spared. Of these, by his own account, there were about fifty. Writing in October to the king, he says that they cause him great anxiety, since he fears the anger of God should he now put them to death in cold blood, while on the other hand he is in dread lest the venom of their heresy should infect his men. A hundred and forty-two persons were slain in and around the fort, and their bodies lay heaped together on the bank of the river. Nearly opposite was anchored a small vessel, called the Pearl, commanded by Jacques Ribaud, son of the Admiral. The ferocious soldiery, maddened with victory and drunk with blood, crowded to the water's edge, shouting insults to those on board, mangling the corpses, tearing out their eyes, and throwing them towards the vessel from the points of their daggers. Thus did the most Catholic Philip champion the cause of Heaven in the New World. It was currently believed in France, and though no eyewitness attested, there is reason to think it true, that among those murdered at Fort Caroline there were some who died a death of particular ignominy. Menendez, it is affirmed, hanged his prisoners on trees, and placed over them the inscription, I do this not as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans. The Spaniards gained great booty in armor, clothing, and provisions. Nevertheless, says the devout Mendoza, after closing his inventory of the plunder, the greatest profit of this victory is the triumph which our Lord has granted us, whereby his holy gospel will be introduced into this country, a thing so needful for saving so many souls from perdition. Again he writes in his journal, we owe to God and his mother, more than to human strength, this victory over the adversaries of the holy Catholic religion. To whatever influence, celestial or other, the exploit may best be ascribed, the victors were not yet quite content with their success. Two small French vessels, besides that of Jacques Ribeau, still lay within range of the fort. When the storm had a little abated, the cannon were turned on them. One of them was sunk, but Ribeau with the others escaped down the river, at the mouth of which several light-craft, including that bought from the English, had been anchored since the arrival of his father's squadron. While this was passing, the wretched fugitives were flying a scene of massacre through a tempest, of whose persistent violence all the narratives speak with wonder. Exhausted, starved, half-naked, for most of them had escaped in their shirts, they pushed their toil some way amid the ceaseless wrath of the elements. A few sought refuge in Indian villages, but these, it is said, were afterwards killed by the Spaniards. The greater number attempted to reach the vessels at the mouth of the river. Among the latter was Lemoine, whose former failure was toiling through the mazes of tangled forests, when he met a Belgian soldier with the woman described as Laudanier's maidservant, who was wounded in the breast and urging their flight towards the vessels, they fell in with other fugitives, including Laudanier himself. As they struggled through the salt marsh, the rank sedge cut their naked limbs, and the tide rose to their waist. Presently they described others, toiling like themselves through the matted vegetation, and they recognized Shallot and his companions, also in quest of the vessels. The old man still, as he tells us, held fast to his chisel, which had done good service in cutting poles to aid the party to cross the deep cracks that channeled the morass. The united band, 26 and all, were cheered at length by the sight of a moving sail. It was the vessel of Captain Mallard, who informed of the massacre, was standing along shore in hope of picking up some of the fugitives. He saw their signals and sent boats to their rescue, but such was their exhaustion that, had not the sailors waiting to their armpits among the rushes borne them out on their shoulders, few could have escaped. Laudanier was so feeble that nothing but the support of a soldier who held him upright in his arms had saved him from drowning in the marsh. On gaining the friendly decks the fugitives counseled together. One and all they sickened for the sight of France. After waiting a few days and saving a few more stragglers from the marsh they prepared to sail. Young Ribaud, though ignorant of his father's fate, assented with something more than willingness. Indeed, his behaviour throughout had been stamped with weakness and pultrinary. On the twenty-fifth of September they put to sea in two vessels, and after a voyage the privations of which were fatal to many of them they arrived one party at Rochelle the other at Swansea in Wales. