schemes of seizing this portion of the dominions of the King of Spain.
Five hundred soldiers and one hundred sailors must, he urges, take
possession, without delay, of Port Royal and the Chesapeake.[FN#20]

Preparation for his enterprise was pushed with furious energy. His whole
force, when the several squadrons were united, amounted to two thousand
six hundred and forty-six persons, in thirty-four vessels, one of which,
the San Pelayo, bearing Menendez himself, was of nine hundred and
ninety-six tons burden, and is described as one of the finest ships
afloat.[FN#21] There were twelve Franciscans and eight Jesuits, besides
other ecclesiastics; and many knights of Galicia, Biscay, and the
Asturias took part in the expedition. With a slight exception, the whole
was at the Adelantado's charge. Within the first fourteen months,
according to his admirer, Barcia, the adventure cost him a million
ducats.[FN#22]

Before the close of the year, Sancho do Arciniega was commissioned to
join Menendez with an additional force of fifteen hundred men.

Red-hot with a determined purpose, the Adelantado would brook no delay.
To him, says the chronicler, every day seemed a year. He was eager to
anticipate Ribaut, of whose designs and whose force he seems to have
been informed to the minutest particular, but whom he hoped to thwart
and ruin by gaining Fort Caroline before him. With eleven ships,
therefore, he sailed from Cadiz, on the twenty-ninth of June, 1565,
leaving the smaller vessels of his fleet to follow with what speed they
might. He touched first at the Canaries, and on the eighth of July left
them, steering for Dominica. A minute account of the voyage has come
down to us, written by Mendoza, chaplain of the expedition,--a somewhat
dull and illiterate person, who busily jots down the incidents of each