holic, as a Spaniard, and as an adventurer, his course
was clear.

The work assigned him was prodigious. He was invested with power almost
absolute, not merely over the peninsula which now retains the name of
Florida, but over all North America, from Labrador to Mexico; for
this was the Florida of the old Spanish geographers, and the Florida
designated in the commission of Menendez. It was a continent which he
was to conquer and occupy out of his own purse. The impoverished King
contracted with his daring and ambitious subject to win and hold for
him the territory of the future United States and British Provinces.
His plan, as afterwards exposed at length in his letters to Philip
the Second, was, first, to plant a garrison at Port Royal, and next
to fortify strongly on Chesapeake Bay, called by him St. Mary's.
He believed that adjoining this bay was an arm of the sea, running
northward and eastward, and communicating with the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
thus making New England, with adjacent districts, an island. His
proposed fort on the Chesapeake, securing access by this imaginary
passage, to the seas of Newfoundland, would enable the Spaniards to
command the fisheries, on which both the French and the English had long
encroached, to the great prejudice of Spanish rights. Doubtless, too,
these inland waters gave access to the South Sea, and their occupation
was necessary to prevent the French from penetrating thither; for that
ambitious people, since the time of Cartier, had never abandoned their
schemes of seizing this portion of the dominions of the King of Spain.
Five hundred soldiers and one hundred sailors must, he urges, take
possession, without delay, of Port Royal and the Chesapeake. [20]

Preparation for his enterprise was pushed with furious energy. His whole
force, when the several squadrons were united, amounted to two thousand
six hundred and forty-six persons, in thirty-four vessels, one of
which, the San Pelayo, bearing Menendez himself, was of nine hundred
and ninety-six tons burden, and is described as one of the finest ships
afloat. [21] There were twelve Franciscans and eight Jesuits, besides
other ecclesiastics; and many knights of Galicia, Biscay, and the
Asturias took part in the expedition. With a slight exception, the
whole was at the Adelantado's charge. Within the first fourteen months,
according to his admirer, Barcia, the adventure cost him a million
ducats. [22]

Before the close of the year,