Dominique De Gourgues, a French adventurer, born at Mont-de-Marsan, Gascony, about 1530, died in Tours about 1593. He served in the war with Spain, was taken prisoner in Italy and put in chains in the galleys, was captured with the vessel by the Turks, and recaptured by the knights of Malta. He afterward made voyages to Africa, Brazil, and the East. In 1567 he sailed from Bordeaux, with three small vessels equipped with 100 arquebusiers and 80 sailors, to avenge the massacre of the French colonists in Florida by the Spaniards under Menendez. He landed at St. Mary's river, made an alliance with an Indian chief, who joined him with 300 savages, captured Fort San Mateo on the St. John's river, and two other forts, slaughtered most of the garrisons, and hung his prisoners on the same trees on which the French had suffered. Menendez had placed over his victims the inscription, " Not as to Frenchmen, but as to Lutherans;" and Gour-gues retaliated by putting over the Spaniards whom he executed, "Not as to Spaniards, but as to traitors, robbers, and murderers.'1 On his return to France his surrender was demanded by the Spanish ambassador, but he found asylum among his friends at Rouen, and lived in obscurity for many years.

When Queen Elizabeth of England, hearing of his misfortunes, invited him to enter her service, the French king restored him to favor. Shortly before his death Dom Antonio of Portugal appointed him commander of his fleet against Philip II. An account of his expedition to Florida was published by Basanier, Voyage du capi-taine Gourgues dans la Floride (4to, 1586). Parkman's "Pioneers of France in the New World" (1865) has a full account of Gourgues.