de to return home. Famine having carried off the greater
number, the colony came to an end. In 1564 Coligny sent out Laudonniere,
who built another fort, also named Carolina, on the River of May. Again
misfortunes gathered thickly about the settlers, when Ribault arrived
bringing supplies.

[Illustration: Fort Carolina on the River of May.]

[1565]

[Illustration: Pedro Melendez.]

But Spain claimed this territory, and Pedro Melendez a Spanish soldier,
was in 1565 sent by Philip II. to conquer it from the French, doubly
detested as Protestants. He landed in the harbor and at the mouth of the
river, to both of which he gave the name St. Augustine. Melendez lost no
time in attacking Fort Carolina, which he surprised, putting the
garrison mercilessly to the sword. The destruction of the French colony
was soon after avenged by Dominic de Gourgues, who sailed from France to
punish the enemies of his country. Having accomplished his purpose by
the slaughter of the Spanish garrison he returned home, but the French
Protestants made no further effort to colonize Florida.

Spain claimed the land by right of discovery, but, although maintaining
the feeble settlement at St. Augustine, did next to nothing after this
to explore or civilize this portion of America. The nation that had sent
out Columbus was not destined to be permanently the great power of the
New World. The hap of first landing upon the Antilles, and also the warm
climate and the peaceable nature of the aborigines, led Spain to fix her
settlements in latitudes that were too low for the best health and the
greatest energy. Most of the settlers were of a wretched class,
criminals and adventurers, and they soon mixed largely with the natives.
Spain herself greatly lacked in vigor, partly from national causes,
partly from those obscure general causes which even to this day keep
Latin Europe, in military power and political accomplishments, inferior
to Teutonic or Germanic Europe.

[Illustration: Indians devoured by dogs. From an old print.]

[1570]

Moreover, the Spaniards found their first American conquests too easy,
and the rewards of these too great. This prevented all thought of
developing the country through industry, concentrating expectation
solely upon waiting fortunes, to be had from the natives by the sword or
through forced labor in mines, Their treatment of the aborigines was
nothing short of diabolical. Well has it been said: "The Spaniards had
sow