Ribault, on leaving Port Royal, intended to explore up the coast to 40°, that is, to the present site of New York, but gives various reasons for not doing so, one of which was 'the declaration made vnto vs of our pilots and some others that had before been at some of those places where we purposed to sayle and have been already found by some of the king's subjects.' This little colony of Port Royal, after nearly a year of danger and privation, built a ship and put to sea, hoping to reach France. After incredible sufferings, they were relieved by an English ship, which, after putting the feeble on shore, carried the rest to England, having on board a French sailor who had come home the previous year with Ribault. These surviving colonists were all presented to Queen Elizabeth, and attracted much attention and great sympathy in England. Some found their way back to France, while others entered the English service. Thus England became acquainted with the aim, object, success, and failure of the first Florida (now South Carolina) Protestant French colony. Thomas Hacket published in London the 30th of May 1563, Ribault's 'True and last Discouerie of Florida,' purporting to be a translation from the French; but no printed French original is now known to exist.
The year of bigotry, 1563, in France having passed, a second expedition of three vessels under Réné de Laudonnière, who had been an officer under Ribault in 1562, sailed for Florida from Havre, April 22, 1564, and arrived at the river of May the 25th of June. There were men of courage and consequence in this company of adventurers, among whom was Le Moyne, the painter and mathematician. The story of the sufferings of this second colony has often been told, and need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that it was greatly relieved in July 1565, by Captain John Hawkins on his return voyage from his second famous slave expedition to Africa and the West Indies. Hawkins, after generously relieving the French with food, general supplies, and friendly counsel, returned to Devonshire, sailing up the coast to Newfoundland, and thence home, bringing stores of gold, silver, pearls, and the usual valuable merchandize of the Indies, but the store of information respecting Florida and our Protestant friends, and especially the geography of the American coast, was worth more to England than all his vast store of merchandize.
In 1565 a third French expedition was fitted out, again under Ribault, to supply, reinforce, and support Laudonnière. After many disappointing and vexatious delays, Ribault, late in the season, put to sea, but by stress of weather was forced into Portsmouth, where he remained a fortnight. This gave England still more information respecting the French Protestant projects of southern colonization, as well as of Florida, which at that time extended very far north of its present limits. At length on the 14th of June Ribault left the hospitable shores of England with a fair north east wind to waft his seven ships, freighted with above three hundred colonists including sailors and soldiers, and taking the new ' French route' north of the Azores and south of Bermuda, entered the river of May on the 27th of August, just one month after the departure of Hawkins, and just one day before the arrival of the Spaniards at the river of St John, a few miles south.
We find no hint of any opposition in England to these French colonizing schemes, but on the contrary they were looked upon as an advantageous barrier to Spanish greed of territorial extension northward under the vicegerent's gift. There are still existing hints of English projects of western voyages at this time, about the year 1565, to the American coast. Elizabeth, however, was friendly to the Huguenots, and evinced great sympathy with their Florida colonial scheme. England's claim to Newfoundland and Labrador, through discovery by the Cabots, had been allowed to lapse chiefly from the Protestant doctrine of non-occupation. The French occupation of Canada was not disputed. There was some doubt, however, about the intermediate country between the New France of Canada and the New France of Florida, and hence we find that private plans of English occupation were hatching at this early period, but they were not encouraged. This delicate question between France and Spain was, however, soon settled by the well known course of events with which England had nothing to do but to stand aside till the contest was over, and then in due course of time, like an independent powerful neutral, step in and reap the rewards.
It is well known that Laudonnière's followers were not altogether harmonious. Some restless spirits seceded, and seizing one of the colony's ships, entered successfully in the autumn and winter of 1564-65 into piracy on the rich commerce of Spain in the West Indies. These French spoliations had been a sore point with the owners of West India commerce since the days of Verrazano, so much so that the Spanish Government had instituted a fleet of coastguards among the islands to intercept and destroy the pirates. This fleet for some time had been under the charge of an experienced, trusted, and efficient officer named Pedro Menendez de Avilés. No doubt the provocation was great, and the new piracy was not to be endured. The home government of Spain had been kept informed of the Huguenot encroachments in Florida, a country which had long ago been granted to Ponce de Leon, Ayllon and others, and had been coasted by Estevan Gomez, but these encroachments had hitherto been so long winked at that the French colonists began to feel themselves to be in tolerable security.
French piracy and Calvinism, however, coming together were two provocations too much for the patriotism and piety of the zealous Roman Catholic Spanish commander in the West Indies. Besides, there was a sorrow which roused his Spanish bigotry and induced him more than ever to serve God and his king by exterminating heresy. Don Pedro, with his new honors and high hopes, had left Cadiz on the 31st of May 1564, as Captain-General of the West India, the Terra Firma, the Peruvian, and the New-Spain fleets, his son under him commanding the ships to Vera Cruz. This son on the homeward voyage in the autumn had been lost on the rocks of Bermuda. This circumstance, with the Florida pirates, the heretic French and his Spanish love of barbaric gold, fired his zeal.
The General rushed home to Spain for new powers. Early in 1565 he stood again before Philip petition in hand. Besides his present dignities he would be Adelantado of Florida. Florida in Spanish eyes extended not only to St. Mary's or the Bay of Chesapeake, but even to Newfoundland, so as to embrace the whole northern continent west of the line of demarcation. Philip had heard not only of Laudonnière and the French Huguenots the last year, but was informed of Ribault's new reinforcing expedition from Dieppe. He at once not only granted the General's request, but enlarged his powers from time to time as additional news came in of the French. Don Pedro became indeed a royal favourite. He was now a veteran of forty-seven, who had done Philip and his father personal service. He had cruised against blockaders and corsairs in early youth, had convoyed richly-laden plate fleets from the Indies; had turned the scale of victory at StQuintin in 1557 by suddenly throwing Spanish troops into Flanders greatly to the advantage of Philip; was the commanding general of the armada in which the king returned in 1559 from Flanders to Spain; had been made in 1560 captain-general of the convoy or protecting fleets between Spain and the West Indies, in which there was much active business in guarding Spanish commerce from corsairs. In spoiling these spoilers the general amassed much wealth, and was acknowledged the protector of the islands and their commerce. In 1561 he had fallen into some difficulty which caused his arrest by the Council of the Indies, but the king came to his rescue, restored his appointments, and promoted him in 1562 and 1563, and still more, as we have seen, in 1564. In 1565 Philip gave him almost unlimited power over Florida, with directions to conquer, colonize, Christianize, explore and survey, and all these too at his own expense. Such is the fascination of royal grants. He was given three years to perform these wonders, in which so many others had failed. He was to survey the coasts up to Chesapeake Bay, explore inlets and find out the hidden straits to Cathay. Thus armed and instructed this Spanish pioneer of Virginia history and geography returned to his native Asturias, raised an army, manned and fitted out a fleet with many soldiers and sailors, and 500 negro slaves. He embarked at Cadiz with eleven ships on the 29th of June 1565,