38

VOYAGE OF PEDRO MELENDEZ DE AVILEZ.

they also named Fort Carolina. The remaining history of these adventurers must be briefly told. While the brave and generous Coligni was thus endeavouring to found in these regions an asylum for the Huguenots, the haughty bigotry of Spain could not brook even a transatlantic resting-place for the enemies of her faith.

A crusade was planned by Philip II. against the unoffending Protestants; and with an army of over twenty-six hundred men, and a fleet of eleven ships, Pedro Melendez de Avilez sailed to Florida. In his voyage he lost over one-half of his fleet, but this did not deter him from his boastful design, for he had still five vessels and one thousand men."

It was on St. Augustine's day, in the Romish calendar, (August 28th, 1565,) that Melendez discovered the coast

6 There are three Spanish accounts of this expedition, viz.: 1st, in the Ensayo Chronologico para la Historia de la Florida, written nominally by Don Gabriel de Cardenas z Cano, but in reality by Andreas Gonzales Barchia. 2. A Memoir inserted in Barchia's work written by De Solis de las Meras, a brother-in-law of Melendez, and an eye witness of the massacre of Ribault. 3. Memoir de l'heureux resultat et du bon Voyage que Dieu, notre Seigneur, a bien vouler accorder à la Flotte qui partit de la ville de Cadiz pour se rendre à la côte et dans la province de la Floride, et dont était général l'illustre Seigneur Pero Melendez de Aviles, commandeur de l'ordre de Saint Jacques, etc. Par Francisco Lopez de Mendoza, chapelaine de l'expedition. This latter account Ternaux in his Recueil, (having translated it into French,) publishes for the first time

from a manuscript in the royal library. Since this chapter was written, I have perused the life of Ribault by Professor Sparks, in vol. vii., new series, American Biography. This admirable memoir, compiled entirely from original sources, must be considered as the standard account of the events and fortunes of these colonists. Having consulted all the authorities which he quotes except two, his "Life" furnishes me with no additional particulars proper to be introduced into this brief chapter.

The assigning of the French names to the rivers of Georgia was done after careful consultation of old authorities, especially "Hondios his Map of Florida," in Purcha's Pilgrims, vol. iii. p. 869, 1625, where the rivers are all put down, though without geographical accuracy.

THE CITY OF ST. AUGUSTINE FOUNDED.

*

39

of Florida; the same day on which Ribault, with a fleet of seven vessels, arrived at Fort Charles from France. But he did not discover the French fleet until the 4th of September, when they ran in near the bar, and dropped their anchors within speaking distance of the ships of Ribault.

A sullen silence on both sides was at length broken by a hailing from the Spanish admiral as to their nation and religion. The reply from the ships, that they were French and Lutherans, drew out the rankling vengeance of the Spaniards; and in answer to the question, who he was, and what his business, he replied: "I am Melendez of Spain, sent with strict orders from my king to gibbet and behead all the Protestants in these regions. The Frenchman who is a Catholic I will spare: every heretic shall die."

As soon as day dawned, the French, who had loosed their sails during the night, and had gotten all things in readiness, cut their cables and ran out to sea. The Spaniards pursued till towards evening, when they tacked, and stood in to the land. The French also hove about, and now pursued the pursuers, who did not return to the river of May, but to the beautiful stream and harbour which they had a few days before seen; and which, in honour of the saint on whose day they discovered land, they had named St. Augustine. Here, on the 8th of September, 1565, with all the imposing ceremonies of the papal church, conducted by Mendoza, the chaplain of the expedition, with masses and processions, with festive and solemn pomp, the foundations of the first city in America, St. Augustine, were laid. Philip II. was proclaimed monarch of North America, and the continent was taken possession of in the name of the King of Spain.

40

MELENDEZ MAKES WAR UPON THE FRENCH.

While the Spaniards were thus refreshing themselves after their tempestuous voyage, the French, at Fort Caroline were divided, and alarmed. Ribault, with nearly all the ships, sailed away on the 10th of September, and left only eighty-six persons, some of them women and children, with Laudonnier, to defend the fort.

