Pedro Menendez de Aviles, who commanded it, had received from King Philip II.

the title of _adelantado_ (governor) of Florida; he had pledged himself, in return, to conquer for Spain this territory impudently filched from the jurisdiction which His Catholic Majesty claimed over the whole of America.

The struggle lasted but a few days, in spite of the despair and courage of the French colonists; a great number were massacred, others crowded on to the little vessels still at their disposal, and carried to France the news of the disaster.
Menendez took possession of the ruined forts, of the scarcely cleared fields strewn with the corpses of the unhappy colonists.

"Are you Catholics or Lutherans ?" he demanded of his prisoners, bound two and two before him.

"We all belong to the Reformed faith," replied John Ribaut; and he intoned in a loud voice a psalm: "Dust we are, and to dust we shall return; twenty years more or less upon this earth are of small account;" and, turning towards the _adelantado,_ "Do thy will," he said.
All were put to death, "as I judged expedient for the service of God and of your Majesty," wrote the Spanish commander to Philip II.," and I consider it a great piece of luck that this John Ribaut hath died in this place, for the King of France might have done more with him and five hundred ducats than with another man and five thousand, he having been the most able and experienced mariner of the day for knowing the navigation of the coasts of India and Florida." Above the heap of corpses, before committing them to the flames, Menendez placed this inscription: "Not as Frenchmen, but as heretics." Three years later, on the same spot on which the _adelantado_ had heaped up the victims of his cruelty and his perfidy lay the bodies of the Spanish garrison.