Melendez promptly availed himself of the Providential event, to insist among his people upon the efficiency of his prayers. They had previously been desponding. They felt their isolation, and exaggerated its danger. The departure of their ships for Hispaniola, their frequent previous disasters, the dispersion of nearly two thirds of the squadron with which they had left the port of Cadiz, but three months before; the labors and privations which already began to press upon them with a novel force; all conspired to dispirit them, and made them despair of a progress in which they were likely to suffer the buffetings only, without any of the rewards of fortune;--and when they beheld the approaching squadron of the French, in force so superior as to leave no doubt of the capture of their only remaining vessels, they yielded themselves up to a feeling of utter self-abandonment, to which the stern, grave self-reliance of Melendez afforded no encouragement. But when, with broad sweep of arm, he pointed to the awful rising of the great billows of the sea, the wild raging of cloud and storm in the heavens, the scudding flight of the trembling ships of Ribault, their white wings gradually disappearing in distance and darkness like feeble birds borne recklessly forward in the wild fury of the tempest, he could, with wonderful potency, appeal to his people to acknowledge the wonders that the Lord had done for them that day. "Call you this the cause of our king only, in which we are engaged my brethren? Oh! shallow vanity! And yet, you say rightly. It is the cause of our king--the greatest of all kings--the king of kings; and he will make it triumphant in all lands, even though the base and the timid shall despair equally of themselves and of Him! We shall never, my brethren, abandon this cause to which we have sworn our souls, in life and death, without incurring the eternal malediction of the Most High God, forever blessed be his name! We are surrounded by enemies, my friends; we are few and we are feeble; but what is our might, when the tempest rises like a wall between us and our foes, and in our greatest extremity, the hand of God stretches forth from the cloud, and plucks us safely from the danger. Be of good heart, then; put on a fearless courage; believe that the cause is holy in which ye strive, and the God of Battles will most surely range himself upon our side!"