Ribault, the escaped Frenchmen were unable to navigate all three of the vessels; they therefore selected the two best and sank the other. The armament of the vessel bought from Hawkins was divided between the two captains and the ship was then abandoned. On Thursday, September 25, the two ships set sail for France, but parted company the following day. Jacques Ribault with Le Challeux and his party, after an adventure on the way with a Spanish vessel, ultimately reached La Rochelle. The other vessel, with Laudonnière aboard, was driven by foul weather into Swansea Bay in South Wales, where he again fell very ill. Part of his men he sent to France with the boat. With the remainder he went to London, where he saw Monsieur de Foix, the French ambassador, and from there he proceeded to Paris. Finding that the King had gone to Moulins, he finally set out for it with part of his company to make his report, and reached there about the middle of March of the following year. The fate of Ribault's fleet The morning after the capture of Fort Caroline, Menéndez set out on his return to St. Augustine. But he first sent the camp master with a party of fifty men to look for those who had escaped over the palisade, and to reconnoitre the French vessels which were still lying in the river, and whom he suspected of remaining there in order to rescue their compatriots. Twenty fugitives were found in the woods, where they were all shot and killed; that evening the camp master returned to Fort Caroline, having found no more Frenchmen. The return to St. Augustine proved even more arduous and dangerous than the journey out. The Spaniards crossed the deeper and larger streams on the trunks of trees which they felled for makeshift bridges. A tall palmetto was climbed, and the trail by which they had come was found. They encamped that night on a bit of dry ground, where a fire was built to dry their soaking garments, but the heavy rain began again. On September 19, three days after Menéndez had departed from St. Augustine and was encamped with his troops near Fort Caroline, a force of twenty men was sent to his relief with supplies of bread and wine and cheese, but the settlement remained without further news of him. On Saturday some fishermen