and some of the smaller vessels had crossed the harbor, while others yet stood out to sea.  Menendez hailed the latter, and after some parley told them that be had come there with orders from the king of Spain to kill all intruders that might be found on the coast.  The French being too few to fight, fled.  Menendez did not for the present attack the settlement, but sailed southward till he reached a harbor which be named St. Augustine.  There the Spaniards disembarked and threw up a fortification destined to grow into the town of St. Augustine, the first permanent Spanish settlement north of the Gulf of Mexico.  Various attempts had been made, and with various motives.  The slave-hunter, the gold-seeker, the explorer had each tried his fortunes in Florida, and each failed.  The difficulties which had baffled them all were at length overcome by the spirit of religious hatred.

Meanwhile a council of war was sitting at the French settlement, Charlefort.  Ribault, contrary to the wishes of Laudonniere and the rest, decided to anticipate the Spaniards by an attack from the sea.  A few sick men were left with Laudonniere to garrison the fort; all the rest went on board.  Just as everything was ready for the attack, a gale sprang up, and the fleet of Ribault, instead of bearing down on St. Augustine, was straggling in confusion off an unknown and perilous coast.  Menendez, relieved from immediate fear for his own settlement, determined on a bold stroke.  Like Ribault, he bore down the opposition of a cautious majority, and with five hundred picked men marched overland through thirty miles of swamp and jungle against the French fort.  Thus each commander was exposing his own settlement in order to menace his enemies.

In judging, however, of the relative prudence of the two plans, it must be remembered that an attack by land is far more under control, and far less liable to be disarranged by unforeseen chances than one by sea.  At first it seemed as if each expedition was destined to the same fate.  The weather was as unfavorable to the Spanish by land as to the French by sea.  At one time a mutiny was threatened, but Menendez succeeded in inspiring his men with something of his own enthusiasm, and they persevered.  Led by a French deserter, they approached the unprotected settlement.  So stormy was the night that the sentinels had left the walls.  The fort was stormed; Laudonniere and a few others escaped to the shore and were picked up by one of Ribault’s vessels returning from its unsuccessful expedition.  The rest, to the number of one hundred and forty, were slain in the attack or taken prisoners.  The women and children were spared, the men were hung on trees with an inscription pinned to their breasts:  “Not as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans.”