The Spanish settlements within the present limits of the United States

Front matter

m

fey;..

W

Book I. The French Colony Chapter

I — The Spanish Treasure Fleets and Florida

II — The First French Colony ....

Ill — The Second French Colony. The Timuquanans IV — The Second French Colony — Continued V — The Third French Expedition VI — Philip's Notice to France .

VII — Pedro Menendez de Aviles VIII — The Departure of Aviles for Florida IX — The Capture of Fort Caroline X — The Fate of Ribaut's Fleet

49 75 94

lOI

120 142

155 186

Book II. The Spanish Colony

I — The Ays Expedition. Aviles at Havana . . .211

II — The Carlos Expedition. Mutiny at the Settlements . 228 III — Expeditions to Guale, St. John's River, and Chesapeake

Bay 244

IV — Father Martinez and his Companions .... 264 V — Expeditions of Pardo and Boyano. Return of Avil£s

to Spain 275

VI — Mutiny at St. Augustine. Pardo's Second Expedition . 293

VII — Philip Notifies France of the Massacre . . . 299

VIII — The French Revenge 314

xvii xviii Contents

Book III. The Guale And Virginia Missions Condition Of The Colony Chapter Page

I — The Guale Mission. Destitution of the Colony . . 339

II — The Virginia Mission 359

III — The Last Visit of Aviles to Florida .... 367

APPENDICES

Appendix

A — Registered Gold and Silver Imported into Spain from

the West Indies, 1560-1569 387

B — The " Ri verb DE Mai" 389

C — The Pillar Set up by Ribaut 393

D — The Rivers between the " Rivere de Mai "and Port

Royal 394

E — Port Royal 399

F — Charleskort 403

G — Fort Caroline 405

H — TiMUQUA 407

I — Laudonniere's Story of the November Mutiny . . 409 J — Maps of the French Colonies in Florida and South

Carolina 410

K — La Terre des Bretons 417

L — Portraits of Pedro Menendez de Avil£s . . . . 41S

M — The Deposition of Jean Memyn 420

N — The Captured French Vessels 420

O — The Oath of Aviles . . . • 421

P — The Death of Ribaut 425

Q — The Situation of Aviles at the Time of the Massacre . 429

R — Ays 431

S — Santa Lucia . • 434

T— Caloosa 436

U — San Felipe 438

V — Tegesta 440

Contents xlx

APPENDIX PAGE

W — The Date of Pardo's First Expedition .... 443

X — Pardo's First Expedition 444

Y — Tocobaga 448

Z — Pardo's Second Expedition 450

AA — Tacatacuru 452

BB — The Spanish Account of Gourgues's Attack on San

CC — The Second Voyage of Aviles to Florida . . . 457

DD — AXACAN 458

EE — The Site of the Segura Mission 461

FF — Mapa de la Florida y Laguna de Maimi donde se ha de

HACER UN FUERTE 464

Index 467

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Pedro Menendez de Aviles, in " Retratos de los EspaNoles Ilustres con UN Epitome de sus Vidas," Madrid, 1791

Frontispiece

" Florida Americans ProvincI/E Recens & exactissima descRiPTio," BY Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, published by De Bry in 1591 28

Map of the French Florida Colony of 1562-65, by Nicolas

BeLLIN, in " HiSTOIRE ET DESCRIPTION GeNERALE DE LA NOU-

VELLE France," par le P. de Charlevoix, Paris, 1744 . 34

Map of Florida, i 562-1 574. Compiled by Woodbury Lowery. 210

" Mapa de la Florida y Laguna de Maimi," i 595-1600 (?), in

THE Archives of the Indies, Seville 286

Chapter I The Spanish Treasure Fleets And Florida

WITH the opening of the year 1562, the eastern coast of the continent of North America from Panuco to the St. Lawrence was still untenanted by the white man. To the north the region discovered by Cartier and Roberval had become the seat of short-lived colonies, which had been abandoned in despair, and France appeared for the time being to have withdrawn from the unequal contest with the wilderness. To the south the persistent efforts of Spain to take possession of the vast region to which she laid claim had proved equally abortive, although they had brought her some acquaintance with the interior of the country and with the nature of its savage inhabitants. She, too, had become discouraged by her vain attempts, her useless sacrifice of life and treasure, the stern reception given her by the warlike natives, and her failure to discover those sources of the precious metals which had so amply rewarded her conquests in Mexico and South America. She no longer feared the intrusion of another power within this part of her domain, where she herself had so signally failed, and in September of the previous year Philip had proclaimed that no further attempt should be made to colonise the eastern coast,*

