GOURGUES, gMrg, DOMINIQUE DE (1530-93). A French soldier and adventurer, born in Mont de-Marsan, Gascony. In his youth he served in Italy with the French armies under MarOchal de Strozzi and in 1557 was captured by the Spanish at Siena. He was condemned to the galleys, where he was still serving, two years later, when his ship was captured by the Turks. The change of masters brought no immediate relief, and he was still kept at the oar, until the vessel fell in turn into the hands of the Knights of Malta, by whom he was set at'liberty. His rough life had bred in him a love of adventure, and in the next few years voyages to Africa, to Brazil, and other far-off regions increased his experience, and won for him renown as a leader of men and a sailor, He returned to France at a time when reports of a tragedy on the other side of the globe were stirring the blood of all Frenchmen and of French Huguenots in particular. This was the story of how the year before (1565), although France and Spain were at peace, Menendez (q.v.) and a Spanish force had descended upon the French Hu guenot settlement of Jean Ribault at Fort Caro line on the Florida coast, had massacred the greater part of the colonists, and had afterwards hung a large body of Ribault's followers under a placard, which read, "Not as to Frenchmen, but as to Heretics." Gourgues planned to wreak vengeance with his own hands. He sold his ily estate, borrowed all the money he could, and fitted out three small ships, manned with 80 sail ors and 150 arquebusiers, for the ostensible pur pose of kidnaping negroes in Africa. Sailing in
August, 1567, to the coast of Benin (Africa), he secured a cargo of negroes with which he sailed across the Atlantic, and which he sold to the Spaniards in the West Indies. He landed near the mouth of the Saint John's River, on which Fort San Mateo stood, and found willing allies in Chief Satouriona and his tribe of Indians, who had suffered much at the hands of Menendez. Gourgues and his allies descended at once on the two small forts which the Spanish had built at the entrance of the Saint John's, and after del stroying their garrisons, attacked Fort San Ma teo itself the next day. Such of the Spaniards as had not been killed in the assault were hung on the very trees upon which they had hung their captors' fellow countrymen, and over their heads was placed a pine board, whereon was written, "Not as to Spaniards, but as to Traitors, Robbers, and Murderers." The fortifications were razed, and Gourgues set sail for France, arriving at La Rochelle on June 8, 1568, where he was received with honor and rejoicing. Consult: Basanier, L'histoire notable de la Igloride (1586) , which was translated and published by 1-Iakluyt in 1587 as Notable History, and reprinted in French's His torical Collections of Louisiana and Florida (1869) ; also Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World (1865) ; and Gaffarel, Histoire de la Floride frangaise (1875).