ers. He expected to do in Florida what
Cortes had done in Mexico. Now heresy, the unpardonable sin, burned out
and stamped out in Spain, had appeared in the province which he had
bound himself at the cost of a million ducats to make Spanish and
Catholic. With furious energy he pushed on the work of preparation.

He had assembled in June, 1565, a fleet of thirty-four ships and a force
of twenty-six hundred men. Arciniega, another commander, was to join him
with fifteen hundred. On June 29 he sailed from Cadiz in the _San
Pelayo_, a galleon of nearly a thousand tons, a leviathan for those
days. Ten other ships accompanied him; the rest of the fleet would
follow later. It was the plan of Menendez to wipe out the garrison at
Fort Caroline before Ribault could get there, plant a colony there and
one on the Chesapeake, to control the northern fisheries for Spain
alone. On the way a Caribbean tempest scattered the ships and only five
met at Hispaniola, but Menendez did not wait for the rest. When he
reached the Florida coast he sent a captain ashore with twenty men to
find out exactly where on that long, lonely shore line the French colony
had squatted.

About half past eleven on the night of September 4, the watchman on one
of the French ships anchored off shore saw the huge _San Pelayo_, the
Spanish banner lifting sluggishly in the slow wind, coming up from the
south. Ribault was in the fort, so were most of the troops, and three of
the ships were anchored inside the bar. The strange fleet came steadily
nearer, the great flagship moved to windward of Ribault's flagship the
_Trinity_, and dropped anchor. The others did likewise. Not a word was
spoken by friend or foe. The Spanish chaplain Mendoza afterward wrote:

"Never since I came into the world did I know such a stillness."

A trumpet sounded on the _San Pelayo_. A trumpet sounded on the
_Trinity_. Menendez spoke, politely.

[Illustration: "'GENTLEMEN, WHENCE DOES THIS FLEET COME?'"--_Page_ 204]

"Gentlemen, whence does this fleet come?"

"From France."

"What is it doing here?"

"Bringing soldiers and supplies to a fort of the King of France in this
country--where he soon will have many more," flung back the Breton
captain defiantly.

"Are you Catholics or Lutherans?"

This time a score of clear voices reinforced the
Captain's--"Lutherans--Huguenots--the Reformed Faith--The Religion!" And
the Captain added, "Who are you yourself?"

"I am Pedro Menendez de