In the meanwhile, a company of French Huguenots, in their flight from the bloodhounds of persecution, let loose upon them from the strong-holds of the Romish church, had found an asylum in the wilds of America, and as they supposed, on the banks of the St. John’s River in East Florida. Thither they had fled and planted their colony. Amid the desert wilds and pestilential vapors of the morasses of Florida, they fondly hoped to enjoy “freedom to worship God.” Delusive hope! Where could a poor Protestant hide from the wrath of the “great red Dragon,” breathing out fire and death to worry and destroy the saints, if the dens and caves of the earth could afford him no shelter in Europe? Melendez, whose piety had been fed on the blood of Protestants till it had become bloated with bigotry, smelling the scent of prey from afar, “collected a force of more than twenty-five hundred persons:--soldiers, sailors, priests, Jesuits, married men with their families, laborers and mechanics.”[3] With this company he embarked, not merely to found, but to root up and destroy a peaceful colony, solely because it was made up of the followers of Calvin, and not of the Pope! In traversing the Atlantic he encountered a storm. His ships were by it scattered; so that only one third of the number he embarked with from Spain reached the coast of Florida. It was on a day consecrated to the memory of St. Augustine, a venerable and pious father of the early ages of Christianity, that he came in sight of the coast of Florida. Four days he sailed along this coast; and on the fifth he landed, having discovered a fine haven and harbor. TRANSACTIONS AT THE MOUTH OF THE ST. JOHN’S. Learning from the natives, the place where the French Huguenot colony had established itself, and the position of Fort Caroline on the banks of the St. John’s, and having named the harbor and haven here, where he first set foot on shore, St. Augustine, Melendez immediately sailed northward in quest of the infant Protestant community. Landonnier had conducted the expedition which had sought the shores of Florida, to find an asylum for the persecuted Protestants of France. Under the patronage of Admiral Coligni, he had on the 30th of June, in 1564, settled the mouth of the River St. John’s with Protestant refugees, and erected Fort Caroline. This place Ribaut had reached on a return voyage from France, a few days prior to the appearance of Melendez. Melendez purposed to seize by treachery the French shipping, which, however, by suddenly running to sea, eluded his grasp, and was soon after wrecked; being driven by a storm on the coast below, while menacing this place.