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Updated: June 5, 2025
When Réné was made known to the officers of De Gourges' command, he was most joyfully welcomed by them, as one of whom they had heard brave things, and who was most worthy to command their respect and esteem.
Then in his turn Réné gave an account of his experiences at the overthrow of Fort Caroline, his capture by the Seminoles, his rescue from them, and his subsequent life and rise to power among the Alachuas. To all of this De Gourges listened with breathless attention; and when Réné had finished, he exclaimed,
Upon the sudden capture of the fort by De Gourges there had been no time to remove the treasure from its underground chamber, and the few Spaniards who escaped and fled to San Augustin had left it, hoping to return and recover it when the French should have departed.
Upon this De Gourges invited his visitor to come on board the ship and meet him in his own cabin, where he would with pleasure converse with him. As Réné stepped upon the quarter-deck, and passed through the group of gentlemen who still occupied it, they regarded him with the liveliest curiosity.
One by one the stern warriors came forward and kissed his hand, while he had for each some kind word that would long be cherished in the memory of him to whom it was spoken. He had loaded their canoes with all that they could contain of presents, furnished by the generosity of De Gourges, for themselves, and to be taken to that distant western country in which he had left so many friends.
There was a slight stir on the quarter-deck of the ship nearest him; and, from a group of gentlemen who occupied it, one, wearing a plumed hat and a velvet mantle, from beneath which peeped the richly jewelled hilt of his sword, stood forth and answered courteously, "I, Dominique de Gourges, chevalier of France, am admiral here at thy service.
This danger was escaped by their superior speed and seamanship, and at length Réné de Veaux saw the spires and roofs of that same seaport from which he had sailed for the New World, in company with his Uncle Laudonniere, nearly four years before. Tidings of their return, and some rumors of the brave doings of De Gourges and those who sailed with him, had preceded them.
But indeed it was scarce complete, for Menendez the chief over and leader of the Spaniards was safe in Europe, and beyond the reach of any private man's vengeance. The Spaniards, too, were strongly entrenched at St. Augustine, so strongly indeed that Gourges knew he had not force enough to oust them. He had not even men enough to keep the three forts he had won. So he resolved to destroy them.
As De Gourges deemed this place too strong for him to attack, and as he only wished to recover that which had belonged to the French, he had not tarried there, but had sailed northward to the River of May, the name of which the Spaniards had changed to Rio de San Mateo.
Here they dug, and directly he had recovered the box much rusted, but still sound, in which he felt sure his uncle had kept his most important papers. While they had thus obtained all that they could now hope for in this search, both Réné and De Gourges were anxious to explore the passage to its extreme end, and so they continued on through it.
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