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Of Pioneers of France in the New World Part 1 The Huguenots in Florida This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Pioneers of France in the New World by Francis Parkman Part 1 Huguenots in Florida Chapter 8 Massacre of the Heretics 1565 In suspense and fear of the utterly looking seaward for the dreaded fleet of Jean-Ribaud the chaplain Mendoza and his brother-priest held watch and ward at St. Augustine in the Atalantado's absence. Beside the celestial guardians whom they ceased not to evoke they had as protectors Bartholomeu Menendez the brother of the Atalantado and about a hundred soldiers. Day and night they toiled to throw up earthworks and strengthen their position. A week elapsed when they saw a man running towards them shouting as they ran. Mendoza went to meet him. Victory! Victory! gasped the breathless messenger. The French fought his hours and he flung his arms about the chaplain's neck. Today, writes the priest in his journal, Monday the twenty-fourth came our good general himself with fifty soldiers very tired like all those who were with him. As soon as they told me he was coming I ran to my lodging, took a new cassock the best I had, put on my surplice and went out to meet him with a crucifix in my hand, whereupon he, like a gentleman and a good Christian, kneeled down with all his followers and gave the Lord a thousand thanks for the great favors he had received from him. In solemn procession, with four priests in front chanting to-day him, the victors entered St. Augustine in triumph. On the twenty-eighth, when the weary Atalantado was taking his siesta under the silven roof of Siloie, a troop of Indians came in with news that quickly roused him from his slumbers. They had seen a French vessel wrecked on the coast towards the south. Those who escaped from her were four or six leagues off on the banks of a river or arm of the sea which they could not cross. Menendez instantly sent forty or fifty men in boats to reconnoitre. Next he called the chaplain for he would feign have him at his elbow to countenance the deeds he meditated and with him twelve soldiers and two Indian guides embarked in another boat. They went along the channel between Anastasia Island and the main shore. Then they landed, struck across the island on foot, traversed plains and marshes, reached the sea towards night and searched along shore till ten o'clock to find their comrades who had gone before. At length with mutual joy the two parties met and bivouacked together on the sands. Not far distant they could see lights. These were the campfires of the shipwrecked French. To relate with precision the fortunes of these unhappy men is impossible for hence forward the French narratives are no longer the narratives of eyewitnesses. It has been seen how, when on the point of assailing the Spaniards at St. Augustine, Jean-Rebault was thwarted by a gale, which they hailed as a divine interposition. The gale rose to a tempest of strange fury. Within a few days all the French ships were cast on shore between Montaza's inlet and Cape Canaveral. According to a letter of Menendez many of those on board were lost. But others affirmed that all escaped but a captain, Lagrange, an officer of high merit who was washed from a floating mast. One of the ships was wrecked at a point farther northward than the rest and it was her company whose campfires were seen by the Spaniards at their bivouac on the sands of Anastasia Island. They were endeavoring to reach Fort Caroline of the fate of which they knew nothing while Rebault, with the remainder was farther southward struggling through the wilderness towards the same gale. What befell the latter will appear hereafter. Of the fate of the former party there is no French record. What we know of it is due to three Spanish eyewitnesses, Mendoza, Dr. Soiles de las Meres and Menendez himself. Soiles was a priest and brother-in-law to Menendez. Like Mendoza he minutely describes what he saw and like him was a red-hot zealot, lavishing applause for the darkest steeves of his cheap. But the principal witness, though not the most minute or most trustworthy, is Menendez in his long dispatches sent from Florida to the King and now first brought to light in the archives of Sevilla, a cool record of unsurpassed atrocities inscribed on the back with the royal endorsement say to him that he has done well. When the Atalantados saw the French fires in the distance he lay close in his bivouac and sent two soldiers to reconnoiter. At two o'clock in the morning they came back and reported that it was impossible to get at the enemy since they were on the farther side of an arm of the sea, Montaza's inlet. Menendez however gave orders to march and before daybreak reached the hither bank where he hid his men in a bushy hollow. Thence as it grew light they could discern the enemy many of whom were searching along the sands and shallows for shellfish for they were famishing. A thought struck Menendez inspiration says Mendoza of the Holy Spirit. He put on the clothes of a sailor entered a boat which had been brought to the spot and rode towards the shipwrecked men the better to learn their condition. A Frenchman swam out to meet him. Menendez demanded what men they were. Followers of Ribeau, Viceroy of the King of France, answered the swimmer. Are you Catholics or Lutherans? All Lutherans. A brief dialogue ensued during which the Atalantado declared his name and character and the Frenchman gave an account of the designs of Ribeau and of the disaster that had thwarted them. He then swam back to his companions but soon returned and asked safe conduct for his captain and four other gentlemen who wished to hold conference with the Spanish general. Menendez gave his word for their safety and on returning to the shore sent his boat to bring them