next plan for getting labor for the fort was disastrous. A contract
was made with a trader to provide three hundred negro slaves, by the end
of 1572. He did deliver 191 of them in the summer of that year, and
later sent the rest but they never got further than Hispaniola. The 191
whom he did deliver were, however, infected with small pox. A number of
them died of that plague after their arrival at Havana, and the
contagion got abroad in the city with the result that many other slaves
and a number of the Spaniards also perished from it. Still, enough of
the slaves in that plague-stricken cargo survived to cause the
authorities of Havana much embarrassment in feeding and clothing them.
Agriculture was not yet receiving the attention which it deserved, and
even a hundred or a hundred and fifty more mouths to feed overtaxed the
local resources. Requisition was therefore made upon the government of
Yucatan to send a sufficient supply of corn and meat to feed the slaves,
while the king himself undertook to clothe them. He was led to do this
in a way which strikingly indicates the limitations of Philip's mind. To
all appeals for clothing for their comfort or for decent appearance's
sake, he was deaf. But when it represented to him that they must have
clothes in order to be able to attend mass, he at once ordered them to
be clad from his royal bounty!

More money was needed, and was raised in various ways. An examiner went
about the island, looking into the accounts of public officials.
Generally he found that there was something due to the state from them.
Of the money thus collected, nearly all, to the amount of nearly four
thousand pesos, was devoted to the costs of the fort. Other funds were
taken for the purpose, and when there was still a deficit it was
actually proposed to sell some of the slaves to pay for the maintenance
of the rest. This counsel of despair was not, however, acted upon.
Instead, Sancho Pardo Osorio when acting governor, near the end of
Menendez's administration, advanced much money from his own purse,
trusting to the government to reimburse him. Another draft of four
thousand ducats was finally obtained from Mexico, and smaller sums came
from Venezuela and Darien. Thus the enterprise dragged on, until the
summer of 1573 found the fort still far from finished, the builders of
it heavily in debt for labor, materials and maintenance, and the
garrison, workmen, and citizens of Havana all profoundly dissati