forces, determined to attack the Spanish vessels, which lay outside because of the low water on the bar, and thus cut off the Spanish force from molesting the French at Fort Caroline. He had hardly put to sea before he encountered a terrible storm, by which his vessels were driven down the coast and cast ashore.
Menendez, being apprised of Ribaut's movements, and satisfied that the French vessels would be either driven afar or wrecked on the coast, determined to take the initiative, march across the country and surprise Fort Caroline in its weakened condition, during Ribaut's absence. Guided by natives familiar with the country, he traversed the forty miles of low, flat woods, and reaching his destination in the early morning made a sudden attack upon the French fort and easily captured it. Moved by a morbid hatred of the French Protestants, as intruders on the Spanish territory, and still more as enemies to his faith and hence entitled to neither mercy nor compassion, most of them were slaughtered in the onset, and Menendez caused his prisoners to be hung on the neighboring trees, with an inscription that he did this to them "not as Frenchmen, but as
