his spectacle,
familiar and at the same time new, presented by nature at the
commencement of May, caused great joy and profound gratitude amongst the
French, who had come so far, through so many perils, to the borders of
Florida; they knelt down piously to thank God; the savages, flocking
together upon the shore, regarded them with astonishment mingled with
respect. Ribaut and his companions took possession of the country in the
name of France, and immediately began to construct a fort, which they
called Fort Charles, in honor of the young king, Charles IX. Detachments
scoured the country, and carried to a distance the name of France: during
three years, through a course of continual suffering and intestine strife
more dangerous than the hardships of nature and the ambushes of savages,
the French maintained themselves in their new settlement, enlarged from
time to time by new emigrants. Unhappily they had frequently been
recruited from amongst men of no character, importing the contagion of
their vices into the little colony which Coligny had intended to found
the Reformed church in the new world. In 1565 a Spanish expedition
landed in Florida. Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who commanded it, had
received from King Philip II. the title of _adelantado_ (governor) of
Florida; he had pledged himself, in return, to conquer for Spain this
territory impudently filched from the jurisdiction which His Catholic
Majesty claimed over the whole of America. The struggle lasted but a few
days, in spite of the despair and courage of the French colonists; a
great number were massacred, others crowded on to the little vessels
still at their disposal, and carried to France the news of the disaster.
Menendez took possession of the ruined forts, of the scarcely cleared
fields strewn with the corpses of the unhappy colonists. "Are you
Catholics or Lutherans?" he demanded of his prisoners, bound two and two
before him. "We all belong to the Reformed faith," replied John Ribaut;
and he intoned in a loud voice a psalm: "Dust we are, and to dust we
shall return; twenty years more or less upon this earth are of small
account;" and, turning towards the _adelantado,_ "Do thy will," he said.
All were put to death, "as I judged expedient for the service of God and
of your Majesty," wrote the Spanish commander to Philip II.," and I
consider it a great piece of luck that this John Ribaut hath died in this
place, for the King of France might have done