CHAPTER VIII.

FATE OF RIBAULT AND HIS FOLLOWERS--BLOODY MASSACRE AT MATANZAS--1565.

The first detachment of the French whom Menendez met and so utterly destroyed, constituted the complement of a single vessel, which had been thrown ashore at a more northerly point than the others. All these vessels were wrecked between Mosquito Inlet and Matanzas.

Of the fate of the main detachment, under Ribault in person, we have the following account, as related by the same apologist, the chaplain De Solis:

"On the next day following the return of the Adelantado at St. Augustine, the same Indians who came before returned, and said that 'a great many more Christians were at the same part of the river as the others had been.' The Adelantado concluded that it must be Jean Ribault, the General of the Lutherans at sea and on land, whom they called the Viceroy of this country for the king of France. He immediately went, with one hundred and fifty men in good order, and reached the place where he had lodged the first time, at about midnight; and at dawn he pushed forward to the river, with his men drawn out, and when it was daylight, he saw, two bow-shots from the other bank of the river, many persons, and a raft made to cross over the people, at the place where the Adelantado stood. But immediately, when the French saw the Adelantado and his people, they took arms, and displayed a royal standard and two standards of companies, sounding fifes and drums, in very good order, and showing a front of battle to the Adelantado; who, having ordered his men to sit down and take their breakfast, so that they made no demonstration of any change, he himself walked up and down the shore, with his admiral and two other captains, paying no attention to the movement and demonstration of battle of the French; so that they observing this, halted and the fifes and the drums ceased, while with a bugle note they unfurled the white flag of peace, which was returned by the Adelantado. A Frenchman placed himself upon the raft, and cried with a loud voice that he wished to cross over, but that owing to the force of the current he could not bring the raft over, and desired an Indian canoe which was there to be sent over. The Adelantado said he could swim over for it, under pledge of his word. A French sailor immediately came over, but the General would not permit him to speak with him, but directed him to take the canoe, and go and tell his captain, that inasmuch as he called for a conference, if he desired anything he should send over some one to communicate with him. The same sailor immediately came with a gentleman, who said he was the sergeant major of Jean Ribault, Viceroy and Captain General of this land for the king of France, and that he had sent him to say, that they had been wrecked with their fleet in a great storm, and that he had with him three hundred and fifty French; that they wished to go to a fort which they held, twenty leagues from there; that they wished the favor of boats, to pass this river, and the other, four leagues further on, and that he desired to know if they were Spaniards, and under what leader they served.

"The Adelantado answered him, that they were Spaniards, and that the captain under whom they served was the person now addressing him, and was called Pedro Menendez. That he should tell his General that the fort which he held twenty leagues from there had been taken by him, and he had destroyed all the French, and the rest who had come with the fleet, because they were badly governed; and then, passing thence to where the dead bodies of the Frenchmen whom he had killed still lay unburied, pointed them out to him and said, therefore he could not permit them to pass the river to their fort.

"The sergeant, with an unmoved countenance, and without any appearance of uneasiness on account of what the Adelantado had said, replied, that if he would have the goodness to send a gentleman of his party, to say to the French general, that they might negotiate with safety, the people were much exhausted, and the general would come over in a boat which was there. The Adelantado replied, 'Farewell, comrade, and bear the answer which they shall give you; and if your general desires to come and treat with me, I give my word that he shall come and return securely, with four or six of his people whom he may select for his advisors, that he may do whatever he may conclude to be best.'

"The French gentleman then departed with this message. Within half an hour he returned to accept the assurance the Adelantado had given, and to obtain the boat; which the Adelantado was unwilling to let him have, but said he could use the canoe, which was safe, and the strait was narrow; and he again went back with this message.

"Immediately Jean Ribault came over, whom the Adelantado received very well, with other eight gentleman, who had come with him. They were all gentlemen of rank and position. He gave them a collation, and would have given them food if they had desired. Jean Ribault with much humility, thanked him for his kind reception, and said that to raise their spirits, much depressed by the sad news of the death of their comrades, they would partake only of the wine and condiments, and did not wish anything else to eat. Then after eating, Jean Ribault said, 'that he saw that those his companions were dead, and that he could not be mistaken if he desired to be.' Then the Adelantado directed the soldiers to bring each one whatever he had taken from the fort; and he saw so many things that he knew for certain that it was taken: although he knew this before, yet he could not wholly believe it, because among his men there was a Frenchman by name of Barbero, of those whom the Adelantado had ordered to be destroyed with the rest, and was left for dead with the others, having with the first thrust he received fallen down and made as though he were dead, and when they left there he had passed over by swimming, to Ribault; and this Barbero held it for certain that the Adelantado had deceived them in saying that the fort was taken, it not being so; and thus until now he had supposed. The Adelantado said that in order with more certainty to believe this and satisfy himself, he might converse apart with the two Frenchmen who were present, to satisfy him better; which he did.

