explorer could not have failed to have discovered this bay and found
a secure harbor at that time, is shown by the account of the
expedition, which the Adelantado, Pedro Menendes, of infamous
memory, despatched under the command of Pedro Menendez Marquez, for
the survey of this coast in 1573; when the means and facilities of
navigators for exploration were not different from what existed at
the date of the Verrazzano voyage. Menendez Marquez was the first to
enter the Chesapeake after Gomez, who gave it the name of the bay of
Santa Maria. [Footnote: This name occurs on the map of Ribero on
this part of the coast, which establishes its application by Gomez;
but its position is evidently misplaced and carried too far south.]
Barcia thus summarizes the result of the expedition, so far as it
relates to this bay.

"Pedro Menendez Marquez, governor of Florida for his uncle the
Adelantado reduced many Indians to obedience and took possession of
the provinces particularly in the name of the king, in the presence
of Rodrigo de Carrion, notary of the government of Santa Elena.
Afterwards, he, being a great seaman, inasmuch as he had formerly
been admiral of the fleet, as Francisco Cano relates, Lib. 3, de la
Histor. de las Ordenes Militares, fol. 184, went, by order of the
Adelantado, to explore the coast, which exploration commenced at the
cape of the Martyrs, and the peninsula Tequesta [point of Florida],
where the coast begins to run north and south, at the outlet of the
Bahama channel, and extended along the coast to beyond the harbor
and bay of Santa Maria, which is three leagues wide and which is
entered towards the northwest; and within it are many rivers and
harbors where, on both sides of it, they can anchor. At the
entrance, near the shore, on the south, there are from nine to
thirteen fathoms of water, and on the north, from five to seven. Two