beginning the settlement of Cuba,
and Charles I (Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire) became King of Spain
in the following year; and in 1521, while Velasquez was still governor
of Cuba, those two monarchs began the first of their series of six wars.
Adopting the policy which was afterward pursued by England against Spain
and against France, and by France against England, France struck at
Spain in her American colonies. During the first, second and third wars,
French attention was chiefly given to conquests in North America, with
occasional raids against Spanish commerce in the Caribbean and along the
coast of Mexico. Cuba appears to have remained unscathed.

With the outbreak of the fourth war in 1536, however, trouble for Cuba
began. French privateers, little better than pirates in their practices,
sometimes, swarmed the Caribbean and the Gulf, preying upon Spanish
commerce and raiding Spanish seacoast towns. The first such blow was
struck at Cuba in 1537. A fleet of five Spanish ships, richly laden, was
about to set forth from Havana for Spain, by way of the Bahama Channel.
Just as they spread their sails and weighed their anchors, a venturesome
French privateer entered the harbor's mouth. The intruder hesitated at
sight of so many vessels, whereupon three of the Spaniards, being well
armed as well as laden, as most ships had to be in those troublous
days, gave chase. The Frenchman retired, fighting stubbornly, as far as
the harbor of Mariel, where he turned at bay and for three days kept up
the unequal conflict. Then, just as he seemed preparing to give up the
fight and flee, an unfavorable wind struck the Spanish ships, placing
them at such disadvantage that their captains ordered them to be
abandoned and burned. This was done, but the French boarded one before
the flames had made headway, extinguished the fire, and sailed away with
the prize. The daring Frenchman then returned to Havana, entered the
harbor with the two ships, and proclaimed to the alcaldes and citizens
that he would do the place no harm if none was done to him, but that if
any attack was made upon his ships, he would sack the town. After a
while he went out and sailed away to the west.

At that same time all commerce out of and into Santiago was practically
blocked by the presence of French privateers hovering off that port. In
April, 1538, an attack was made upon Santiago, and the place was
defended in a most extraordinary fashion. A Spanish vess