The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863

It was the night of the nineteenth of September; floods of rain bedrenched the sentries on the rampart, and as day dawned on the dripping barracks and deluged parade, the storm increased in violence. What enemy could have ventured forth on such a night? La Vigne, who had the watch, took pity on the sentries and on himself, dismissed them, and went to his quarters. He little knew what mortal energies, urged by ambition, avarice, bigotry, desperation, will dare and do.

To return to the Spaniards at St. Augustine. On the morning of the eleventh, the crew of one of their smaller vessels, lying outside the bar, saw through the twilight of early dawn two of Ribaut's ships close upon them. Not a breath of air was stirring. There was no escape, and the Spaniards fell on their knees in supplication to Our Lady of Utrera, explaining to her that the heretics were upon them, and begging her to send them a little wind. "Forthwith," says Mendoza, "one would have said that Our Lady herself came down upon the vessel." A wind sprang up, and the Spaniards found refuge behind the bar. The returning day showed to their astonished eyes all the ships of Ribaut, their decks black with men, hovering off the entrance of the port; but Heaven had them in its charge, and again they experienced its protecting care. The breeze sent by Our Lady of Utrera rose to a gale, then to a furious tempest; and the grateful Adelantado saw through rack and mist the ships of his enemy tossed wildly among the raging waters as they struggled to gain an offing. With exultation at his heart the skilful seaman read their danger, and saw them in his mind's eye dashed to utter wreck among the sand-bars and breakers of the lee-shore.

A bold thought seized him. He would march overland with five hundred men and attack Fort Caroline while its defenders were absent. First he ordered a mass; then he called a council. Doubtless, it was in that great Indian lodge of Seloy, where he had made his head-quarters; and here, in this dim and smoky concave, nobles, officers, priests, gathered at his summons. There were fears and doubts and murmurings, but Menendez was desperate. Not the mad desperation that strikes wildly and at random, but the still red heat that melts and burns and seethes with a steady, unquenchable fierceness. "Comrades," he said, "the time has come to show our courage and our zeal. This is God's war, and we must not flinch. It is a war with Lutherans, and we must wage it with blood and fire."

But his hearers would not respond. They had not a million of ducats at stake, and were nowise ready for a cast so desperate. A clamor of remonstrance rose from the circle. Many voices, that of Mendoza among the rest, urged waiting till their main forces should arrive. The excitement spread to the men without, and the swarthy, black-bearded crowd broke into tumults mounting almost to mutiny, while an officer was heard to say that he would not go on such a hare-brained errand to be butchered like a beast. But nothing could move the Adelantado. His appeals or his threats did their work at last; the confusion was quelled, and preparation was made for the march.

Five hundred arquebusiers and pikemen were drawn up before the camp.

To each was given a sack of bread and a flagon of wine. Two Indians and a renegade Frenchman, called François Jean, were to guide them, and twenty Biscayan axe-men moved to the front to clear the way. Through floods of driving rain, a hoarse voice shouted the word of command, and the sullen march began.

With dire misgiving, Mendoza watched the last files as they vanished in the tempestuous forest. Two days of suspense ensued, when a messenger came back with a letter from the Adelantado announcing that he had nearly reached the French fort, and that on the morrow, September twentieth, at sunrise, he hoped to assault it. "May the Divine Majesty deign to protect us, for He knows that we have need of it," writes the scared chaplain; "the Adelantado's great zeal and courage make us hope he will succeed, but for the good of His Majesty's service he ought to be a little less ardent in pursuing his schemes."

Meanwhile the five hundred had pushed their march through forest and quagmire, through swollen streams and inundated savannas, toiling knee-deep through mud, rushes, and the rank, tangled grass,—hacking their way through thickets of the yucca or Spanish bayonet, with its clumps of dagger-like leaves, or defiling in gloomy procession through the drenched forest, to the moan, roar, and howl of the storm-racked pines. As they bent before the tempest, the water trickling from the rusty headpiece crept clammy and cold betwixt the armor and the skin; and when they made their wretched bivouac, their bed was the spongy soil, and the exhaustless clouds their tent.

