Circumstances prevented his return, and it was not until 1564 that Laudonniere, with three vessels and a larger number of Huguenots, came prepared to make a permanent settlement of the country. He also came first to the River of Dolphins, and thence to the St. John’s, called by them the River May, and after some delay in further explorations of the coast decided to plant his settlement on the St. John’s, where he constructed a fort which he named Fort Caroline, on the south bank of the river, a few miles from its mouth. The colony, however, failed to obtain from the soil or the sea sufficient food, and were about abandoning the country in the following year, when Ribaut arrived with a larger and better class of people, to reinforce Laudonniere’s settlement. In the meantime, the Spanish sovereign had learned of these Huguenot expeditions, and of their encroachment upon a territory which he claimed for Spain by right of discovery, and at once set on foot an expedition under the command of Pedro Menendez to drive out of Florida the French Huguenots, whose faith he regarded with detestation. Both the French and Spanish fleets came upon the coast of Florida about the same time. Ribaut passed St. Augustine and anchored off St. John’s bar. Menendez followed and exchanged a few shots with Ribaut’s vessels, and retired to the harbor of St. Augustine, where he landed his forces, occupying an Indian village called Selooe, which seems to have stood about half a mile north of the fort, upon a tidal creek. [Illustration: OLD FORGE.] Ribaut, learning of the landing of Menendez’s 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 Lutherans.” Some twenty or more escaped with Laudonniere to two vessels at the mouth of the river and thence to France.