Following out the instructions of Menendez, De las Alas, now governor of Florida, assembled a council from the different missions in the province for the purpose of considering methods of extending the Catholic faith. In pursuance of the advice of this council embassies were sent to all the tribes of Indians for several hundred miles around St. Augustine. Spanish garrisons and many Spanish monks to teach the Indians had already been received into the towns east of the Appalachicola River. In 1583 the Chickasaws, Tocoposcas, Apacas, Tamaicas, Apiscas and Alabamas, received the missionaries. At this period the Catholic faith was recognized as far west as the Mississippi, and as far north as the mountains of Georgia. The Franciscans and Dominicans had been the first to represent the monks in the New World. Afterward came the Fathers of Mercy, the Augustines, and the Jesuits. Although Florida was included in the diocese of the Bishop of Cuba, it was decided to establish a convent of the Order of St. Francis at St. Augustine. I find the name originally given this convent was the “Conception of Our Lady,” though it is generally referred to as St. Helena. This name St. Helena was applied to all the establishments throughout the province, of which the great Franciscan house at St. Augustine was to be the center. Sailing in September, 1585, there arrived soon after in the West Indies a fleet of twenty-six vessels which had been fitted out by private persons in England to cruise against the Spanish commerce, and placed under the command of Sir Francis Drake, with the vice-admirals Frobisher and Knolles. After sacking St. Jago, raising a contribution of twenty-five thousand ducats on St. Domingo, and doing great injury to the Spanish shipping in the Caribbean Seas, they steered for Florida on their homeward voyage. Passing up the coast when abreast Anastatia Island, on the 8th of May, 1586, they sighted a tower or look-out station on the shore. Satisfied that it was some Spanish station the admiral ordered the boats manned and landed a body of troops on the island. Advancing toward the look-out, they perceived across the bay a fort, and further up a town built of wood. In defiance of King Philip’s order prohibiting foreigners, on pain of death, from setting foot in the province of Florida, the admiral sent General Carlisle, of the land forces, with a small body of soldiers to enter the town.