It was true that she professed it to be her desire to bring into the bosom of the Church the natives of her vast transatlantic dominions, but she felt herself fully equal to the gigantic task, and would brook no interference in her mission, even from foreigners of her own faith. Moreover, the greater portion of the continent was hers by right of discovery, conquest, and papal patent, and its boundless treasures furnished the sinews for her incessant European and African wars. Although she had now abandoned a small part of her Atlantic coast, her unparallelled success in other regions had soon awakened jealousies and stimulated competitors, lured by other incentives than the cure of souls, and she was determined to defend the pathway to the New World against the intrusion of all her rivals. Portugal, France, and England watched with envious eyes the extension of her possessions and the uninterrupted stream of gold that flowed into her coffers. As the route by which this wealth reached her ports of Cadiz and Seville had a direct bearing on her policy with regard to Florida, we will now proceed to consider how vast this wealth was, the path by which it crossed the Atlantic, and the risks to which it was exposed on its way.

Whether 1497 or 1501 be fixed upon for the inception of commercial relations between Spain and the Indies, the establishment of the Casa de Contratacion in Seville, by cedula of February 14, 1503, through which all business with the Indies was compelled to pass, with the appointment of its governing board consisting of three officers, agent, treasurer, and accountant, indicates that

' Spanish Settlements, 1513-1561, p. 376.

even at that early period a trade of considerable magnitude was already in existence.'

The bulk of the exports from the mother country consisted chiefly of grain and provisions, arms, ammunition, and clothing, for the colonists were still comparatively few in number, and their warlike occupations gave them little leisure to indulge in luxuries. Horses and cattle, seed, plants, and instruments of agriculture occasionally formed a part of the cargo of the outgoing vessels, and slaves, both black and white, as we have seen in a previous volume. These exports were encouraged by an absolute freedom from duties during the first half of the sixteenth century and by the opening of other ports of the realm to the West India trafific' The vessels returned from the Indies loaded with brazil and other native woods, dye-stuffs, medicinal herbs, cotton, hides, gold, and silver, and articles of native production.

It is difficult at this distance of time, and with the limited data at our command, to determine with any approach to exactitude the value of the precious metals exported from Spanish America to the mother country during the first half of the sixteenth century. Moncada states that by 1595 two thousand millions of registered gold and silver had entered Spain from the Indies since their discovery,^ and Navarette, writing in 1626, asserts

' D. Rafael Antunez y Acevedo. Metnorias Hist6ricas sobre la Legislacidn y Gobierno del Contercio de los Espaiioles con sus Colonias en las Indias Occidentales, Madrid, 1797, pp. i, 3.

^Antunez, ibid., pp. 21, 24. The cedula of January 15, 1529, opened nine ports in addition to that of Cadiz. This privilege appears to have fallen into disuse, ovv^ing, among other reasons, to the necessity of sailing in convoy and the imposition of export duties. It was revoked in 1573. Ibid., pp. II, 13, 20, 22, The cedula is given in full, ibid.. Appendix, p. i. See E. G. Bourne, " Spain in America," New York, 1904, in The American Nation: A History, vol. iii., pp. 282-284, for Spain's colonial commerce during this period.

^ Sancho de Moncada. Restanracidn Politica de Espafia, Primera Parte, Deseos Publicos al Rey Don Filipe Tercero nuestro seiior, Madrid, 1619. " Discurso Tercero," cap. i., fol. 21b.

that during the century comprised between the years 1519 and 1617 this imported wealth amounted to 1536 millions.' As the new country became known and the mines were discovered and worked, the annual importations of the precious metals, though comparatively small at first, increased rapidly. It is reported that during four years of the period which we are now considering (1564, 1566, 1567, and 1568) something like thirty and a half million dollars found their way into Spain, an estimate which does not include quantities of jewels and precious stones. This was an enormous sum, when we consider that its purchasing power was perhaps fourfold what it is to-day. What may have been the total value of the unregistered wealth surreptitiously introduced into the kingdom from the same sources through the connivances of interested and dishonest officials, it is naturally impossible to determine. Unquestionably it must have been very great when we consider the facilities that were offered for defrauding the revenue.*

Spain quickly recognised that her increasing prosperity could not be displayed with impunity before the greedy eyes of her less fortunate neighbours. Neither was she slow in taking the necessary precautions. " En boca cerrada no entran moscas," says the Spanish proverb, and in two different directions did Spain strive to exclude these buzzing flies from her succulent morsels, that she might close to them every channel of information concerning her West Indian possessions. In the first place, she sought to prevent the publication of all charts and maps which could indicate the way thither. This did not arise from any absence of information concerning her distant domains. As the discoveries progressed the mass

' Pedro Fernandez Navarette, Conservacidn de Monarquias, Madrid, 1626, p. 143. And see Humboldt, Etisayo Politico, tomo iii., p. 316 ; E. G, Bourne, "Spain in America," p. 301.