The night of Wednesday, the nineteenth, found their vanguard in a deep forest of pines, less than a mile from Fort Caroline, and near the low hills which extended in its rear, and formed a continuation of St. John's Bluff. All around was one great morass. In pitchy darkness, knee-deep in weeds and water, half starved, worn with toil and lack of sleep, drenched to the skin, their provision spoiled, their ammunition wet, their spirit chilled out of them, they stood in shivering groups, cursing the enterprise and the author of it. Menendez heard an ensign say aloud to his comrades,—

"This Asturian corito, who knows no more of war on shore than an ass, has ruined us all. By –, if my advice had been followed, he would have had his deserts the day he set out on this cursed journey!"

The Adelantado pretended not to hear.

Two hours before dawn he called his officers about him. All night, he said, he had been praying to God and the Virgin.

"Señores, what shall we resolve on? Our ammunition and provisions are gone. Our case is desperate." And he urged a bold rush on the fort.

But men and officers alike were disheartened and disgusted. They listened coldly and sullenly; many were for returning at every risk; none were in a mood for fight. Menendez put forth all his eloquence, till at length the dashed spirits of his followers were so far rekindled that they consented to follow him.

All fell on their knees in the marsh; then, rising, they formed their ranks and began to advance, guided by the renegade Frenchman, whose hands, to make sure of him, were tied behind his back. Groping and stumbling in the dark among trees, roots, and underbrush, buffeted by wind and rain, and slashed in the face by the recoiling boughs which they could not see, they soon lost their way, fell into confusion, and came to a stand, in a mood more savagely desponding than before. But soon a glimmer of returning day came to their aid, and showed them the dusky sky, and the dark columns of the surrounding pines. Menendez ordered the men forward on pain of death. They obeyed, and presently, emerging from the forest, could dimly discern the ridge of a low hill, behind which, the Frenchman told them, was the fort. Menendez, with a few officers and men, cautiously mounted to the top. Beneath lay Fort Caroline, three gunshots distant; but the rain, the imperfect light, and a cluster of intervening houses prevented his seeing clearly, and he sent two officers to reconnoitre. Descending, they met a solitary Frenchman, a straggler from the fort. They knocked him down with a sheathed sword, took him prisoner, then stabbed him in cold blood. This done, and their observations made, they returned to the top of the hill, behind which, clutching their weapons in fierce expectancy, all the gang stood waiting.

"Santiago!" cried Menendez. "At them! God is with us!"

And, shouting their hoarse war-cries, the Spaniards rushed down the slope like starved wolves.

Not a sentry was on the rampart. La Vigne, the officer of the guard, had just gone to his quarters, but a trumpeter, who chanced to remain, saw, through sheets of rain, the black swarm of assailants sweeping down the hill. He blew the alarm, and at his shrill summons a few half-naked soldiers ran wildly out of the barracks. It was too late. Through the breaches, over the ramparts, the Spaniards came pouring in.

"Santiago! Santiago! Down with the Lutherans!"

Sick men leaped from their beds. Women and children, blind with fright, darted shrieking from the houses. A fierce gaunt visage, the thrust of a pike or blow of a rusty halberd,—such was the greeting that met all alike. Laudonnière snatched his sword and target, and ran towards the principal breach, calling to his soldiers. A rush of Spaniards met him; his men were cut down around him; and he, with a soldier named Bartholomew, was forced back into the courtyard of his house. Here a tent was pitched, and as the pursuers stumbled among the cords, he escaped behind Ottigny's house, sprang through the breach in the western rampart, and fled for the woods.

Le Moyne had been one of the guard. Scarcely had he thrown himself into a hammock which was slung in his room, when a savage shout, and a wild uproar of shrieks, outcries, and the clash of weapons, brought him to his feet. He rushed past two Spaniards in the door-way, ran behind the guard-house leaped through an embrasure into the ditch, and escaped to the forest.

