216 FLORIDA.

various points, sent out several exploring parties, and se-
cured a foothold in Florida which was never afterward lost.
Finally, in the spring of 1567, believing that the interests
of the settlements would be advanced by his going to Spain,
he set sail in a small vessel of twenty tons burden which he
had caused to be built.
 During his absence occurred one of the most notable of
 all known instances of that law of retributive justice which
 is said to operate in human affairs. The leaders of the
 French nation had exhibited a singular indifference to the
 sad fate of Ribault and his comrades, and the event ap-
 peared to have been forgotten if not forgiven; but in the
 breast of an obscure captain named Dominic de Gourgues
 an insatiable thirst for revenge was aroused, and he devoted
 himself to its gratification. Supplementing his own re-
 sources by borrowing money from his friends, he procured
 three small vessels, enlisted one hundred and eighty-four
 men, and set sail on the 22d of August, 1567. Good for-
 tune appeared to wait upon his enterprise in its every stage.
 He secured the hearty cooperation of the Indians, complete-
 ly surprised Fort San Mateo, and captured it with even
 greater easd than Menendez had captured:its predecessor,
 Fort Caroline. Most of the garrison fell under the swords
 of the Frenchmen or the clubs of the Indians; and the
 prisoners, being led to the spot where Menendez had caused
 the Huguenots to be hung in 1565, were suspended beneath
 an inscription which De Gourgues had caused to be burned
 with a red-hot iron upon a tablet of pine: "I do this, not
 as unto Spaniards, nor as to outcasts, but as to traitors,
 thieves, and murderers !"
 SFor a period of about a hundred years after this dra-
 matic achievement, the history of Florida offers scarcely a
 single event over which the chronicler finds it worth while
'to linger. Menendez returned to his colony in the spring
of 1568 and reestablished the confidence that had been im-