' See Appendix A. Registered Gold and Silver imported into Spain from the West Indies.

of geographical material accumulated by Spanish mariners and explorers became accessible to the map makers, for masters of vessels and pilots were required to keep a record of their journeys for the purpose of facilitating the navigation of the Atlantic' A register was kept of all the islands, bays, shoals, and ports, their contours and locations, and the distance of the voyages to the Indies, which was deposited in the Casa de Contrataci6n in Seville there to be "well guarded and concealed " *; every precaution was taken to see that pilots and masters of vessels were thoroughly equipped with all the nautical knowledge and the instruments pertaining to their art, and discoverers were ordered to forward a full and complete relation of all they had done to the Council of the Indies/ As early as 15 ii it was forbidden to supply foreigners with charts or maps,^ and in 1527 Charles V. enacted that even pictures and descriptions of the Indies should not be sold or given to them without special licence/ Such was the secretiveness of the authorities that no official map of the western discoveries was published in Spain until the year 1790, and it has been thought that this reticence on the part of the Government may have led to the suppression of Peter Martyr's First Decade and of the La Cosa Map, which was in some of the copies/

' Herrera, Historia de las Indias Occidentales , Madrid, 1730, tomo ii., dec. 4, lib. ii., cap. vi., p. 32, 1527.

* Recopilacidn de Leyes de los Reinos de las Indias, Madrid, 1841, lib. ix., tit. xxiii., ley 12, tomo ii., p. 303.

^ Ibid., lib. iv., tit. i., ley 14, 1542, tomo ii., p. 95. For early regulations of this description see Final Report of Investigations among the Indians of the Southzvestern United States, Carried on Mainly in the Years from j88o to i88j, By A. F. Bandelier, part i., p. 45, note i. See also Henry Harrisse, The Discovery of North America, pp. 11-17.

■• Winsor, Narr. and Crit. Hist. Am., vol. ii., p. 113, note 3.

^Recopilacidn, lib. ix., tit. xxiii., ley 14, tomo iii., p. 303; Kohl's essay on the Ribero Map in Maine Hist. Col., 2d series, vol. i., p. 302.

*J. C. Brevoort, in his "Notes on the Verrazano Map" {Journal of the Am. Geographical Soc. of New York, 1873, vol. iv,, p. 240,) and in

The other precaution taken was the total exclusion of foreigners from the crews of vessels sailing to the West Indies. Masters of vessels were required to be natives of Castile, Aragon, or Navarre, and no foreigners were permitted to hold the office.' No foreign sailors were allowed in the armadas and fleets sailing to the Indies, and officers were commissioned with authority to visit the outgoing vessels in order to assure themselves of the due execution of the law and to prevent their embarkation.* Finally the exclusion of foreigners from the Indies in any other capacity except under licence was rigorously enacted.' But the sheen of the gold was too dazzling to be hidden in this ostrich-like fashion, and in a hundred different ways the story of Spain's newly acquired wealth reached the outer world, and the knowledge of it spread. The French ambassador at Madrid, M. de Fourquevaux, kept his Most Christian Majesty fully informed of the expected treasure fleets from Peru and Mexico and of their arrival.* The banks at Lyons were also advised of the same." Portuguese agents sought to bribe Spanish pilots to show them the way.' French pilots went to Seville and se-

Verrazano the Navigator, New York, 1874, p. 102, cited also in Narr. and Crit. Hist. Am., vol. ii., p. 113, notes 2 and 3.

' Recopilacidn, lib, ix., tit. xxiii., ley 4, 1527, tomo iii., p. 303.

^ Recopilacidn, lib. iv., tit. ii., ley i, 1501 and 1526, tomo ii., p. 96; ibid., tit. i., ley 3, tomo ii. p. 93, and lib. ix., tit. xxvi., ley i, 1560, tomo iv., p. I. Instructions given to Ovando, September 17, 1501. Instructions given to the Casa de Contratacion by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1510. Antunez, Memorias, pp. 41-42, 268 et seq. E. G. Bourne, "Spain in America," New York, 1904, in The American Nation : A History, vol, iii., p. 245, instances some of the exceptions.

