Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 27, 2025
Daily they scanned the pitiless blue sea for a glimpse of Ribaut's returning sail. No sail appeared, and daily their supplies dwindled away. Had it not been for the friendly Redmen they might all have perished. For the Indians were generous, and as long as they had food themselves they shared it with their white friends. But at length they could spare no more.
La Grange and other officers took part with Landonniere, and opposed the plan of an attack by sea; but Ribaut's conviction was unshaken, and the order was given. All his own soldiers fit for duty embarked in haste, and with them went La Caille, Arlac, and, as it seems, Ottigny, with the best of Laudonniere's men.
The first one, founded two years earlier by Jean Ribaut, had failed and Ribaut's men had deserted the place. They had started for home in 1563, had suffered terrible hardships, had been picked up by an English vessel, and taken, some to France and some to England, where the court was all agog about the wealth of Florida.
Before he left France he had been secretly notified of their intentions. The next morning Don Pedro Menendez in his great galleon ran back to the mouth of the St. John's. But seeing the Frenchmen drawn up under arms on the beach and Ribaut's smaller vessels inside the bar, all ready for battle, he turned away and sailed southward to an inlet which he called San Augustin.
The following are the principal authorities consulted for the main body of the narrative. Ribauld, 'The Whole and True Discovery of Terra Florida, This is Captain Jean Ribaut's account of his voyage to Florida in 1562.
At half-past eleven on the night of Tuesday, the fourth of September, the crew of Ribaut's flag-ship, anchored on the still sea outside the bar, saw a huge hulk, grim with the throats of cannon, drifting towards them through the gloom; and from its stern rolled on the sluggish air the portentous banner of Spain.
"Now," says Laudonniere, "let them which have bene bold to say that I had men ynough left me, so that I had meanes to defend my selfe, give care a little now vnto mee, and if they have eyes in their heads, let them see what men I had." Of Ribaut's followers left at the fort, only nine or ten had weapons, while only two or three knew how to use them.
Four of them were boys, who kept Ribaut's dogs, and another was his cook. Besides these, he had left a brewer, an old crossbow-maker, two shoemakers, a player on the spinet, four valets, a carpenter of threescore, Challeux, no doubt, who has left us the story of his woes, with a crowd of women, children, and eighty-six camp-followers.
"I mind Ribaut's last words, when Menendez slew him. 'We are of earth, says he, 'and to earth we must return, and twenty years more or less can matter little! That is our case to-night, old friend." "Maybe," said the Englishman. "But why talk of dying? You and I are Spanish caballeros.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking