The capture of these two forts occurred on the eve of the first “Sunday after Easter, 1568.” Crossing to the fort first taken, De Gourges rested on Sunday and Monday. Scaling ladders and other preparations for an attack on the main fort were in the meantime being prepared. While here, a Spanish spy disguised as an Indian was recognized by Olotoraca, and brought to De Gourges. From him it was learned that the French force was estimated at quite two thousand men, and that the garrison of Fort Matteo (formerly Fort Carolin) was two hundred and sixty men.
Hearing this report, De Gourges was more anxious than ever to make an immediate attack. He directed the Indians to advance, some on each side of the river, and to take up a position in the vicinity of the fort. Early on the morning of the next day he moved his forces up the river, and, as he says, “gained a mountain covered with forests, at the foot of which was built the fort.” He had not intended to attack the fort until the day after his arrival, but, while posting his men and the Indian forces, it happened “that the Spaniards made a sally with sixty arquebusiers[7] to reconnoiter his forces.”
This body he succeeded in cutting off from the fort and totally destroying. Seeing the fate of so large a portion of their garrison, the remainder of the Spaniards left the fort in the hopes that they might make their way to St. Augustine. Entering the woods they were everywhere met by the Indians. None escaped, and but few were taken alive. Entering the fort, the French found a number of fine cannon beside a great quantity of arms, “such as arquebuses, corslets, shields and pikes.”
The Frenchmen were now upon the scene of the massacre of their countrymen, and the taunting irony of the tablet erected by Menendez was before their eyes. The spirit of vengeance was aroused. Ordering all the Spaniards who had been taken alive to be led to the place where they had hung the Frenchmen, De Gourges rebuked them in scathing terms. He declared they could never undergo the punishment which they deserved, but it was necessary to make an example of them that others might learn to keep the peace which they had so wickedly violated.
“This said, they were tied up to the same trees where they had hung the Frenchmen, and in the place of the inscription which Peter Menendez had put over them containing these words in the Spanish language: ‘I do this not as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans;’ Captain Gourges caused to be graven on a pine tablet with a hot iron: ‘I do this not as to Spaniards or mariners, but as to traitors, robbers, and murderers.’”
One of the Spaniards is said to have confessed that he had hung up five Frenchmen with his own hand, and acknowledged that God had brought him to the punishment he deserved. The next day while frying fish an Indian set fire to a train of powder laid by the Spaniards which had not been discovered, and the whole interior of the fort was thereby destroyed. Being aware that his forces were too weak to hold the country, and having accomplished all that he had crossed the ocean to perform, De Gourges completed the destruction of the forts, and, bidding adieu to the Indians, sailed away for France. The fleet arrived at La Rochelle on the 6th of June, after a voyage of thirty-four days. The loss of life in the enterprise had been but “a few gentlemen of good birth,” a few soldiers in the attacks, and eight men on the patache or launch, which was lost at sea. Being received “with all honor, courtesy, and kind treatment,” by the citizens of La Rochelle, where he remained a few days, De Gourges then sailed for Bordeaux. The Spaniards being advised of his arrival and what he had done in Florida, sent a large ship and eighteen launches to surprise and capture him. This formidable fleet arrived in the roadstead of La Rochelle the very day of his departure.
The head of De Gourges was demanded and a price set upon it by the King of Spain, but, though his acts were repudiated by the French king, he was protected and concealed by Marigny, President of the Council, and by the Receiver of Vacquieulx, until, after a time, he was the recipient of marked honors at the French court and died in 1582, “to the great grief of such as knew him.”
“That De Gourges deserves censure, cannot be denied; but there will always exist an admiration for his courage and intrepid valor, with a sympathy for the bitter provocation under which he acted, both personal and national; a sympathy not shared with Menendez, who visited his wrath upon the religious opinions of men, while De Gourges was the unauthorized avenger of undoubted crime and inhumanity. Both acted in violation of the pure spirit of that Christianity which they alike professed to revere under the same form.”[8]