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The growing threat of starvation next faced the colony, and plans
were under way to abandon Fort Caroline, when Sir John Hawkins, an
Englishmen returning from a slave trading expedition in the West Indies,
arrived with four ships, in August 1565, seeking fresh water.

Strengthening the bond of religious sympathy between the
French Huguenots and the English Protestants was their mutual hatred of
the Spanish. Laudonniere states: "we killed certain sheep and poultry
that we may entertain Captain Hawkins the best we could; this stock had
been carefully preserved to stock the company." Hawkins saw the
distress of the colony and gave them: 20 barrels of meal, 5 barrels of
beans, a hogshead of salt, 100 pounds of wax for candles, and 50 pairs
of shoes for the soldiers.

His offer to convey them all to Europe in his ships was refused by
Laudonniere who rightly feared that Hawkins might covet for Queen
Elizabeth the land in which the colony had been planted. Before the
Englishman departed, however, Laudonniere did purchase one of his
smaller ships, paying for it with four pieces of artillery and some powder
from the fort.

The English sails were hardly out of sight over the horizon when
the Frenchmen resumed their preparations to depart. Food was stored
aboard their ship, and everything was finally in readiness and they only
awaited a favorable wind, when another fleet appeared off the mouth of
the river.