Little did these innocent folk imagine what was brewing in Spain. The raid of French pirates upon the Jamaican coast had promptly been reported by the Adelantado of that island. Spanish spies at the French court had carefully noted the movements of Coligny and Ribault. Pedro Menendez de Avila, raising money and men in his native province of Asturia in Spain for the conquest of all Florida, learned with horror and indignation that its virgin soil had already been polluted by heretic Frenchmen. Menendez had in that very year gained permission from the King of Spain to conquer and convert this land at his own cost. In return he was to have free trade with the whole Spanish empire, and the title of Adelantado or governor of Florida for life--absolute power over all of America north of Mexico, for Spain had never recognized any right of France or England in the region discovered by Cabot, Cartier, Verrazzano or others. Menendez was allowed three years for his tremendous task. He was to take with him five hundred men and as many slaves, a suitable supply of horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, and provisions, and sixteen priests, four of whom were to be Jesuits. He had also to find ships to convey this great expedition. But Menendez had been playing for big stakes all his life. He was only ten years old when he ran away and went to sea on a Barbary pirate ship. While yet a lad he was captain of a ship of his own, fighting pirates and French privateers. He had served in the West Indies and he had commanded fleets. King Philip had never really understood the enormous possibilities of Florida until Menendez explained them to him. The soil was fertile, the climate good, there might be valuable mines, and there were above all countless heathen whom it was the deepest desire of Menendez to convert to the true faith. In this last statement he was as sincere as he was in the others. He expected to do in Florida what Cortes had done in Mexico. Now heresy, the unpardonable sin, burned out and stamped out in Spain, had appeared in the province which he had bound himself at the cost of a million ducats to make Spanish and Catholic. With furious energy he pushed on the work of preparation.