Challeux, the carpenter, was going betimes to his work, a chisel in his hand. He was old, but pike and partisan brandished at his back gave wings to his flight. In the ecstasy of his terror, he leaped upward at the top of the palisade, and, clutching it, threw himself over with the agility of a boy. He ran up the hill, no one pursuing, and as he neared the edge of the forest, turned and looked back. From the high ground where he stood he could see the butchery, the fury of the conquerors, the agonized gestures of the victims. He turned again in horror, and plunged into the woods. As he tore his way through the briers and thickets, he met several fugitives, escaped like himself. Others presently came up, haggard and wild, like men broke loose from the jaws of fate. They gathered and consulted together. One of them, in great repute for his knowledge of the Bible, was for returning and surrendering to the Spaniards. "They are men," he said; "perhaps when their fury is over they will spare our lives, and even if they kill us, it will only be a few moments' pain. Better so than to starve here in the woods or be torn to pieces by wild beasts."

The greater part of the naked and despairing company assented, but Challeux was of a different mind. The old Huguenot quoted Scripture, and called up the names of prophets and apostles to witness, that, in direst extremity, God would not abandon those who rested their faith in Him. Six of the fugitives, however, still held to their desperate purpose. Issuing from the woods, they descended towards the fort, and as with beating hearts their comrades watched the result, a troop of Spaniards rushed forth, hewed them down with swords and halberds, and dragged their bodies to the brink of the river, where the victims of the massacre were already flung in heaps.

Le Moyne, with a soldier named Grandchemin, whom he had met in his flight, toiled all day through the woods, in the hope of reaching the small vessels anchored behind the bar. Night found them in a morass. No vessels could be seen, and the soldier, in despair, broke into angry upbraidings against his companion,—saying that he would go back and give himself up. Le Moyne at first opposed him, then yielded. But when they drew near the fort, and heard the howl of savage revelry that rose from within, the artist's heart failed him. He embraced his companion, and the soldier advanced alone. A party of Spaniards came out to meet him. He kneeled, and begged for his life. He was answered by a death-blow; and the horrified Le Moyne, from his hiding-place in the thickets, saw his limbs hacked apart, thrust on pikes, and borne off in triumph.

Meanwhile, Menendez, mustering his followers, had offered thanks to God for their victory; and this pious butcher wept with emotion as he recounted the favors which Heaven had showered upon their enterprise. His admiring historian gives it in proof of his humanity, that, after the rage of the assault was spent, he ordered that women, infants, and boys under fifteen should thenceforth be spared. Of these, by his own account, there were about fifty. Writing in October to the King, he says that they cause him great anxiety, since he fears the anger of God, should he now put them to death, while, on the other hand, he is in dread lest the venom of their heresy should infect his men.

A hundred and forty-two persons were slain in and around the fort, and their bodies lay heaped together on the shore. Nearly opposite was anchored a small vessel, called the Pearl, commanded by James Ribaut, son of the Admiral. The ferocious soldiery, maddened with victory and drunk with blood, crowded to the beach, shouting insults to those on board, mangling the corpses, tearing out their eyes, and throwing them towards the vessel from the points of their daggers. Thus did the Most Catholic Philip champion the cause of Heaven in the New World.

It was currently believed in France, and, though no eye-witness attests it, there is reason to think it true, that among those murdered at Fort Caroline there were some who died a death of peculiar ignominy. Menendez, it is affirmed, hanged his prisoners on trees, and placed over them the inscription, "I do this, not as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans."

The Spaniards gained a great booty: armor, clothing, and provision. "Nevertheless," says the devout Mendoza, after closing his inventory of the plunder, "the greatest profit of this victory is the triumph which our Lord has granted us, whereby His holy gospel will be introduced into this country, a thing so needful for saving so many souls from perdition." Again, he writes in his journal,—"We owe to God and His Mother, more than to human strength, this victory over the adversaries of the holy Catholic religion."