^ D^peches de M. de Fourquevaux A mbassadeur du Roi Charles IX. en Espagne 1563-1372, publiees par M. I'Abbe Douais, Paris, 1S96, pp. 97, 124, 126, et passim.

^ Alava i Philippe II., Lyon, 22 Juillet, 1564, MS. Arch. Nat., Paris, K, 1502 (id).

* Herrera, tomo i., dec. i., lib. vii., cap. iii., p. 197.

cretly made the voyage to the Indies as sailors on Spanish vessels.' Shipwrecked mariners and unsuccessful colonists rescued by passing vessels brought their knowledge to the country of their rescuers, while paid spies and informers were employed by the countries interested in obtaining such information.

With the rapid extension and increase of this traffic the high seas were soon filled with vessels of other nationalities preying upon it. To these France and England contributed the greatest number. During the first half of the century France and Spain, it is true, were almost continually at war with each other except for brief intervals of peace in which to recover breath. England was ostensibly at peace with Spain for the entire period. But the piratical subjects of both countries, acting apparently in defiance of the wishes of the home Government, were in reality often in secret connivance with interested ofificials of the most exalted position. The French corsair, Jean Florin, identified by some authorities with the explorer Verrazano, captured the treasures sent home by Cortes ^ ; French pirates sank Spanish vessels which were coming from Peru,^ or made a bold descent upon Havana * ; the announcement was made of the fitting out of a

' Christobal de Haro to Charles V., April 8, 1541, MS. Arch, Gen. de Indias, Sevilla, est. 143, caj. 3, leg. 11.

'^ Narr. and Crit. Hist. Am., vol. iv., pp. 5, 21, 1523. E. G. Bourne (" Spain in America," New York, 1904, in The American Nation: A History, vol. iii., p. 143, note 3) says the identity of Verrazano v^rith Florin has been disproved by Peragallo, Bull, of the Sac. Geog. Ital., 3d series, vol. ix., p. 189, and had never any documentary evidence to rest on.

' " Reponses du ministere de France a diverses reclamations presentees au nom de I'Empereur par Jean de Saint Mauris, son ambassadeur {1545, avril ou mai)." Sans date. Papiers d'Etat du Cardinal de Granvelle d^apres les manuscrits de la Biblioth}que de Besancon, publics sous la direction de M. Ch. Weiss. Paris, 1S41, vol. iii., p. 140.

* " Relacion de lo subcedido en la Habana, cerca de la entrada deles- Franceses en ella." In Coleccidn de varios Documenios para la Historia de la Florida y Tierras adyacentes, By Buckingham Smith, Londres (1857 ?), tomo i., p. 202.

lo The Spanish 'Settlements

fleet in England for the purpose of sacking the island of Madeira." The cutting out of a treasure ship of the fleet returning from the Indies' became of such frequent occurrence that as early as 1541 Spain sought to obtain from the English Government a statute forbidding the sailing of any armed vessels from its ports for Brazil or the Indies without security being given by their commanders that they would not molest Spanish subjects. '

Particularly exposed to depredations of this nature were the many vessels which, shipping hides, sugar, and cassia in the islands of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, threaded the Gulf of Mexico to carry their merchandise to Tierra Firma, Honduras, and Spain. These vessels were unwilling to sail home in convoy with the fleet which gathered at Havana for that purpose, because it would involve them in serious delay ; and thus, compelled to return unattended with the money which they had obtained in exchange for their merchandise, they fell an easy prey to the pirates infesting the Gulf of Mexico.*

Necessity soon pointed the way to a method of selfprotection, and very early in the course of the century it became customary for the vessels going to and arriving from the Indies to sail together in company in order to

' " Copia de carta de Su Majestad al Conde de Feria, fechaen Bruselas a 24 de Abril de 1559 " in Coleccidii de Docitmentos InMitos para la Historia de Espaiia, por el Marques de la Fuensanta del Valle, D. Jose Sancho Rayon y D. Francisco de Zabalburu, tomo Ixxxvii., pag. 176.

' "Capitulo de carta del Obispo Quadra a S. M. de 16 de Agosto de 1561," in Col. Doc. In^dit. Hist. Espaiia, tomo Ixxxvii., pag. 364.

^Eustace Chapuys to the Queen Regent, Jan. 2 (4), 1541, London, in Calandar of State Papers, Spanish, vol. vi., Pt. I., p. 304.

