The site of the Huguenot colony was named Fort Caroline. De Gourgas was a Roman Catholic and a Frenchman. He had been distinguished in public life, but had retired to the enjoyment of his repose, when, on learning the barbarous atrocities with which his countrymen on the St. John’s had been sacrificed to Spanish bigotry, he emerged from private life--again buckled on his armor for vengeance. At his own risk, he got up and fitted out an expedition. He sailed from France, with a chosen band of followers, to avenge the blood of his slaughtered countrymen. Between the years 1569 and ’74 he reached the coast of Florida--debarked his forces at the mouth of the St. John’s--carried several outworks--and finally inclosed the Fort, now occupied by a Spanish colony. He entered it, and the first sight that greeted his eyes, was the horrible vision of the skeleton forms of his murdered countrymen, their bones and sinews dangling from the limbs of the surrounding trees. Here too was the stone set up by Melendez, with its inscription. The bones and relics of the slaughtered Huguenots De Gourgas ordered to be buried. He then fell upon the Spaniards. Hardly one escaped; and their bodies he ordered to be hung in the places where those of his countrymen had been before suspended, and underneath De Gourgas wrote this inscription--“_Not as Spaniards, but as murderers._” He immediately returned to France. Thus the light of Protestantism, which had been first kindled by the fugitive Huguenots of France on the coast of Florida, in the southern extreme of these United States, was put out in the blood of those, who, as pioneers, were the torch-bearers of religious liberty, which was not to be again rekindled until it shot up from Puritan altars, and burst forth in the frozen north, where it was cherished and protected by chilling snows and frosts in those wintry wilds, till it had acquired force and intensity sufficient to spread its beams over the whole land. Such is the connection of this city and its founders, in its early history, with the early Protestant institutions of the republic! It can hardly be credible to an American citizen, that there is within the bounds of these United States a nook or corner so dark and blood-stained! Melendez, for twelve years, presided over the destinies of this town, directing his attention mainly to the subjection, and conversion to papal superstitions, of the aboriginal inhabitants, aided by the Franciscans, an order of monks. Their missions were established throughout the interior. An ancient monkish retreat, occupying the present site of the United States Barracks, was the head-quarters of the order in this city. A number of the missionaries, while on their passage from Cuba to this place, were wrecked on the bar at the entrance of this harbor, and in full view of their convent, and, with the crew of the vessel, were drowned. INCIDENTS IN THE SUBSEQUENT HISTORY.