over. On their landing he met them very courteously. His followers were kept at a distance so disposed behind the hills and among the bushes as to give an exaggerated idea of their force. A precaution the more needful, as they were only about sixty in number while the French, says Soyl, were above two hundred. Menendez, however, declares that they did not exceed a hundred and forty. The French officer told him the story of their shipwreck and begged him to lend them a boat to aid in crossing rivers which lay between them and the fort of their king, whether they were making their way. Then came again the ominous question are you Catholics or Lutherans? We are Lutherans. Gentlemen, pursued Menendez, your fort is taken and all in it are put to the sword. And in proof of his declaration he caused articles plundered from Fort Caroline to be showed to the unhappy petitioners. He then left them and went to breakfast with his officers, first ordering food to be placed before them. Having breakfasted he returned to them. Are you convinced now, he asked, that what I have told you is true? The French captain assented and implored him to lend them ships in which to return home. Menendez answered that he would do so willingly if they were Catholics, and if he had ships to spare, but he had none. The supplicants then expressed the hope that at least they and their followers would be allowed to remain with the Spaniards till ships could be sent to their relief, since there was peace between the two nations whose kings were friends and brothers. All Catholics retorted the Spaniard, I will befriend, but as you are of the new sect I hold you as enemies and wage deadly war against you, and this I will do with all cruelty, cruel dod, in this country where I command as Viceroy and Captain General for my king. I am here to plant the Holy Gospel, that the Indians might be enlightened and come to the knowledge of the Holy Catholic faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Roman Church teaches it. If you will give up your arms and banners and place yourselves at my mercy, you may do so, and I will act towards you as God shall give me grace. Do as you will, for other than this you can have neither truce nor friendship with me. Such were the Adolantados word, as reported by bystanders including his admiring brethren-law, and that they contain an implied assurance of mercy has been held, not only by Protestants, but by Catholics and Spaniards. The report of Menendez himself is more brief and sufficiently equivocal. I answered that they could give up their arms and place themselves under my mercy, that I should do with them what our Lord should order, and from that I did not depart, nor would I, unless God our Lord should otherwise inspire. One of the Frenchmen recross to consult with his companions. In two hours he returned and offered fifty thousand dukets to secure their lives, but Menendez says his brethren-law would give no pledges. On the other hand, expressions in his own dispatches point to the inference that a virtual pledge was given at least to certain individuals. The starving French saw no resource to yield themselves to his mercy. The boat was again sent across the river. It returned, laden with banners, archbuses, swords, targets, and helmets. The Adalintado ordered twenty soldiers to bring over the prisoners, ten at a time. He then took the French officers aside behind a ridge of sand, two gunshots from the bank. Here, with courtesy on his lips and murder in his heart, he said, gentlemen, I have but few men, and you are so many that, if you were free, it would be easy for you to take your satisfaction on us for the people we killed when we took your fort. Therefore it is necessary that you should go to my camp, four leagues from this place with your hands tied. Accordingly, as each party landed, they were led out of sight beyond the sand hill, and their hands tied behind their backs with the match cords of the archbuses, though not before each had been supplied with food. The whole day passed before all were brought together, bound and helpless, by the eye of the inexorable Adalintado. But now Mendoza interposed. I was a priest, he says, and had the bowels of a man. He asked that if there were Christians, that is to say Catholics, among the prisoners, they should be set apart. Twelve Breton sailors professed themselves to be such, and these, together with four carpenters and cockers, of whom, writes Menendez, I was in great need, were put on board the boat and sent to St. Augustine. The rest were ordered to march thither by land. The Adalintado walked in advance till he came to a lonely spot, not far distant, deep among the bush-covered hills. Here he stopped, and with his cane drew a line in the sand. The sun was set when the captive Huguenots, with their escort, reached the fatal goal thus marked out. And now let the curtain drop, for here, in the name of heaven, the hounds of hell were turned loose and the savage shulgery, like wolves in a sheepfold, rioted in slaughter. Of all that wretched company not one was left alive. I had their hands tied behind their backs, writes the chief criminal, and themselves put to the knife. It appeared to me that, by thus chastising them, God our Lord and your Majesty were