Availing himself of the force now at his command, Menendez set out on an expedition to establish forts and missionary stations at different points along the coast, as had been his intention since his first landing in Florida. Several of these posts were at this time established by him in the territory then embraced in Florida, the most northerly station being on the Chesapeake Bay, which was the northern boundary of the possessions claimed by Spain. Priests or friars were left at each of these stations to instruct the Indians. While establishing these missionary posts for introducing Christianity among the Indians, Menendez became convinced that if the establishments were to be maintained, and the most important work of teaching the natives continued, he must have larger means and greater forces at his command. Hoping to obtain this aid from his sovereign, he set out for Spain in the spring of 1567. Upon his arrival he was welcomed by the king with many flattering attentions and assurances of aid in the furtherance of his plans for propagating the Catholic faith. CHAPTER IX. EXPEDITION AND RETALIATION OF DE GOURGES. While Menendez was occupied in Spain in forwarding the interests of his colony, in France plans were being formed and a secret enterprise undertaken for an attack on the Spanish posts in Florida. Most inflammatory and exaggerated accounts of the massacre at Fort Carolin had been published throughout France. One account says of the Spaniards that, after taking the fort, “and finding no more men, they assailed the poor women, and after having by force and violence abused the greater part, they destroyed them, and cut the throats of the little children indiscriminately, ... they took as many of them alive as they could, and having kept them for three days without giving them anything to eat, and having made them undergo all the tortures and all the mockings that could be devised, they hung them up to some trees that were near the fort. They even flayed the king’s lieutenant and sent his skin to the King of Spain, and having torn out his eyes, blackened with their blows, they fastened them on the points of their daggers, and tried who could throw them the greatest distance.”[6] The French king had refused to listen to the appeals of the relatives and friends of the Huguenots who had been exterminated 57 in Florida; but, distressed by the destruction of their countrymen and the harrowing accounts of the massacre, many of the nation had long felt it a mortification that an outrage so gross should have received neither redress nor rebuke.