MELENDEZ APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA 67 the sentence is confirmed, for the king, who knew him CHAP. well, esteemed his bravery, and received him again into his service, remitted only a moiety of his fine. The 1565 heir of Melendez had been shipwrecked among the Bermudas; the father desired to return and search among the islands for tidings of his only son. Philip II. suggested the conquest and colonization of Florida; and a compact was soon framed and confirmed, 20. by which Melendez, who desired an opportunity to retrieve his honor, was constituted the hereditary governor of a territory of almost unlimited extent.1 The terms of the compact are curious. Melendez, on his part, promised, at his own cost, in the following May, to invade Florida with at least five hundred men; to complete its conquest within three years; to explore its currents and channels, the dangers of its coasts, and the depth of its havens; to establish a colony of at least five hundred persons, of whom one hundred should be married men; to introduce at least twelve ecclesiastics, besides four Jesuits. It was further stipulated, that he should transport to his province all kinds of domestic animals. The bigoted Philip II. had no scruples respecting slavery; Melendez contracted to import into Florida five hundred negro slaves. The sugar-cane was to become a staple of the country. The king, in return, promised the adventurer various commercial immunities; the office of governor for life, with the right of naming his son-in-law as his successor; an estate of twenty-five square leagues in the immediate vicinity of the settlement; a salary of two thousand ducats, chargeable on the revenues of the province; and a fifteenth part of all royal perquisites. Mar CHAP. A Meantime, news arrived, as the French writers assert, through the treachery of the court of France, that the 1565. Huguenots had made a plantation in Florida, and that Ribault was preparing to set sail with reinforcements. The cry was raised, that the heretics must be extirpated; the enthusiasm of fanaticism was kindled, and Melendez readily obtained all the forces which he required. More than twenty-five hundred personssoldiers, sailors, priests, Jesuits, married men with their families, laborers, and mechanics, and, with the exception of three hundred soldiers, all at the cost of Melendez-engaged in the invasion. After delays occasioned July. by a storm, the expedition set sail; and the tradewinds soon bore them rapidly across the Atlantic. tempest scattered the fleet on its passage; it was with only one third part of his forces, that Melendez arrived Aug at the harbor of St. John in Porto Rico. But he esteemed celerity the secret of success; and, refusing to await the arrival of the rest of his squadron, he sailed for Florida. It had ever been his design to explore the coast; to select a favorable site for a fort or a settlement; and, after the construction of fortifications, to Aug. attack the French. It was on the day which the customs of Rome have consecrated to the memory of one of the most eloquent sons of Africa, and one of the most venerated of the fathers of the church, that he came in sight of Florida.' For four days, he sailed along the coast, uncertain where the French were established; on the fifth day, he landed, and gathered from the Indians accounts of the Huguenots. At the same time, he discovered a fine haven and beautiful river; and, remembering the saint, on whose day he came upon the coast, he gave to the harbor and to the 9. 28. Sept. 2. 1 Ensayo Cronolog. 68-70. ST. AUGUSTINE THE OLDEST TOWN IN THE U. STATES. 69 stream the name of St. Augustine.' Sailing, then, to CHAP the north, he discovered a portion of the French fleet, and observed the nature of the road where they were 1565 Sept. anchored. The French demanded his name and 4. objects. "I am Melendez of Spain," replied he; "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."2 The French fleet, unprepared for action, cut its cables; the Spaniards, for some time, continued an ineffectual chase. Sept. 8. It was at the hour of vespers, on the evening preceding the festival of the nativity of Mary, that the 7. Spaniards returned to the harbor of St. Augustine. At noonday of the festival itself, the governor went on Sept. shore, to take possession of the continent in the name of his king. The bigoted Philip II. was proclaimed monarch of all North America. The solemn mass of Our Lady was performed, and the foundation of St. Augustine was immediately laid. It is, by more than forty years, the oldest town in the United States. Houses in it are yet standing, which are said to have been built many years before Virginia was colonized.* 3 By the French it was debated, whether they should improve their fortifications, and await the approach of the Spaniards, or proceed to sea, and attack their enemy. Against the advice of his officers, Ribault resolved upon the latter course. Hardly had he left the harbor for the open sea, before there arose a fearful Sept. storm, which continued till October, and wrecked every 1 Ensayo Cronolog. 71. 2 El que fuere herege, morirà. Ensayo Cronologico, 75, 76. It is the account of the apologist and admirer of Melendez. 3 Laudonniere. "They put their soldiers, victual, and munition, on 4 Stoddard's Sketches, 120. 10. The CHAP. ship of the French fleet on the Florida coast. II. vessels were dashed against the rocks about fifty 1565 leagues south of Fort Carolina; most of the men escaped with their lives. The Spanish ships also suffered, but not so severely ; and the troops at St. Augustine were entirely safe. They knew that the French settlement was left in a defenceless state: with a fanatical indifference to toil, Melendez led his men through the lakes, and marshes, and forests, that divided the St. Augustine from the St. Johns, and, with a furious onset, surprised the weak garrison, who had looked only towards the sea for the Sept. approach of danger. After a short contest, the Spaniards were masters of the fort. A scene of carnage ensued; soldiers, women, children, the aged, the sick, were alike massacred. The Spanish account asserts, that Melendez ordered women and young children to be spared; yet not till after the havoc had long been raging. 21. Nearly two hundred persons were killed. A few escaped into the woods, among them Laudonniere, Challus, and Le Moyne, who have related the horrors of the scene. But whither should they fly? Death met them in the woods; and the heavens, the earth, the sea, and men, all seemed conspired against them. Should they surrender, appealing to the sympathy of their conquerors? "Let us," said Challus, "trust in the mercy of God, rather than of these men." A few gave themselves up, and were immediately murdered. The others, after the severest sufferings, found their way to the sea-side, and were received on board two small French vessels which had remained in the harbor. The Spaniards, angry that any should have escaped, insulted the corpses of the dead with wanton barbarity. MASSACRE OF THE SHIPWRECKED MEN. II. 71 The victory had been gained on the festival of St. CHAP. Matthew; and hence the Spanish name of the River May. After the carnage was completed, mass was 1565. Sept. said; a cross was raised; and the site for a church 21 selected, on ground still smoking with the blood of a peaceful colony. So willingly is the human mind the dupe of its prejudices; so easily can fanaticism connect acts of savage ferocity with the rites of a merciful religion. The shipwrecked men were, in their turn, soon discovered. They were in a state of helpless weakness, wasted by their fatigues at sea, half famished, destitute of water and of food. Should they surrender to the Spaniards? Melendez invited them to rely on his compassion; the French capitulated, and were received among the Spaniards in such successive divisions as a boat could at once ferry across the intervening river. As the captives stepped upon the bank which their enemies occupied, their hands were tied behind them; and in this way they were marched towards St. Augustine, like a flock of sheep driven to the slaughter-house. As they approached the fort, a signal was given; and, amidst the sound of trumpets and drums, the Spaniards fell upon the unhappy men, who had confided in their humanity, and who could offer no resistance. A few Catholics were spared; some mechanics were reserved as slaves; the rest were massacred, "not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans." The whole number of the victims of bigotry, here and at the fort, is said, by the French, to have been about nine hundred; the Spanish accounts diminish the 1 So says his apologist. Si ellos quieren entregarle las Vanderas, è las armas, è ponerse en su misericordia, lo pueden hacer, para que el haga de ellos lo que Dios le diere 2 Epist. Sup. in De Bry, ii. |