To whatever influence, celestial or other, the exploit may best be ascribed, the victors were not yet quite content with their success. Two small French vessels, besides that of James Ribaut, still lay within range of the fort. When the storm had a little abated, the cannon were turned on them. One of them was sunk, but Ribaut, with the others, escaped down the river, at the mouth of which several light craft, including that bought from the English, had been anchored since the arrival of his father's squadron.

While this was passing, the wretched fugitives were flying from the scene of massacre through a tempest, of whose pertinacious violence all the narratives speak with wonder. Exhausted, starved, half-clothed,—for most of them had escaped in their shirts,—they pushed their toilsome way amid the ceaseless howl of the elements. A few sought refuge in Indian villages; but these, it is said, were afterwards killed by the Spaniards. The greater number attempted to reach the vessels at the mouth of the river. Of the latter was Le Moyne, who, despite his former failure, was toiling through the maze of tangled forests when he met a Belgian soldier with the woman described as Laudonnière's maid-servant, the latter wounded in the breast, and, urging their flight towards the vessels, they fell in with other fugitives, among them Laudonnière himself. As they struggled through the salt-marsh, the rank sedge cut their naked limbs, and the tide rose to their waists. Presently they descried others, toiling like themselves through the matted vegetation, and recognized Challeux and his companions, also in quest of the vessels. The old man still, as he tells us, held fast to his chisel, which had done good service in cutting poles to aid the party to cross the deep creeks that channelled the morass. The united band, twenty-six in all, were relieved at length by the sight of a moving sail. It was the vessel of Captain Mallard, who, informed of the massacre, was standing along-shore in the hope of picking up some of the fugitives. He saw their signals, and sent boats to their rescue; but such was their exhaustion, that, had not the sailors, wading to their armpits among the rushes, borne them out on their shoulders, few could have escaped. Laudonnière was so feeble that nothing but the support of a soldier, who held him upright in his arms, had saved him from drowning in the marsh.

Gaining the friendly decks, the fugitives counselled together. One and all, they sickened for the sight of France.

After waiting a few days, and saving a few more stragglers from the marsh, they prepared to sail. Young Ribaut, though ignorant of his father's fate, assented with something more than willingness; indeed, his behavior throughout had been stamped with weakness and poltroonery. On the twenty-fifth of September, they put to sea in two vessels; and, after a voyage whose privations were fatal to many of them, they arrived, one party at Rochelle, the other at Swansea, in Wales.

In suspense and fear, hourly looking seaward for the dreaded fleet of John Ribaut, the chaplain Mendoza and his brother priests held watch and ward at St. Augustine, in the Adelantado's absence. Besides the celestial guardians whom they ceased not to invoke, they had as protectors Bartholomew Menendez, the brother of the Adelantado, and about a hundred soldiers. Day and night, the latter toiled to throw up earthworks and strengthen their position.

A week elapsed, when they saw a man running towards their fort, shouting as he ran.

Mendoza went out to meet him.

"Victory! Victory!" gasped the breathless messenger. "The French fort is ours!" And he flung his arms about the chaplain's neck.

"To-day," writes the latter in his journal, "Monday, the twenty-fourth, came our good general himself, with fifty soldiers, very tired, like all those who were with him. As soon as they told me he was coming, I ran to my lodging, took a new cassock, the best I had, put on my surplice, and went out to meet him with a crucifix in my hand; whereupon he, like a gentleman and a good Christian, kneeled down with all his followers, and gave the Lord a thousand thanks for the great favors he had received from Him."

In solemn procession, four priests in front chanting the Te Deum, the victors entered St. Augustine in triumph.

On the twenty-eighth, when the weary Adelantado was taking his siesta under the sylvan roof of Seloy, a troop of Indians came in with news that quickly roused him from his slumbers. They had seen a French vessel wrecked on the coast towards the south. Those who escaped from her were some four leagues off, on the banks of a river or arm of the sea, which they could not cross.

