Before any reinforcements arrived in Florida, therefore, fresh horrors were enacted. Menendez, having obtained intelligence from the Indians that a number of Frenchmen were still alive on Anastasia Island, a little to the south, where they had taken refuge on the destruction of their vessel, hastened to the spot, and, after a short parley, induced the Frenchmen to surrender themselves unconditionally into his hands. Then, having weeded out from among them the few who professed themselves to be Catholics, and two or three craftsmen whose services he required, he had them all hewn down before his eyes. This new atrocity over, he returned to Florida, but, being met by the intelligence that Ribault himself, with a little remnant of his immediate followers, had survived, and was now probably on the scene of the massacre of his fellow-countrymen, he hurried back to Anastasia to complete his bloody work.
Knowing what he had to expect, Ribault gathered his men about him, and received his executioners with quiet dignity. Asked were he and his companions Catholics or Lutherans, he replied simply that they were all of the Reformed religion, that from the dust they had come and to the dust they must return; twenty years more or less could matter but little; the Adelantado could do with them as he chose. Again the men who might be of use to him in his work of colonization were led apart by Menendez, again the signal for the massacre was given, again the triumphant cries of the victors were mingled with the groans of the dying; and when all was over, Menendez, with the consciousness of having done his duty, returned thanks to God, and retired to his head-quarters to send home to his king an account of the triumph of the true faith.
Scenes of bloodshed were now exchanged for the peaceful work of founding a Spanish colony. The site chosen was in N. lat. 29° 51′, W. long. 81° 30′, some miles north of the ill-fated Fort Carolina, and was named St. Augustine, because the Spanish fleet had first come in sight of Florida on the festival day of that saint. The boundaries of the settlement were carefully marked out under the supervision of Menendez himself, and though its foundations were laid in blood, it grew with a rapidity hitherto unequaled, and bid fair to be the first permanent settlement of Europeans in North America. The past was forgotten, and not more unconscious of their coming doom than the poor colonists of Carolina were the Spaniards of St. Augustine, when once more a little fleet appeared upon the coast of Florida, coming, not this time from the South, but from the North; for De Gourgues, with the foresight of a true soldier, had paused to secure the friendship of the Indians of the May before venturing to approach the Spanish camp.
The outposts of the Spaniards were surprised, the sentinels were slain at their posts, and a force of four hundred men sent out by Menendez against the enemy was completely destroyed, those taken prisoners being hanged on the very trees on which some of the Frenchmen of Carolina had suffered the same fate at the hands of the Spaniards. With this retribution, however, De Gourgues—who, it must be remembered, was acting without the authority of his government—appears to have been content. He made no descent upon St. Augustine itself; but having destroyed the forts whose garrisons he had massacred, he bade his Indian allies farewell, and left the country. But his work had been more thorough than he knew himself, for the natives, who had hitherto looked upon the Spaniards as invincible, had seen them fall an easy prey to the French, and the remainder of the career of Menendez was one long struggle against the treacherous schemes of the red men. His efforts at exploration on the North were unsuccessful; the missionaries whom he induced to land on the north-western shores of Florida were led into ambush, and massacred by the natives; and though summary vengeance was exacted for their fate, the enmity of the Indians continued to hamper all the movements of the Spaniards.
To complete the story of early settlements in Florida, we may add that for thirty years St. Augustine was the only European colony north of the Gulf of Mexico, and that in 1586 a visit was paid to it by Sir Francis Drake, who found it under the command of Pedro Menendez, nephew of its founder, who is thought to have been the first European to enter Chesapeake Bay. The English being at this date very bitter against the Spanish, Drake thought it a pious duty to carry off the treasure and burn the houses of St. Augustine, the inhabitants of which fled at his approach, with the exception of a certain Frenchman, a fifer, who had been one of the few spared in the massacres of Anastasia, and who now came to meet the English “in a little boate, playing on his Phiph the tune of the Prince of Orange his song.”
VIEW ON THE COAST OF FLORIDA.
CHAPTER IV.
FIRST ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS IN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.