'' Pero Menendez (de Aviles) sobrel Remedio, pa. q haya muchos nabios (undated), Rrit. Mas. Add. MSS. 28, 366, fol. 299b. The letter appears from internal evidence to have been written at some date between July, 1 561, and the spring (?) of 1562, prior to any Spanish knowledge of the French occupation of Florida, Aviles being then in Spain, having returned, from his second voyage to the Indies.

afford one another mutual protection.' It was one of the duties of the visitador of the Casa de Contrataci6n not only to see that the vessels were properly equipped with a crew and supplies for the long voyage, but also that they carried arms and ammunition with which to encounter the sea-robber.' But as the sailing together of the vessels was not compulsory, individual ships or a small company of two or three would set out under a special permit and meet their fate at the hands of the pirates, to whom they could offer no effective resistance. A stop was at last put to this by royal c^dula of July l6, 1 561. It was enacted that in January and August of every year two expeditions should sail from the rio de Sevilla, the one called the Fleet of New Spain, with destination for the Antilles and the Gulf of Mexico, and the other called the Fleet of Tierra Firme for Carthagena. The two fleets were to proceed together under the command of an admiral, and on arriving off Dominica, the vessels destined for New Spain were to divide from those destined for Tierra Firme, with the General of the fleet in command of the one and the Admiral of the other.'

Another danger to which the merchant fleet was exposed arose from the selfishness of individual captains who endeavoured to save themselves at the expense of their companions. On an attack of the pirates the vessels would disperse like a flock of frightened sheep, those that were swift and light abandoning those that were slow and more heavily laden to the mercy of the enemy ; and the rumour of the presence of a pirate in the neighbourhood of a port would inspire them with such terror that

' Antunez, Memorias, pp. 83, 84, thinks it dates from the beginning of the commerce of the West Indies.

"^ Ibid., pp. 59, 61, 69, and see also the cedula of Feb. 13, 1552, ibid., p. 16.

^ Ibid., p. 85; Disquisiciones Nduticas, por Cesareo Fernandez Duro, Madrid, 1877, p. 169.

it would delay the sailing for days. To this danger the fleet was particularly exposed in time of war, and in 1521 an armada was sent to protect the merchantmen arriving from the Indies, owing to the presence of French vessels off the coast of Andalusia and of Algarve.' The following year an armada was sent as far as the Canaries to convoy the outgoing India fleet. In 1532, fearing the revival of a war with France, an armada was raised to protect the vessels arriving from the Indies. In 1552 it was provided that an armada of four galleons and two caravels should escort the fleet, a second be raised in Santo Domingo for the protection of the coasts, and a third be stationed off Cape St. Vincent in Spain to guard against pirates.' Finally, under the c^dulas of July 15, 1561, which regulated the sailing of the fleets, and another of October 18, 1564, arose the Armada de las Carreras de las Indias^ whose duty it was to escort the fleets on their way to the Indies. It then awaited in Havana the gathering of the various vessels and treasure ships from Tierra Firma and New Spain, and accompanied the treasure fleet and the merchantmen, who sought its protection on their return passage across the ocean. ^

The fleets sailed twice a year from Havana during the summer season, passed northward through the Straits of Florida, or the Bahama Channel as it was then generally called, until they reached the neighbourhood of Bermuda, when they set their course for the Azores and from thence to Seville.^ The passage through the Channel,

' Ilerrera, tomo ii., dec. 3, lib. i., cap. xiv., p. 23.

^ Duro, Disquisiciones, pp. 167, 168; Antunez, Memorias, pp. 20, 178.

^ Antunez, Memorias, pp. 15, 16; Recopilacidn, lib. ix., tit. xxx., ley 55, tomo iii., p. 49.

•* Pero Menendez (de Aviles), sobrel Remedio, pa. q haya muchos nabios, Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 28, 366, fol. aggb ; Duro, Disquisiciones , p. 168.