served, whereby in future this evil sect will leave us more free to plant the gospel in these parts. Again Menendez returned triumphant to St. Augustine, and behind him marched his band of butchers, steeped in blood to the elbows, but still unsated. Great as had been his success, he still had cause for anxiety. There was ill news of his fleet. Some of the ships were lost, others scattered, or lagging tartly on their way. Of his whole force less than a half had reached Florida, and of these a large part were still at Fort Caroline. Rubau could not be far off, and whatever might be the condition of his ship-direct company, was admittable, unless taken at advantage. Urged by fear and fortified by fanaticism, Menendez had well begun his work of slaughter, but rest for him there was none. A darker deed was behind. On the 10th of October Indians came with the tidings that, at the spot where the first party of the ship-rect French had been found, there was now another party still larger. This murder-loving race looked with great respect on Menendez for his wholesale butchery of the night before, and exploit rarely equaled in their own annals of massacre. On his part he doubted not that Rubau was at hand. Marching with a hundred and fifty men he crossed the bush-covered sands of Anastasia Island, followed the strand between the thickets and the sea, reached the inlet at midnight, and again like a savage ambushed himself on the bank. Day broke, and he could plainly see the French on the farther side. They had made a raft which lay in the water on the shore. Menendez and his men showed themselves when forthwith the French displayed their banners, sounded drums and trumpet, and set their sick and starving ranks in array of battle. But the Atalantado, regardless of this war-like show, ordered his men to seat themselves at breakfast, while he with three officers walked unconcernedly along the shore. His coolness had its effect. The French blew a trumpet of parley and showed a white flag. The Spaniards replied. Menendez was on the raft, and shouting across the water asked that a Spanish envoy should be sent over. You have a raft, was the reply. Come yourselves. An Indian canoe lay under the bank on the Spanish side. A French sailor swam to it, paddled back unmolested and presently returned, bringing with him La Caille, Ribose Sergeant Major. He told Menendez that the French were three hundred and fifty in all and were on their way to Fort Caroline, but at the party he begged for boats to aid them in crossing the river. My brother, said Menendez, go and tell your general that, if he wishes to speak with me, he may come with four or six companions and that I pledge my word he shall go back safe. La Caille returned and Ribose with eight gentlemen soon came over in the canoe. Menendez met them courteously, caused wine and preserved fruits to be placed before them, he had come well provisioned to the reeking Golgotha, where, in heaps upon the sand, lay the corpses of his slaughtered followers. Ribose was prepared for the spectacle. La Caille had already seen it, but he would not believe that Fort Caroline was taken till a part of the plunder was shown him. Then, mastering his despair, he turned to the conqueror. What has befallen us, he said, may one day befall you. And urging that the kings of France and Spain were brothers and close friends, he begged in the name of that friendship that the Spaniard would aid him in conveying his followers home. Menendez gave him the same equivocal answer that he had given the former party and Ribose returned to consult with his officers. After three hours of absence he came back in the canoe and told the Adelantado that some of his people were ready to surrender at discretion but that many refused. They can do as they please, was the reply. In behalf of those who surrendered, Ribose offered a ransom of a hundred thousand dockets. It would much grieve me, said Menendez, not to accept it, for I have a great need of it. Ribose was much encouraged. Menendez could scarcely forgo such a prize and he thought, says the Spanish narrator, that the lives of his followers would now be safe. He asked to be allowed the night for deliberation and at sunset recross the river. In the morning he reappeared among the Spaniards and reported that two hundred of his men had retreated from the spot but that the remaining hundred and fifty would surrender. At the same time he gave into the hands of Menendez the royal standard and other flags with his sword, dagger, helmet, buckler and the official seal given him by Colligny. Menendez directed an officer to enter the boat and bring over the French by tens. He next led Ribose among the bushes behind the neighboring Sand Hill and ordered his hands to be bound fast. Then the scales fell from the prisoner's eyes. Face to face his fate rose up before him. He saw his followers and himself entrapped. The dupes of words artfully framed to lure them to their ruin. The day wore on and as band after band of prisoners was brought over they were led behind the Sand Hill out of sight from the farther shore and bound like their general. At length the transit was finished. With bloodshot eyes and weapons bared the Spaniards closed around their victims. Are you Catholics or Lutherans and is there