asing. His utmost efforts
had not been sufficient to drive the French away and to keep them away.
Now others than the French began to appear. The "Sea Beggars" of the
Netherlands were daring navigators and formidable fighters, and they
began to prowl around the coasts of Cuba. English captains had found
their way to the Spanish Main, and Hawkins made his way to Vera Cruz,
and Drake plundered Nombre de Dios.

Finding himself unable to protect the Spanish treasure ships and to keep
all enemies away from West Indian waters, Menendez sought at least to
make Cuba secure against invasion, or its capital--for such Havana was
about to become in name as well as in fact--secure against capture and
looting by buccaneers. To this work he gave his chief attention, and,
above all else, to the completion of La Fuerza. The rebuilding of that
fortification dragged scandalously. Sometimes it was for lack of money,
sometimes for lack of workmen. Menendez told the Council for the Indies
that in its unfinished state it was an actual menace to the town,
because a hostile force could easily land and capture it, and having
done this, they could quickly complete it and make it almost impregnable
against any attempt to drive them out. He did not explain why he could
not complete it as quickly as an invading force could, but he asked for
a force of three hundred negro slaves to work on it. With them, he said,
it would be possible to finish the fort in two years. The Council was
not favorably impressed. It could not understand how a few score
buccaneers, landing and seizing the fort, could finish it in a few days,
while it would take Menendez with three hundred slaves two years to do
the work.

Diego de Ribera, as Acting Governor, also took up the matter. The fort
was already sufficiently advanced to permit him to mount eight pieces of
artillery, but he wanted twenty more. Also, he wanted a large permanent
garrison of professional soldiers. It was unsatisfactory to have to
depend upon a rallying of the citizens, because it interfered with the
occupations of the citizens, because they were not expert in arms, and
because when they were summoned not more than half their number
responded, so that the commander never knew how many he could depend
upon. There should, he urged, be a permanent garrison of two hundred
men, under the command of the governor. Of course such a garrison could
not be furnished by the town itself, because there were not in all