^ Pero Menendez {de Aviles) sobrel Ketnedio, fol. 2ggb. Derrotero y senas de tierra y sondas de la costa de la nueua espana y de tierra firme y buelta de las yndias a espana . . . por fran'^° manucl . . . empesose a 15 de discovered by Ponce de Leon ' in his first expedition, was considered a dangerous one ' on account of the prevalence of violent storms at certain seasons of the year, the roughness of its waters, and the ever-present peril of the reefs at its entrance, the Martyr Islands of the early maps. In its narrowest part it is but thirty-nine miles wide, and from the earliest times that its blue and tepid currents were ploughed by the keels of the Spanish galleons the wreckage along the Florida coast attested its terrors to navigators. So fatal was the Channel to merchantmen and treasure fleets, that in the course of the following century the assistance rendered to Spaniards cast away on the Florida shore, the large number of lives rescued, and the watch kept upon the passing vessels by the coast Indians, subject to the Spanish rule at St. Augustine, were perhaps the most powerful of all the arguments presented by the Spanish inhabitants of Florida against the abandonment of the colony. Even prior to the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine, and shortly after Menendez de Avil^s returned from his second voyage to the West Indies, he had begun to urge upon the King the necessity of locating and establishing ports of refuge in the neighbourhood of the Channel, where vessels disabled in its passage and in the region of the "still vex'd Bermothes" could put in for repairs, and thus avoid the long and perilous return to Puerto Rico.' It is not difficult to conceive with what apprehension the Government viewed the possibility of the establishment of a piratical band in

abril ano del seilor 1583 as. Brit. Mus. Add, MSS., 28, 189, and see earlier maps. J. C. Brevoort in his " Notes on the Verrazano Map " {Journal of the Am. Geographical Soc. of New York, 1S73, vol. iv., p. 239,) and in Verrazatio, the Navigator, New York, 1874, p. loi, gives a good note on the routes to and from the West Indies. Gomara, Histoire G^n^rale des Indes Occidentales. Ed. Fumee, Paris, 1587, liv. vi., chap, xxvi., p. 479 et seq. ' Herrera, tomo i., dec. i., lib. ix., cap. xii., p. 250.

* Antunez, Memorias, p. 91.

* Pero Menendez {de AviUs) sobrel Remedio, fol. 300b.

some stronghold along the shore, within easy reach of the golden flood which at stated intervals flowed through the Channel, or the passing of the Floridian Peninsula and the territory to the north of it into the grasp of another nation with as keen an appetite for the yellow metal as its own, even though it might be a Catholic power and friendly for the time being.

Another and very imminent danger attendant upon any settlement by a foreign power in the vicinity of the West Indies and of the route of the treasure ships arose from conditions peculiar to the population which at that time occupied the Spanish colonies, a danger which pointed more particularly to France. As early as 15 14 the rapid increase of the negro slaves in Hispaniola had already become a source of fear to the white population, and measures had been taken to prevent it ; ' this as well as the slave insurrection in Ayllon's colony,* probably the first of its kind within our country, indicate but too clearly the treatment to which the negro population was subjected at the hands of its masters. By 1560 the natural increase of that prolific race, coupled with the constant inflow brought by the slave-traders, had created a most alarming preponderance in their number over that of the whites. Says Men^ndez de Aviles in his letter to the King, previously referred to :

" In the Island of Puerto Rico there are above 15,000 negroes and less than 500 Spaniards, and in all of the Island of Hispaniola there may be 2000 Spaniards and there are over 30,000 negroes, , , . the same is the case in the island of Cuba and in Veracruz, Puerto de Cavallos, which is in Honduras, and in Nombre de Dios, Carthagena, Santa Maria, and the coast of Venezuela, where there are twenty negroes to one white man, and with the lapse of time they will increase to a great many more."

And then he points the moral and lays bare the danger.

" In France no negro is a slave, neither can he become one by law of the realm. Were France to arm three or four thousand men they would be masters of all these islands, and ports of Tierra Firma; for the city of Santo Domingo, which is the strongest, is easily taken, in spite of the fort, bulwarks, and. artillery; and 500 harquebus men — for the honour of the city I do not say fewer — could take it with ease, and by freeing the negroes, most of whom are ladinos * and natives of the land, and by liberating them, so that they be no longer slaves, they would kill their own masters, and put all their faith in the French, because the French had made them free." '

Men^ndez was wise and timely in his warning against French aggression, as we shall soon see.

France, England, and Portugal had all turned their eyes on the New World, were spying out its possibilities, and seeking to reap what advantage they could from the knowledge so obtained. Of the three powers mentioned, England was, for the time being, the least to be dreaded. Although the Cabot expedition had called forth a protest from Spain, the charters for discovery and colonisation granted to him and others were "without prejudice to Spain and Portugal," and respected the papal bull of demarkation. The early part of the sixteenth century was spent in building up the English navy as a distinct service, and the country was largely occupied with its revolt from Rome, the final success of which was instrumental in breaking down the respect for the papal bull which had stood in the way of England's discovery and colonisation.