In 1555 Menendez is found with an armed squadron guarding the trade fleets. He built at his own cost three ‘galleons’--the battleships of the day--and in 1561 was appointed Captain-General of the Indian Trade. The French were checked, and by strenuous endeavour something had been done when the English appeared on the scene. The Huguenots, driven from the West Indian Islands, established themselves at St. Augustine in Florida. Menendez’s untiring energy pursued them there, and in 1565 the colony was wiped out. Menendez’s grim cruelty was bitterly remembered. The Spanish Government, now beginning to rouse itself, issued orders that the principal vessels of the trade fleets were always to be armed, and twelve galleons were built for further protection, for the maintenance of which a special tax was levied on the Indies merchants. These galleons were the beginnings of the Spanish oceanic navy. The Spanish sea-service was full of grave defects. A Spanish warship was commanded by a military officer, whose special charge was the soldiery; gunnery was neglected and the seamen treated like galley-slaves. In these circumstances the Spanish galleon was comparatively ineffective against ships provided with good guns and gunners. Spain’s seafaring population, also, was not large, and since it was impossible to commandeer and arm a powerful force of her own merchant ships on an emergency, the Government was wont to seize foreign ships for the purpose, whose crews naturally embraced every opportunity of deserting. On the other hand, the English Navy was the natural product of seafaring instincts. It was not the outcome of policy, and was ruled by no jealously devised legal code comparable to that of Louis XIV. of France. It grew up almost imperceptibly without any clear conception of the process. The old feudal traditions gave way slowly, and in 1588 they still so far prevailed that a noble had to be made nominal Commander-in-Chief over the head of Drake, though, thanks to both, no disaster followed. But there has usually been a spirit of comradeship in English armaments largely or entirely lacking elsewhere, and this spirit was beginning to be felt under Elizabeth.