anyone among you who will go to confession? The bow answered, I and all here are of the reformed faith. And he recited the psalm, Domine memento mia. We are of earth, he continued, and to earth we must return. Twenty years more or less can matter little, and turning to the Atalantado he bade him do his will. The stony-hearted bigot gave the signal and those who will may paint to themselves the horrors of the scene. A few, however, were spared. I saved, writes Menendez, the lives of two young gentlemen of about eighteen years of age, as well as of three others, the Pfeiffer, the drummer, and the trumpeter. And I caused Juan Ribeau with all the rest to be put to the knife, judging this to be necessary for the service of God our Lord and of your Majesty. And I consider it good fortune that he, Juan Ribeau, should be dead, for the King of France could effect more with him and five hundred dukets than with other men and five thousand, and he would do more in one year than ten, for he was the most experienced sailor and naval commander known and of great skill in this navigation of the Indies and the coast of Florida. He was, besides, greatly liked in England, in which kingdom his reputation was such that he was appointed Captain General of all the English fleet against the French Catholics in the war between England and France some years ago. Such is the sum of the Spanish accounts, the self-damning testimony of the author and the betters of the crime, in red and awful coloring, and yet there is reason to believe that the truth was darker still. Among those who were spared was one Christophe Le Breton, who was carried to Spain, escaped to France, and told his story to Chalot. Among those struck down in the butchery was a sailor of Dieppe, stunned and left for dead under a heap of corpses. In the night he revived, contrived to draw his knife, cut the cords that bound his hands and made his way to an Indian village. The Indians, not without reluctance, abandoned him to the Spaniards, who sold him as a slave. But on his way in fetters to Portugal, the ship was taken by the Huguenots, the sailor set free, and his story published in the narrative of Lemoine. When the massacre was known in France, the friends and relatives of the victims sent to the king, Charles IX, a vehement petition for redress, and their memorial recounts many incidents of the tragedy. From these three sources is to be drawn the French version of the story. The following is its substance. Famished and desperate, the followers of Ribeau were toiling northward to seek refuge at Fort Caroline, when they found the Spaniards in their path. Some were filled with dismay, others in their misery almost hailed them as deliverers. La Caille, the sergeant major, crossed the river. Menendez met him with a face of friendship and protested that he would spare the lives of the shipwrecked men and many signs of the cross. He even gave it in writing under seal. Still, there were many among the French who would not place themselves in his power. The most credulous crossed the river in a boat. As each successive party landed, their hands were bound fast at their backs, and thus, except a few who were set apart, they were all driven towards the fort, like cattle to the shambles with curses and scurrilous abuse. Then, at sound of drums and trumpets, the Spaniards fell upon them, striking them down with swords, pikes, and howbirds. Rebeau vainly called on the Atalantado to remember his oath. By his order, a soldier plunged a dagger into the French commander's heart, and Atany, who stood near, met a similar fate. Rebeau's beard was cut off, and portions of it sent in a letter to Philip II. His head was hewn into four parts, one of which was displayed on the point of a lance at each corner of Fort St. Augustine. Great fires were kindled, and the bodies of the murdered burned to ashes. Such is the sum of the French accounts. The charge of breach of faith contained in them was believed by Catholics as well as Protestants, and it was as a defense against this charge that the narrative of the Atalantado's brother-in-law was published. That Rebeau, a man whose good sense and courage were both reputed high, should have submitted himself and his men to Menendez without positive assurance of safety, is scarcely credible, nor is it lack of charity to believe that a bigot so savage in heart and so perverted in conscience would act on the maxim current among certain causists of the day that faith ought not to be kept with heretics. It was night when the Atalantado again entered St. Augustine. There were some who blamed his cruelty, but many applauded. Even if the French had been Catholics, such was their language, he would have done right, for with the little provision we have they would all have starved. Besides, there were so many of them that they would have cut our throats. And now Menendez again addressed himself to the despatch, already begun, in which he recounts to the king his labors and his triumphs, a deliberate and business-like document, mingling narratives of butchery with recommendations for promotions, commissary details, and petitions for supplies, enlarging, too, on the vast schemes of encroachment which his successful generalship had brought to naught. The French, he