re. Every heretic shall die." The Huguenots, had they held together,
might have been able to offer a successful resistance to the Spaniards,
but Jean Ribault, the French commander, unfortunately decided to sail out
from the shelter of Fort Caroline and seek a conflict at sea with the
enemy. A storm destroyed the French fleet, but the crews succeeded in
escaping to land. Menendez marched overland with his troops to the
unprotected fort and easily captured it with its handful of defenders.
The Spaniards cruelly murdered almost the entire colony of two hundred
men, women and children, some of them being hung to trees with the
inscription: "Not as Frenchmen, but as Lutherans."

Ribault, ignorant of the tragedy at the fort, sought to return there from
the place where he had been shipwrecked. His men were divided in two
detachments. Menendez went in search of them, and meeting one party told
them that Fort Caroline, with its inmates, had been destroyed. The
Frenchmen were helpless, and pleaded for mercy. Menendez asked: "Are you
Catholics or Lutherans?" They answered: "We are of the reformed
religion." The pitiless Spaniard replied that he was under orders to
exterminate all of that faith. They offered him fifty thousand ducats if
he would spare their lives. Menendez demanded that the Frenchmen should
place themselves at his mercy. They consented to do so. A small stream
divided the Huguenots from the Spaniards. Menendez ordered that the
French should cross over in companies of ten. As they crossed they were
taken out of sight of their companions and bound with their arms behind
them. When all of the Frenchmen, about two hundred in number, had been
thus secured, Menendez again asked them: "Are you Catholics or
Lutherans?" Some twelve professed to be Catholics, and these with four
mechanics who could be made useful to the Spaniards, were led away. The
remainder of the two hundred were put to death. Menendez next intercepted
Ribault and the remnant of his men, and by similar treachery accomplished
their destruction, refusing an offer of one hundred thousand ducats to
spare their lives. Menendez wrote to King Phillip that the Huguenots
"were put to the sword, judging this to be expedient for the service of
God our Lord, and of your majesty."

Thus ended the first attempt of members of the reformed religion to
settle within the limits of what is now the United States. But the blood
of the victims did not cry in vain to Heaven for