Immediately now the Spaniard began to make himself more secure in Florida. His stronghold at St. Augustine was amplified and Fort Caroline, the luckless French fort, was rebuilt and renamed San Mateo. In 1568 the French under de Gorgues descended upon the Spanish at San Mateo and put the whole garrison to the sword. San Augustin was not attacked, however, and for two hundred years held the Spanish flag supreme in this part of the New World.
For twenty years after its foundation Menendez’s little fort of San Juan de Pinos saw no military service, though it was made strong and formidable. Then the clash of arms came to its ears, accompanied by great catastrophe. These were the years of the English sea-kings. Raleigh, Drake, Grenville, Gilbert, Frobisher were sweeping the oceans in their diminutive craft, making anxious the captains of many a Spanish galleon. In September, 1585, Drake sailed on a freebooting voyage from the harbor of Plymouth, England, with more than an ordinarily large number of men and ships, and in May, 1586, this little armada chanced to be in sight of San Augustin. The procedure may now be told in the words of one of Drake’s seamen:
Wee descried on the shore a place built like a Beacon which was indeede a scaffold upon foure long mastes raised on ende.... Wee might discover over against us a Fort which newly had bene built by the Spaniards; and some mile or therabout above the Fort was a little Towne or Village without walls, built of wooden houses as the Plot doeth plainely shew. Wee forthwith prepared to have ordnance for the batterie; and one peece was a little before the enemie planted, and the first shot being made by the Lieutenant generall himself at their ensigne strake through the Ensigne, as wee afterwards understood by a Frenchman, which came unto us from them. One shot more was then made which strake the foote of the Fort wall which was all massive timber of great trees like Mastes.
By courtesy of the St. Augustine Historical Society
INCLINE LEADING TO RAMPARTS, FORT MARION, ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA.]
And so, in the charming, inconsequential fashion of the times, the narrative goes on, carrying the battle with it. The fort fell into the hands of the English after a stubborn defence by its Spanish occupants and was destroyed. The village was sacked and burned. Drake then sailed on his way.