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 were first constructed, the castle as a protection against the Indians, or the French, should others come. The castle or fort was built of the trunks of trees, in an octagonal shape, near the present fort, and the dwellings were located in the southern portion of the peninsula on which the present city stands. The shoalness of the water on the bar was a protection against an attack by sea, and the bay on one side, and the Maria Sanchez Creek and St. Sebastian River on the other made the town secure against an attack by land.

Menendez, having secured the safety of his settlement, returned to Spain, little dreaming of the retribution soon to fall upon his fortified posts on the St. John's from the hand of Dominic de Gourgues, who, with a force of some two hundred and fifty men, left France in 1568, with the purpose of avenging the massacre of his countrymen. Arriving on the coast in April, he passed the mouth of the St. John's and brought his three vessels into Cumberland Sound. Here, communicating with the Indians, whom he found very hostile to the Spaniards, he gathered a large force of Indian allies, attacked the Spanish forts at the mouth of the St. John's River, captured