"Immediately Jean Ribault came towards the Adelantado and said, 'it was certain that all which he had told him was true; but that what had happened to him, might have happened to the Adelantado; and since their kings were brothers, and such great friends, the Adelantado should act towards him as a friend, and give him ships and provisions, that he might return to France.'

"The Adelantado replied in the same manner that he had done to the other Frenchmen, as to what he would do; and that taking it or leaving it, Jean Ribault could obtain nothing further from the Adelantado. Jean Ribault then said that he would go and give an account of matters to his people, for he had among them many of noble blood; and would return or send an answer as to what he would do.

"Three hours afterwards, Jean Ribault returned in the canoe, and said, 'that there were different opinions among his people; that while some were willing to yield themselves to his clemency, others were not.' The Adelantado replied 'that it mattered but little to him whether they all came, or a part, or none at all; that they should do as it pleased them, and he would act with the same liberty.' Jean Ribault said to him, 'that the half of the people who were willing to yield themselves to his clemency, would pay him a ransom of more than 100,000 ducats; and the other half were able to pay more, for there were among them persons of wealth and large incomes, who had desired to establish estates in this country.' The Adelantado answered him, 'It would grieve me much to lose so great and rich a ransom, under the necessity I am under for such aid, to carry forward the conquest and settlement of this land, in the name of my king, as is my duty, and to plant here the Holy Evangel.' Jean Ribault considered from this, that with the amount they could all give, he might be induced to spare his own life and that of all the others who were with him, and that they might be able to pay more than 200,000 ducats; and he said to the Adelantado, 'that he would return with his answer to his people; that as it was late, he would take it as a favor if he would be willing to wait until the following day, when, he would bring their reply as to what they would conclude to do.' The Adelantado said, 'Yes, that he would wait.' Jean Ribault then went back to his people, it being already sunset. In the morning, he returned with the canoe, and surrendered to the Adelantado two royal standards--the one that of the king of France, the other that of the Admiral (Coligny),--and the standards of the company, and a sword, dagger, and helmet, gilded very beautifully; and also a shield, a pistol, and a commission given him under the high admiral of France, to assure to him his title and possessions.

"He then said to him, 'that but one hundred and fifty of the three hundred and fifty whom he had with him were willing to yield to his clemency, and that the others had withdrawn during the night; and that they might take the boat and bring those who were willing to come over, and their arms.' The Adelantado immediately directed the captain, Diego Flores Valdes, Admiral of the fleet, that he should bring them over as he had done the others, ten by ten; and the Adelantado, taking Jean Ribault behind the sand hills, among the bushes where the others had their hands tied behind them, he said to these and all the others as he had done before, that they had four leagues to go after night, and that he could not permit them to go unbound; and after they were all tied, he asked if they were Catholics or Lutherans, or if any of them desired to make confession.

"Jean Ribault replied, 'that all who were there were of the new religion,' and he then began to repeat the psalm, '_Domine! Memento! Mei_;' and having finished, he said, 'that from dust they came and to dust they must return, and that in twenty years, more or less, he must render his final account; that the Adelantado might do with them as he chose.' The Adelantado then ordered all to be killed, in the same order and at the same mark, as had been done to the others. He spared only the fifers, drummers, and trumpeters, and four others who said that they were Catholics, in all, sixteen persons." "_Todos los demas fueron degallados_,"--"all the rest were slaughtered," is the sententious summary lay which Padre de Solis announced the close of the sad career of the gray-haired veteran, the brave soldier, the Admiral Jean Ribault, and his companions.[12]

At some point on the thickly-wooded shores of the Island of Anastasio, or beneath the shifting mounds of sand which mark its shores, may still lie the bones of some of the three hundred and fifty who, spared from destruction by the tempest, and escaping the perils of the sea and of the savage, fell victims to the vindictive rancor and blind rage of one than whom history recalls none more cruel, or less humane. But while their bones, scattered on earth and sea, unhonored and unburied, were lost to human sight, the tale of their destruction and sad fate, scattered in like manner over the whole world, has raised to their memory through sympathy with their fate, a memorial which will endure as long as the pages of history.