says, had planned a military ennavel depot at Los Martiers, once they would make a descent upon Havana, and another at the Bay of Ponce de Leon, once they could threaten Vera Cruz. They had long been encroaching on Spanish rites at Newfoundland, from which a great arm of the sea, a doubtless meaning of the St. Lawrence, would give them access to the Maluccas and other parts of the East Indies. He adds, in a later despatch, that by this passage they may reach the minds of Zacatecas and St. Martin, as well as every part of the South Sea. And as already mentioned, he urges immediate occupation of Chesapeake Bay, which by its supposed water communication with the St. Lawrence, would enable Spain to vindicate her rites, control the fisheries of Newfoundland, and thwart her rival in vast designs of commercial and territorial aggrandizement. Thus did France and Spain dispute the possession of North America long before England became a party to the strike. Some twenty days after Menendez returned to St. Augustine, the Indians, an amour of carnage and exulting to see their invaders mowed down, came to tell him that on the coast southward, near Cape Canaveral, a great number of Frenchmen were entrenching themselves. They were those of Rabot's party who had refused to surrender. Having retreated to the spot where their ships had been cast ashore, they were trying to build a vessel from the fragments of the wrecks. In all haste, Menendez dispatched soldiers to Fort Caroline, named by him San Mateo, ordering a reinforcement of a hundred and fifty men. In a few days they came. He added some of his own soldiers and with a united force of two hundred and fifty set out, as he tells us, on the second of November. A part of his force went by sea, while the rest pushed southward along the shore with such merciless energy that several men dropped dead with waiting night and day through the loose sands. When, from behind their frail defenses, the French saw the Spanish pikes and partisans glittering into view, they fled in a panic and took refuge among the hills. Menendez sent a trumpet to summon them, pledging his honor for their safety. The commander and several others told the messenger that they would sooner be eaten by the savages than trust themselves to Spaniards, and escaping they fled to the Indian towns. The rest surrendered and Menendez kept his word. The comparative number of his own men made his prisoners no longer dangerous. They were led back to St. Augustine, where, as the Spanish writer affirms, they were well treated. Those of good birth set at the Atalantados table, eating the bread of a homicide crimsoned with the slaughter of their comrades. The priests essayed their pious efforts and under the gloomy menace of the inquisition some of the heretics renounced their errors. The fate of the captives may be gathered from the endorsement in the handwriting of the dispatches of Menendez. Say to him, writes Philip II, that as to those he has killed he has done well, and as to those he has saved they shall be sent to the galleys. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Pioneers of France in the New World Part 1 The Huguenots in Florida This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Mark Penfold Pioneers of France in the New World by Francis Parkman Part 1 Huguenots in Florida Chapter 9 Charles IX and Philip II 1565 to 1567 The state of international relations in the 16th century is hardly conceivable at this day. The Puritans of England and the Huguenots of France regarded Spain as their natural enemy, and on the high seas and in the British Channel they joined hands with godless free-booters to rifle her ships, kill her sailors, or throw them alive into the sea. Spain on her side seized English Protestant sailors who ventured into her ports and burned them as heretics or consigned them to a living death in the dungeons of the Inquisition. Yet in the latter half of the century these mutual outrages went on for years while the nations professed to be at peace. There was complaint, protest, and occasional menace, but no redress and no declaration of war. Contemporary writers of good authority have said that when the news of the massacres in Florida reached the Court of France, Charles IX and Catherine de Medici submitted to the insult in silence. But documents lately brought to light show that a demand for redress was made, though not insisted on. A cry of horror and execration had risen from the Huguenots and many even of the Catholics had ecodict. Yet the perpetrators of the crime, and not its victims, were the first to make complaint. Philip II resented the expeditions of Rebault and Laudanaire as an invasion of the American domains of Spain and ordered de Lava, his ambassador at Paris, to denounce them to the French king. Charles, thus put on the defensive, replied that the country in question belonged to France, having been discovered by Frenchmen a hundred years before, and named by them Ter de Breton. This alludes to the tradition that the Bretons and Basques visited the northern coasts of America before the voyage of Columbus. In several maps of the sixteenth century the region of New England and the neighboring states and provinces is set down as Ter de Breton, or Tierra de los Bretones, and this