With revolting atrocities, Melendez made war upon the feeble French. The fortress was betrayed into his hands, and easily taken. Laudonnier, with others, made their escape; the rest were slain, some in their beds, so sudden was the attack; and their bodies were hung upon gibbets, and over them Melendez placed the inscription, "I do this, not as unto Frenchmen, but as unto Lutherans!" Laudonnier, with the little remnant of his party, reached Wales in November, and thence passed over to London and Paris; while the ships of Ribault were mostly wrecked by a severe tempest soon after leaving Fort Caroline, and all who escaped the waves were massacred by the Spaniards, except ten or twelve who professed themselves Papists. Thus, as Laudonnier well says, did Ribault beget his own undoing; for had he, as soon as he reached the coast, on the 14th day of August, embarked the men at the fort, and departed, he would have had ample time to have escaped the Spanish fleet, which did not arrive until two weeks after. This delay put them in the power of Melendez, and dyed the last pages of their history with blood.

But the ruthless butcheries of the Spaniards were soon to be avenged. The French king refusing to punish this breach of international faith, though strongly petitioned to do so by the relatives of those who had fallen in Florida; a gallant soldier, Dominique de Gourgues, whose abilities had been tested by twenty-five

DE GOURGUES RETALIATES ON THE SPANIARDS.

41

years of service in the army and navy of France, as well at home as in Africa and Brazil, determined to avenge the death of his countrymen, though he lived and died in the Romish Church.

His zeal was shown in spending his own fortune in fitting out his little fleet, and his courage in facing not only the storms and dangers of three thousand miles of ocean, but daring, on his own responsibility, and with an inferior force, to meet the arms and entrenchments of the cruel Spaniards. With three ships, eighty sailors, and one hundred and fifty soldiers and volunteers, he set sail from Bordeaux, on the 22d of August, 1567. He masked his design under a commission from De Montluc, the king's lieutenant in Guienne, for the purpose of trading on the coast of Africa. Having spent some little time there, he suddenly steered away for America, and touching at Cuba, reached Florida in the spring of 1568. He landed at the mouth of the St. Mary's river, and having learned from the friendly savages the number, nature and position of the Spanish forts and forces, he attacked them with such skill and energy, as to capture all their fortresses; and upon the boughs of the same trees whereon the Spaniards had hung the French, Gourgues now suspended the Spaniards, placing over them, in imitation of Melendez, an inscription: "I do this, not as unto Spaniards, nor as unto mariners, but as unto traitors, robbers, and murderers!" With a force too small to maintain his conquests, he razed the forts, and, satisfied with his revenge, set sail on the 3d May, 1568, and soon arrived in France, having lost only one pinnace and a few men in all the expedition.

Proud of his enterprise, he sought the king, to tell him of his success, and to urge him to conquer the

42

ECCLESIASTICAL PERSECUTIONS.

country to his crown. But the court of Spain demanded him of the French monarch, and offered a large sum for his head; so that, unprotected by his own sovereign, and hunted by another, his life was only saved by flight and secretion. He died in 1582, at Tours, on his way to take command of the fleet of Don Antonio, fitting out in the service of Elizabeth of England, for the recovery of the crown of Portugal from the hands of Philip II.; feared by the Spaniards for his bravery, and esteemed by the queen for his virtues.

Shortly after, the Admiral Coligni was assassinated during the dreadful massacre of the Protestants on St. Bartholomew's day; and with him perished, for the time, all attempts to plant the French flag on the southern shores of North America.

Ecclesiastical persecution originated the first settlement in America by the French, and the first by the Spaniards. The French were driven from their homes by fire and sword, and edicts of the severest rigour; the Spaniards came hither for the purpose of exterminating the former, and levelling their forts in the dust. Both professed to act under pious impulses; but the French came to save themselves the Spaniards to destroy others; the one to find an asylum of peace, the other to perpetuate the horrors of relentless war. Had Charles IX. possessed but the spirit of a man, he would have resented this inhuman havoc, supported his forlorn colony, and thus maintained his right to North America by the occupancy of its territories. But his imbecile mind was a stranger to the first impulse of moral courage; and he lost New France, because he dared not sustain it.

In all these voyages the sea-board of Georgia was well explored, but no settlement was made; though a