ardy. If any foreign power could establish a base on the Atlantic coast—that
is, along the route the treasure fleet had to take to cross the Atlantic—Spain
itself would be in mortal danger. As the Spanish general and statesman Pedro
Menéndez de Avilés warned his king in 1564, if “French or English or any
other nation” were allowed on that coast, “they would be able to establish a
site and fortifications that would enable them to have galleys and other ships
of war, to take the flotas.” Menéndez was right, and his report convinced the
Spanish government. Consequently, Spain was determined to deny North
American lands to other powers.
The first challenge to the security of the Spanish sea lane came from
France. Spain regarded this challenge as particularly dangerous and offen-
sive because France not only was a rival power but was guided in its anti-
Spanish policy by Protestant (Huguenot) statesmen whose coreligionists,
led by Jacques de Sores, had recently sacked Havana. If the Spanish had
caught them, they would have burned them at the stake as heretics. The
Spaniards’ anger turned to fury when the noted French cartographer Jean
Ribault, also a Huguenot, was commissioned to lead the first French expe-
dition in 1562 designed to contest ownership of La Florida.
The French realized what they were getting into; and to avoid rousing
the Spaniards, at least until they were in a position to defend themselves,
Ribault was ordered to avoid all contact with the Spaniards. An able naviga-
tor, he avoided the Canaries and made an unprecedented nonstop passage
from Dieppe straight across the Atlantic to a point just south of modern Saint
Augustine. Then, sailing up the coast, he found what appeared to be a suit-
able (and vacant) location roughly halfway between modern Charleston and
Savannah. There he established a provisional base, which he named
Charlesfort. By that time, the hurricane season was approaching, so he left a
small contingent and hurriedly returned to France to get additional supplies.
The France to which Ribault returned was not the one he had left:
the first of the terrible wars of religion that pitted the Catholics against the
Protestants had begun to tear France apart. Ribault was unable to get the
attention of anyone in a position to assemble supplies for the new base in
America. Meanwhile the colonists lost heart. No food or supplies were
reaching them from France, and they were unwilling to work to feed them-
selves as farmers. So when they got hungry, as they quickly did, they looted
Fish, Fur, and Piracy 59