Having come to the mouth of the inlet one of the Frenchmen swam across, and reported that the party there assembled belonged to one of the vessels of Ribault’s fleet. Menendez returned the man in a boat, and offered a pledge of safety to the French captain and four or five of his lieutenants who might choose to cross over and hold an interview. Upon this pledge the captain crossed over in the boat with four of his companions. These begged of Menendez that he would provide them with boats that they might cross that inlet and the one at St. Augustine, and return to their fort, twenty leagues to the north. Upon this Menendez informed them of the capture of the fort and the destruction of the garrison. The captain thereupon besought that they be furnished with a vessel to return to France, observing that the French and Spanish kings were loving brothers and the two nations at peace. Menendez, in reply, asked if they were Catholics; to which it was answered that they were of the New Religion. Then Menendez answered that if they had been Catholics he would feel that he was serving his king in doing them kindness, but Protestants he considered as enemies against which he should wage war unceasingly, both against them, and against all that should come into the territory of which he was adelantado, having come to these shores in the service of his king, to plant the Holy Faith, in order that the savages might be brought to a knowledge of the Holy Catholic religion. Upon hearing this, the captain and his men desired to return and report the same to their companions, and were accordingly sent back in the boat. Soon after observing signals or signs from the opposite shore, the boat was sent over to know what was their pleasure.