In the meantime word had been sent to the fort by Admiral Ribault of the coming of the Spanish fleet, when it was first sighted, and Laudonniere had collected his entire force at the mouth of the river, and planted there a number of heavy guns.  Here he proposed to dispute the landing of the enemy, and if possible to prevent his crossing the bar, just inside of which he had anchored his two small vessels, so that their guns commanded the narrow channel.

When Menendez returned from his unsuccessful pursuit of Ribault’s ships, and saw these warlike preparations, he felt that it would be unwise to attempt to land his troops through the surf, or to force the passage of the bar, and so he ordered his captains to proceed southward to the River of Dolphins.  When it was reached, the smaller vessels crossed the bar at its mouth, and came to anchor opposite the Indian village of Seloy, where Rene de Veaux had first set foot upon the soil of the New World, and where he had received the name of Ta-lah-lo-ko.

Here Menendez determined to build his fort, and found a city which he hoped to make the capital of a great and glorious kingdom, and from which he proposed to conduct operations against the Huguenots of Fort Caroline.  On the day after his arrival he landed with the greatest pomp and ceremony, and claimed possession of the country in the name of the King of Spain.  As he did so all the cannon of the ships lying in the river were discharged at once with a mighty roar, which was answered by a distant booming from those anchored far out at sea.  At the same time all the trumpets were sounded, and the air was filled with the exulting shouts of the soldiers, and with hymns of praise chanted by a great company of priests.  At the same moment the great stag that stood in front of the council-house of the Indians was torn down from the tall pole on which it was uplifted, and the cross was raised in its place.

So terrified were the simple-minded Indian inhabitants of the village by this sacrilege, and the great noise of the rejoicings, that they knew not which way to turn or flee, until they were seized by the brutal soldiers, and either killed or set to work with the negro slaves brought from the West Indies in throwing up fortifications.  After thus taking possession of the country, Menendez proclaimed that the new city, founded upon the smoking blood-stained ruins of the pleasant little Indian village of Seloy should be called “San Augustin,” which name it bears to this day, and that the River of Dolphins should be thereafter known as the “San Augustin River.”

When the bewildered chief of the Seloy Indians found that these strange white men were about to destroy his village, he made a bitter protest against their cruelties; but he was no more regarded than if he had been a barking dog.  They would have killed him, but he gathered together a few of his chosen warriors, and with them fled for protection to his white friend Laudonniere, at Fort Caroline, which place he reached the next day.