The Adelantado returned that night to St. Augustine, where, says his apologist, some persons censured him for his cruelty. Others commended what he had done, as the act of a good general, and said that even if they had been Catholics, he could not have done more justly than he had done for them; for with the few provisions that the Adelantado had, either the one or the other people would have had to perish with hunger, and the French would have destroyed our people: they were the most numerous.[13]

We have still to trace the fate of the body of two hundred, who retired from Ribault after his final determination to surrender to the tender mercies of Menendez. As we are already aware, it comprised the elite of his force, men of standing and rank, and whose spirits had retained energy to combat against the natural discouragements of their position; and they adopted the nobler resolve of selling their lives, at least with their swords in their hands.

De Solis proceeds to give the following further account of them:--

"Twenty days subsequently to the destruction of these, some Indians came to the Adelantado, and informed him by signs, that eight days' journey from here to the southward, near the Bahama Channel, at Canaveral, a large number of people, brethren of those whom the General had caused to be killed, were building a fort and a vessel. The Adelantado at once came to the conclusion, that the French had retired to the place where their vessels were wrecked, and where their artillery and munitions, and provisions were, in order to build a vessel and return to France to procure succor. The General thereupon dispatched from St. Augustine to St. Matteo, ten of his soldiers, conveying intelligence of what had taken place, and directing that they should send to him one hundred and fifty of the soldiers there, with the thirty-five others who remained when he returned to St. Augustine, after taking the fort. The master of the camp immediately dispatched them, under command of Captains Juan Velez de Medrano and Andrez Lopez Patrio; and they arrived at St. Augustine on October 23d. On the 25th, after having heard mass, the Adelantado departed for the coast, with three hundred men, and three small vessels to go by sea with the arms and provisions; and the vessels were to go along and progress equally with the troops; and each night when the troops halted, the vessels also anchored by them, for it was a clear and sandy coast.

"The Adelantado carried in the three vessels provisions for forty days for three hundred men, and one day's ration was to last for two days; and he promised to do everything for the general good of all, although they might have to undergo many dangers and privations; that he had great hope that he would have the goodness and mercy of God to aid him in carrying through safely this so holy and pious an undertaking. He then took leave of them, leaving most of them in tears, for he was much loved, feared, and respected by all.[14]

"The Adelantado, after a wearisome journey, marching on foot himself the whole distance, arrived in the neighborhood of the French camp on All Saints Day, at daylight, guided by the Indians by land, and the three vessels under the command of Captain Diego de Maya. As soon as the French descried the Spaniards, they fled to their fort, without any remaining. The Adelantado sent them a trumpeter, offering them their lives, that they should return and should receive the same treatment as the Spaniards. One hundred and fifty came to the Adelantado; and their leader, with twenty others, sent to say that they would sooner be devoured by the Indians, than surrender themselves to the Spaniards. The Adelantado received those who surrendered, very well, and having set fire to the fort, which was of wood, burned the vessel which they were building, and buried the artillery, for the vessels could not carry them."

De Solis here closes his account of the matter; but from other accounts we learn that the Adelantado kept his faith on this occasion with them, and that some entered his service, some were converted to his faith, and others returned to France; and thus ended the Huguenot attempt to colonize the shores of Florida.

There are several other accounts of the fate of Ribault and his followers, drawn from the narratives of survivors of the expedition, which, without varying the general order of events, fill in sundry details of the massacres. The main point of difference is, as to the pledges or assurances given by Menendez. The French accounts say that he pledged his faith to them that their lives should be spared.[15] It will be seen that the Spanish account denies that he did so, but makes him use language subject to misconstruction, and calculated to deceive them into the hope and expectation of safety. I do not see that in a Christian or even moral view there is much difference between an open breach of faith and the breach of an implied faith, particularly when it was only by this deception that the surrender could have been accomplished. Nor could Menendez have had a very delicate sense of the value of the word of a soldier, a Christian, and a gentleman, when, as his apologist admits, he did directly use the language of falsehood, to induce them to submit to the degradation of having their hands tied.

Nor, considered in its broader aspects is it a matter of any consequence whether he gave his word or no; nor does it lessen the enormity of his conduct, had they submitted themselves in the most unreserved manner to his discretion. France and Spain were at peace; no act of hostility had been committed by the French toward the Spaniards; and Ribault asked only to be allowed to pass on. In violation alike of the laws of war and the law of humanity, he first induced them to surrender, to abide what God, whose holy name he invoked, should put into his heart to do, and then cajoling them into allowing their hands to be tied, he ordered them to be killed, in their bonds as they stood, defenseless, helpless, wrecked, and famished men. It would have been a base blot upon human nature, had he thus served the most savage tribe of nations, standing on that far shore, brought into the common sympathy of want and suffering. The act seems one of monstrous atrocity, when committed against the people of a sister nation.