17. The next attempt to colonize Florida was in the year 1565. The enterprise was intrusted to PEDRO MENENDEZ, a Spanish soldier. He was commissioned by Philip II. to plant in some favorable district of Florida a colony of not less than five hundred persons, and was to receive two hundred and twenty-five square miles of land adjacent to the settlement. Twenty-five hundred persons joined the expedition. [Illustration: Pedro Menendez.] 18. The real object of Menendez was to destroy a colony of French Protestants, called Huguenots, who had made a settlement near the mouth of the St. John's River. This was within the limits of the territory claimed by Spain. The Catholic party of the French court had communicated with the Spanish court as to the whereabouts and intentions of the Huguenots, so that Menendez knew where to find and how to destroy them. [Sidenote: Founding of St. Augustine.] 19. It was St. Augustine's day when the Spaniards came in sight of the shore, and the harbor and river which enters it were named in honor of the saint. On the 8th day of September, Philip II. was proclaimed monarch of North America; a solemn mass was said by the priests; and the foundations of the oldest town in the United States were laid. This was seventeen years before the founding of Santa Fé, and forty-two years before the settlement at Jamestown. 20. Menendez soon turned his attention to the Huguenots. He collected his forces at St. Augustine, stole through the woods, and falling on the defenseless colony, utterly destroyed it. Men, women, and children were alike given up to butchery. Two hundred were massacred. A few escaped into the forest, Laudonniere, the Huguenot leader, among the number, and were picked up by two French ships. 21. The crews of the vessels were the next object of vengeance. Menendez discovered them, and deceiving them with treacherous promises, induced them to surrender. As they approached the Spanish fort a signal was given, and seven hundred defenceless victims were slain. Only a few mechanics and Catholic servants were left alive. 22. The Spaniards had now explored the coast from the Isthmus of Darien to Port Royal in South Carolina. They were acquainted with the country west of the Mississippi as far north as New Mexico and Missouri, and east of that river they had traversed the Gulf States as far as the mountain ranges of Tennessee and North Carolina. With the establishment of their first permanent colony on the coast of Florida, the period of Spanish voyage and discovery may be said to end. [Sidenote: Portuguese Explorations.] 23. A brief account of the only important voyages of the Portuguese to America will here be given. In 1495, John II., king of Portugal, was succeeded by his cousin Manuel, who, in order to secure some of the benefits which yet remained to discoverers, fitted out two vessels, and in the summer of 1501 sent GASPAR CORTEREAL to make a voyage to America.