THE
COMPANIONS
OF C O L U M B U S .
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tado of Bimini and Florida, which last was as yet considered an island.
Permission was also granted him to recruit men either
in Spain or in the colonies for a settlement in Florida ; but he deferred entering on his command for the present, being probably discouraged and impoverished by the losses in his last expedition, or finding a difficulty in enlisting adventurers. enterprise presented itself.
At length another
The Caribs had by this time become
a terror to the Spanish inhabitants of many of the islands, making descents upon the coasts and carrying off captives, who it was supposed were doomed to be devoured by these cannibals.
So
frequent were their invasions of the island of Porto Bico, that it was feared they would ultimately oblige the Spaniards to aban足 don it. King Ferdinand, therefore, in 1514, ordered that three ships, well armed and manned, should be fitted out in Seville, destined to scour the islands of the Caribs, and to free the seas from those cannibal marauders.
The command of the Armada was given
to Juan Ponce de Leon, from his knowledge in Indian warfare, and his varied and rough experience which had mingled in him the soldier with the sailor.
He was instructed in the first place
to assail the Caribs of those islands most contiguous and danger足 ous to Porto Rico, and then to make war on those of the coast of Terra Firma, in the neighborhood of Carthagena.
He was
afterwards to take the captaincy of Porto Rico, and to attend to the repartimientos or distributions of the Indians in conjunction with a person to be appointed by Diego Columbus. The enterprise suited the soldier-like spirit of Juan Ponce de Leon, and the gallant old cavalier set sail full of confidence, in January, 1515, and steered direct for the Caribbees, with a deter足 mination to give a wholesome castigation to the whole savage