name was assumed by Charles to the Gulf of Mexico as the name of Florida was assumed by the Spaniards to extend to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and even beyond it. Philip's spurned the claim, asserted the Spanish right to all Florida and asked whether or not the followers of Rebault and Laudanaire had gone thither by authority of their king. The Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, replied in her son's behalf that certain Frenchmen had gone to a country called Ter de Breton discovered by French subjects and that in so doing they had been warned not to encroach on lands belonging to the King of Spain, and she added with some spirit that the kings of France were not in the habit of permitting themselves to be threatened. Philip persisted in his attitude of injured innocence, and Forkval, French ambassador at Madrid, reported that as a reward for murdering French subjects, Menendez was to receive the title of Marquis of Florida. A demand soon followed from Philip that Admiral Coligny should be punished for planting a French colony on Spanish ground, and thus causing the disasters that ensued. It was at this time that the first full account of the massacres reached the French court, and the Queen Mother, greatly moved, complained to the Spanish ambassador, saying that she could not persuade herself that his master would refuse reparation. The ambassador replied by again throwing the blame on Coligny and the Huguenots, and Catherine for that, Huguenots or not, the king of Spain had no right to take upon himself the punishment of French subjects. Forkval was instructed to demand redress at Madrid, but Philip only answered that he was very sorry for what had happened, and again insisted that Coligny should be punished as the true cause of it. Forkval, an old soldier, remonstrated with firmness, declared that no deed so execrable had ever been committed within his memory, and demanded that Menendez and his followers should be chastised as they deserved. The king said that he was sorry that the sufferers chanced to be Frenchmen, but, as they were pirates also, they ought to be treated as such. The ambassador replied that they were no pirates since they bore the commission of the Admiral of France, who in naval affairs represented the king, and Philip closed the conversation by saying that he would speak on the subject with the Duke of Alva. For the views of the Duke were well known, and so, madame," writes the ambassador to the Queen Mother, there is no hope that any reparation will be made for the aforesaid massacre. On this, Charles wrote to Forkval, it is my will that you renew your complaint, and insist urgently that, for the sake of the union and friendship between the two crowns, reparation be made for the wrong done me and the cruelties committed on my subjects, to which I cannot submit without too great loss of reputation. And, jointly with his mother, he ordered the ambassador to demand once more that Menendez and his men should be punished, adding that he trusts that Philip will grant justice to the King of France, his brother-in-law and friend, rather than pardon a gang of brigands. On this demand, considers Charles, the Sur de Forkval will not fail to insist be the answer what it may, in order that the King of Spain shall understand that his Majesty of France has no less spirit than to compel an insult. The ambassador fulfilled his commission and Philip replied by referring him to the Duke of Alva. I have no hope, reports Forkval, that the Duke will give any satisfaction as to the massacre, for it was he who advised it from the first. A year passed, and then he reported that Menendez had returned from Florida that the King had given him a warm welcome, and that his fame as a naval commander was such that he was regarded as a sort of Neptune. In spite of their brave words, Charles and the Queen Mother tamely resigned themselves to the affront, for they would not quarrel with Spain. To have done so would have been to throw themselves into the arms of the Protestant Party, adopt the principle of toleration, and save France from the disgrace and blight of her later years. France was not so fortunate. The Enterprise of Florida was a national enterprise undertaken at the National Charge with the Royal Commission and under the Royal Commission and crushed in time of peace by a power professing the closest friendship. Yet Huguenot influence had prompted, and Huguenot hands executed it. That influence had now ebbed low. Colonies' power had waned. Charles, after long vacillation, was leaning more and more towards the Guises and the Catholics, and fast subsiding into the deadly embrace of Spain for whom at last, on the bloody eve of Saint Bartholomew, he was to become the assassin of his own subjects. In vain the relatives of the slain petitioned him for redress and had the honour of the nation rested in the keeping of its king, the blood of hundreds of murdered Frenchmen would have cried from the ground in vain. But it was not to be so. Injured humanity found an avenger, an outraged France, a champion. Her chivalrous annals may be searched in vain for a deed of more romantic daring than the vengeance of Dominique de Gorgay. End of chapter 9 Recording by Mark Penfold Lincoln, Nebraska