Menendez instantly sent forty or fifty men in boats to reconnoitre. Next, he called the chaplain,—for he would fain have him at his elbow to countenance the devilish deeds he meditated,—and embarked, with him, twelve soldiers, and two Indian guides, in another boat. They rowed along the channel between Anastasia Island and the main shore; then landed, struck across the country on foot, traversed plains and marshes, readied the sea towards night, and searched along-shore till ten o'clock to find their comrades who had gone before. At length, with mutual joy, the two parties met, and bivouacked together on the sands. Not far distant they could see lights. They were the camp-fires of the shipwrecked French.

And now, to relate the fortunes of these unhappy men. To do so with precision is impossible, for henceforward the French narratives are no longer the narratives of eye-witnesses.

It has been seen how, when on the point of assailing the Spaniards of St. Augustine, John Ribaut was thwarted by a gale which the former hailed as a divine interposition. The gale rose to a tempest of strange fury. Within a few days, all the French ships were cast on shore, the greater number near Cape Canaveral. According to the letter of Menendez, many of those on board were lost, but others affirm that all escaped but the captain, La Grange, an officer of high merit, who was washed from a floating mast. One of the ships was wrecked at a point farther northward than the rest, and it was her company whose camp-fires were seen by the Spaniards at their bivouac among the sands of Anastasia Island. They were endeavoring to reach Fort Caroline, of whose fate they knew nothing, while Ribaut with the remainder was farther southward, struggling through the wilderness towards the same goal. What befell the latter will appear hereafter. Of the fate of the former party there is no French record. What we know of it is due to three Spanish writers, Mendoza, Doctor Solis de las Meras, and Menendez himself. Solis was a priest, and brother-in-law to Menendez. Like Mendoza, he minutely describes what he saw, and, like him, was a red-hot zealot, lavishing applause on the darkest deeds of his chief. Before me lie the long despatches, now first brought to light from the archives of Seville, which Menendez sent from Florida to the King, a cool record of atrocities never surpassed, and inscribed on the back with the royal indorsement,—"Say to him that he has done well."

When the Adelantado saw the French fires in the distance, he lay close in his bivouac, and sent two soldiers to reconnoitre. At two in the morning they came back and reported that it was impossible to get at the enemy, since they were on the farther side of an arm of the sea, probably Matanzas Inlet. Menendez, however, gave orders to march, and before daybreak reached the hither bank, where he hid his men in a bushy hollow. Thence, as it grew light, they could discern the enemy, many of whom were searching along the sands and shallows for shell-fish, for they were famishing. A thought struck Menendez, an inspiration, says Mendoza, of the Holy Spirit. He put on the clothes of a sailor, entered a boat which had been brought to the spot, and rowed towards the shipwrecked men, the better to learn their condition. A Frenchman swam out to meet him. Menendez demanded what men they were.

"Followers of Ribaut," answered the swimmer, "Viceroy of the King of France."

"Are you Catholics or Lutherans?"

"All Lutherans."

A brief dialogue ensued, during which the Adelantado declared his name and character. The Frenchman swam back to his companions, but soon returned, and asked safe conduct for his captain and four other gentlemen who wished to hold conference with the Spanish general. Menendez gave his word for their safety, and, returning to the shore, sent his boat to bring them over. On their landing, he met them very courteously. His followers were kept at a distance, so disposed behind hills and clumps of bushes as to give an exaggerated idea of their force,—a precaution the more needful as they were only about sixty in number, while the French, says Solis, were above two hundred, though Menendez declares that they did not exceed a hundred and forty. The French officer told him the story of their shipwreck, and begged him to lend them a boat to aid them in crossing the rivers which lay between them and a fort of their King, whither they were making their way.

Then came again the ominous question,—

"Are you Catholics or Lutherans?"

"We are Lutherans."