cally reported that if
another such attack occurred he would himself be relieved of the
necessity of fortifying the harbor and city of Santiago, for the place
would cease to exist. A little later a daring French raid was made upon
Spanish shipping just outside the harbor of Havana. This greatly
incensed Montalvo, and caused him to renew his pleadings for a galley.
He urged that the whole Cuban coast should be patrolled by light, swift
vessels, preferably frigates, and that strong galleys should be
stationed at the chief ports. He would have had the frigates, at any
rate, built in Cuba and at least partly paid for by that island; but the
Havana municipal council protested against this, demanding that Cuba be
entirely exempted from the costs of defending her from enemies. The
result was that in the lack of means of defence Cuba suffered more and
more from the ravages of privateers and freebooters, which became more
frequent as the island increased in population and wealth and thus
became better worth raiding.

The third unfavorable feature of the time was the haggling over La
Fuerza. Begun by De Soto, and later almost entirely rebuilt, that famous
fortress seemed to be under some malign spell which made it a source of
injury rather than of benefit to Havana. Year after year passed,
appropriation after appropriation was made and expended, and still it
remained unfinished. Man after man undertook the task of completing it,
only to fail and lose his personal reputation either for efficiency or
for honesty. Moreover, as the work proceeded grave faults were
developed, both in plan and in construction. The fort, which at first
had been denounced as needlessly large, was seen to be entirely too
small to shelter a garrison sufficient for the defence of Havana. The
original design had been to make it a shelter to which all the people of
the town could flee in case of attack, and it might have served this
purpose at a time when the people of Havana were numbered by scores, or
at most by a hundred or two. But with the figures extending into
thousands it became evident that La Fuerza was entirely inadequate to
any such purpose. Indeed, it was realized that that design was
ill-conceived, for if the place was to grow into a considerable city it
would be impracticable and undesirable to make any fortification large
enough to hold all the population.

The construction was also faulty. The fort was built of stone, but there
had thoughtl