gns of commercial and territorial
aggrandizement. Thus did France and Spain dispute the possession of
North America long before England became a party to the strife. [24]

Some twenty days after Menendez returned to St. Augustine, the Indians,
enamoured of carnage, and exulting to see their invaders mowed down,
came to tell him that on the coast southward, near Cape Canaveral, a
great number of Frenchmen were intrenching themselves. They were those
of Ribaut's party who had refused to surrender. Having retreated to the
spot where their ships had been cast ashore, they were trying to build a
vessel from the fragments of the wrecks.

In all haste Menendez despatched messengers to Fort Caroline, named by
him San Mateo, ordering a reinforcement of a hundred and fifty men. In
a few days they came. He added some of his own soldiers, and, with a
united force of two hundred and fifty, set out, as he tells us, on the
second of November. A part of his force went by sea, while the rest
pushed southward along the shore with such merciless energy that several
men dropped dead with wading night and day through the loose sands.
When, from behind their frail defences, the French saw the Spanish
pikes and partisans glittering into view, they fled in a panic, and took
refuge among the hills. Menendez sent a trumpet to summon them, pledging
his honor for their safety. The commander and several others told the
messenger that they would sooner be eaten by the savages than trust
themselves to Spaniards; and, escaping, they fled to the Indian towns.
The rest surrendered; and Menendez kept his word. The comparative number
of his own men made his prisoners no longer dangerous. They were led
back to St. Augustine, where, as the Spanish writer affirms, they were
well treated. Those of good birth sat at the Adelantado's table, eating
the bread of a homicide crimsoned with the slaughter of their comrades.
The priests essayed their pious efforts, and, under the gloomy menace of
the Inquisition, some of the heretics renounced their errors. The fate
of the captives may be gathered from the endorsement, in the handwriting
of the King, on one of the despatches of Menendez.

"Say to him," writes Philip the Second, "that, as to those he has
killed, he has done well; and as to those he has saved, they shall be
sent to the galleys."

CHAPTER IX.

1565-1567.

CHARLES IX. AND PHILLIP II.

The state of international relations in the sixteenth c