These he placed upon
the fortification, thus making a battery of eight pieces, and built a
substantial platform of timber for them to stand upon. La Fuerza was not
yet completed, but he took measures to expedite the work and hoped to
have it finished in a year. In order to protect the place from possible
raids by land, he closed and blocked all roads and trails leading into
it from the west excepting the one along the beach. He organized a force
of seventy men armed with arquebuses, to be quickly summoned in an
emergency, and required them and all citizens to assemble for service
whenever a strange sail was sighted. In addition, as a permanent
contribution to defence, a spacious arsenal was built near the water
front, to contain the stores of ammunition and to shelter the guards and
citizens.

There was thus much promise that Osorio would prove to be an energetic
and useful governor. Unfortunately, at the very beginning of his
administration he came into conflict with another and much stronger
functionary of the Spanish crown; indeed, one of the most formidable
figures of the time. This was none other than Pedro Menendez de Aviles,
whose record fills so large a place in the early annals of Florida and
the West Indies. He took to the sea in boyhood, and became one of the
most expert navigators of Spain. At the age of thirty he was captain of
his own ship, and it was one of the most active and efficient vessels
among all that guarded and convoyed the treasure ships and fleets of the
Spanish Main. At that time he warned the government of Hispaniola and
also that of Mexico of the grave danger of letting the French get any
foothold upon those shores, or even of navigating those waters. The
Bahama Channel, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea should all, he
insisted, be declared and kept closed seas, into which no vessels but
those of Spain should enter save by special license.

[Illustration: PEDRO MENENDEZ DE AVILES.]

Menendez was, moreover, an ardent and indeed fanatical Catholic, who
deemed it a duty to extirpate "Lutheran dogs," as he termed the French
Huguenots and other Protestants; and as most of the French seamen and
foreign adventurers at that time were of the Huguenot faith, he
cherished a special animosity against them.

Now, his recommendations to the governments of Hispaniola and Mexico
were transmitted to Seville and were laid before the King. Charles was
at that time weary of royal cares and was abou