THE COAST ARTILLERY JOURNAL - Air Defense Artillery

244 THE COAST ARTILLERY JOURNAL
a French colony on the Gulf. He returned to France for that purpose and
fitted out a frigate and three other vessels with materials and with about two
hundred and eighty men. On the trip across the Atlantic, the ketch St. Francis
was captured by Spanish privateers, but the three remaining vessels reached
the Gulf early in 1685 and began their search for the mouth of the Mississippi.
Contrary winds and a lack of knowledge of the gulf water carried La Salle far
to the westward and forced him to land, in February, on the coast of Texas.
The frigate Aimable, crossing the bar at the entrance of Matagorda Bay,
grounded and was wrecked, but the other vessels successfully negotiated the
passage and landed the colonists. In March, Beaujeau, commanding the brig
La Belle, left for France after tanding twelve guns for the protection of the
community, but he carried away with him much of the ammunition. After
his departure, La Salle built a fort at the western extremity of St. Bernard Bay,
and garrisoned it with a hundred men. He then began the exploration of the
surrounding country and, in April, built a fort on Point Hurier. After Easter
the colonists removed to a new location on Garcitas Creek, where a rude post
called Fort St. Louis was erected. Here the twelve guns were mounted and a
subterranean magazine built.
Early in 1686, the last ship was cast ashore in a hurricane and great quantities
of supplies were lost. La Salle thereupon set out on foot with a portion
of his command to find the Fort St. Louis of the Illinois-an expedition on
which he lost his life. The people left behind at Fort St. Louis received no
succor from France, and by 1687 practically all of them had died of disease
or starvation.
The passage down the Mississippi by La Salle and his subsequent attempt
at the establishment of a colony aroused Spain to the necessity of having more
concrete evidence with which to establish her claims to the vast territories of
Florida -and Louisiana. In all the two hundred years since the voyages of
Columbus, Spanish projects at colonization of Florida and the Gulf Coast had
been limited to the occupation of a fortified post at St. Augustine and to a few
feeble attempts to establish other settlements.
In September, 1690, Count de Calve sent Francisco Llanis, with a frigate,
to explore the Bay of Espiritu Santa (Matagorda) with a view to the location
of a fortified base of supplies for priests and soldiers operating in the Province
of Texas. Llanis selected a site for a fort on one of the small islands of St.
Bernard Bay and reported that the best location for a settlement would be at
the place which had been occupied by the French. Captain de Leon, sent to
Matagorda Bay with one hundred and ten soldiers and some fri~rs, erected the
mission of San Francisco on the site of Fort St. Louis. This place existed for
but a few years and was abandoned in 1693.
In 1692 an expedition was sent by the Viceroy of New Spain to explore the
harbOTson the west coa&tof Florida, and in 1698 a colony was established at
Pensacola, where a small fort was built on the Barranca de Santo Tome and
named Fort San Carlos. This work was built of pine logs in the form of a