Note 1036 — Chapter XI

On April 3, 1565, St. Sulpice sent word to Charles IX that Philip II had sent Menendez to Florida “avec une bonne flotte et 600 hommes pour combattre les Français et les passer au fil de l’épée.”—L’Ambassade de St. Sulpice, 364. When Fourquevaux succeeded him the French government had not yet learned of the massacre. St. Sulpice’s fragmentary information is to be found at pp. 400, 401, 404, 414. The abortive efforts of France to secure redress are spread at length in Corresp. de Catherine de Médicis, II, 209, 330, 337, 338, 341, 342, 360; and in Fourquevaux, I, Nos. 4-7, 9, 15, 21, 28, 43, 47, 55, 66. The editor’s account in the Introd., xv-xxi is admirable. In the Correspondencia española, II, 126-28, is to be found Philip II’s letter to Chantonnay, February 28, 1566, in reply to the ambassador’s letter of advice about Coligny’s enterprise. The blood of French colonists who had been massacred in Florida cried out for vengeance, and from the hour of its knowledge the subject of reprisal was a matter of common talk in the Norman ports (C.S.P. Dom., Add., XIII, 227). On September 24, 1566, Sir Amyas Paulet, the English ambassador informed his government that he had information that a squadron was about to sail for this purpose, although it was “late for so long a voyage” (ibid., 31). On the whole history of this ill-fated colony see Gaillard, “La reprise de la Floride faite par le capit. Gourgues (1568),” Notices et extr. des manuscr. de la Biblioth. Nat., IV, and VII (1799); Gourgues, La reprise de la Floride, publiée avec les variantes, sur les MSS de la Bibl. Nat. par Ph. Tamizey de Larroque, 1867; Gafferel, Histoire de la Floride française, 1875; Parkman, The French in North America. The newest literature upon the subject is Woodbury Lowery, “Jean Ribaut and Queen Elizabeth,” American Historical Review, April, 1904, and the same author’s The Spanish Settlements within the Present Limits of the United States: Florida, 1562-74 (New York, 1905).