260 THE OCEAN RIVER 



And still the English had not realized the opportunity of 

 the new western discoveries — though there is a little hint of 

 the growing importance of the sea in English life. In 1539 

 Fletcher of Rye, a shipwright to Henry VIII, invented the first 

 successful fore-and-aft rig, and was able to tack his craft close- 

 hauled to the wind. This revolutionary advance in the maneu- 

 verability of a vessel did much to give the smaller English fleet 

 an advantage over the Invincible Armada of Spain in 1588, 

 when Drake sailed out of Plymouth. 



We have seen that the British, slow to follow up the discov- 

 eries of Cabot, left the initiative to France. The conservative 

 English fishermen kept going back to the nearer grounds in 

 the neighborhood of Iceland; but the bolder adventurers 

 moved in against the Spanish in the Caribbean, as Hawkins 

 did to found the slave trade in those waters. 



The French had by no means abandoned their Caribbean 

 adventure because of their new interests in the north, but at 

 this particular time they were no match for the last flare-up 

 of Spanish power. The story of the early attempts by any of 

 the European nations to settle permanent colonies just north 

 of Florida along the Stream were all tragic. In 1562 Jean 

 Ribaut, a Huguenot, explored the St. Johns River in Florida, 

 then called the River of May, settled there for a while, and 

 later established a fort at Port Royal in North Carolina. Un- 

 fortunately for the French, the Spanish at this time had an 

 admiral of exceptional ability and ruthlessness, Menendez, 

 who attacked Ribaut's men and murdered most of them. In 

 1667 the French under deCourges attacked and sacked the 

 little town of St. Augustine in revenge, but four years later 

 Menendez rebuilt the fortifications; and the last French bid 

 for continental power in the southern part of the continent 

 had failed. 



In the second half of the sixteenth century the English 

 began to take serious notice of Newfoundland and the Banks. 



