The first troops who landed, says Mendoza, were well received by the Indians, who gave them a large mansion belonging to the chief, situated near the banks of the river. The engineer officers immediately erected an entrenchment of earth, and a ditch around this house, with a slope made of earth and fascines, these being the only means of defense which the country presents; for, says the father with surprise, "there is not a stone to be found in the whole country." They landed eighty cannon from the ships, of which the lightest weighed two thousand five hundred pounds.
But in the meantime Menendez had by no means forgotten the errand upon which he principally came; and by inquiries of the Indians he soon learned the position of the French fort and the condition of its defenders. Impelled by necessity, Laudonnière had been forced to seize from the Indians food to supply his famished garrison, and had thus incurred their enmity, which was soon to produce its sad results.
The Spaniards numbered about six hundred combatants, and the French about the same; but arrangements had been made for further accessions to the Spanish force, to be drawn from St. Domingo and Havana, and these were daily expected.
It was the habit of those days to devolve almost every event upon the ordering of a special providence; and each nation had come to look upon itself almost in the light of a peculiar people, led like the Israelites of old by signs and wonders; and as in their own view all their actions were directed by the design of advancing God's glory as well as their own purposes, so the blessing of Heaven would surely accompany them in all their undertakings.
So believed the Crusaders on the plains of Palestine; so believed the conquerors of Mexico and Peru; so believed the Puritan settlers of New England (alike in their Indian wars and their oppressive social polity); and so believed, also, the followers of Menendez and of Ribault; and in this simple and trusting faith, the worthy chaplain gives us the following account of the miraculous escape and deliverance of a portion of the Spanish fleet:—
"God and his Holy Mother have performed another great miracle in our favor. The day following the landing of the General in the fort, he said to us that he was very uneasy because his galley and another vessel were at anchor, isolated and a league at sea, being unable to enter the port on account of the shallowness of the water; and that he feared that the French might come and capture or maltreat them. As soon as this idea came to him he departed, with fifty men, to go on board of his galleon. He gave orders to three shallops which were moored in the river to go out and take on board the provisions and troops which were on board the galleon. The next day, a shallop having gone out thither, they took on board as much of the provisions as they could, and more than a hundred men who were in the vessel, and returned towards the shore; but half a league before arriving at the bar they were overtaken by so complete a calm that they were unable to proceed further, and thereupon cast anchor and passed the night in that place. The day following at break of day they raised anchor as ordered by the pilot, as the rising of the tide began to be felt. When it was fully light they saw astern of them at the poop of the vessel, two French ships which during the night had been in search of them. The enemy arrived with the intention of making an attack upon us. The French made all haste in their movements, for we had no arms on board, and had only embarked the provisions. When day appeared, and our people discovered the French, they addressed their prayers to our Lady of Bon Secours d'Utrera, and supplicated her to grant them a little wind, for the French were already close up to them. They say that Our Lady descended, herself, upon the vessel; for the wind freshened and blew fair for the bar, so that the shallop could enter it. The French followed it; but, as the bar has but little depth and their vessels were large, they were not able to go over it, so that our men and the provisions made a safe harbor. When it became still clearer they perceived besides the two vessels of the enemy, four others at a distance, being the same which we had seen in port the evening of our arrival. They were well furnished with both troops and artillery, and had directed themselves for our galleon and the other ship, which were alone at sea. In this circumstance God accorded us two favors. The first was, that the same evening after they had discharged the provisions and the troops I have spoken of, at midnight the galleon and other vessel put to sea without being perceived by the enemy; the one for Spain, and the other for Havana, for the purpose of seeking the fleet which was there; and in this way neither was taken.
"The second favor, by which God rendered us a still greater service, was that on the day following the one I have described there arose a storm, and so great a tempest that certainly the greater part of the French vessels must have been lost at sea; for they were overtaken upon the most dangerous coast I have ever seen, and were very close to the shore; and if our vessels, that is the galleon and its consort, are not shipwrecked, it is because they were already more than twelve leagues off the coast, which gave them the facility of running before the wind, and maneuvering as well as they could, relying upon the aid of God to preserve them."[3]
Menendez had ascertained from the Indians that a large number of the French troops had embarked on board of the vessels which he had seen off the harbor, and he had good ground for believing that these vessels would either be cast helpless upon the shore, or be driven off by the tempest to such a distance as would render their return for some days impossible. He at once conceived the project of attacking the French fort upon the river May, by land.
A council of war was held, and after some discussion, for the most part adverse to the plan proposed by him, Menendez spoke as follows:
"Gentlemen and Brothers! we have before us now an opportunity which if improved by us will have a happy result. I am satisfied that the French fleet which four days since fled from me, and has now come to seek me, has been reinforced with the larger part of the garrison of their fort, to which, nor to port, will they be able to return for many days according to appearances; and since they are all Lutherans, as we learned before we sailed from Spain, by the edicts which Jean Ribault published before embarking, in order that no Catholic at the peril of his life should go in his fleet, nor any Catholic books be taken; and this they themselves declared to us the night they fled from us, and hence our war must be to blood and fire, not only on account of the orders we are under, but because they have sought us in order to destroy us, that we should not plant our holy religion in these regions, and to establish their own abominable and crazy sect among the Indians; so that the more promptly we shall punish them, we shall the more speedily do a service to our God and our king, and comply with our conscience and our duty.