ment in the early
fall of 1579, a few weeks before the malodorous Torres was appointed by
the Court of Hispaniola. It was intended, however, that he should not
actually take office until the expiration of the full term for which
Carreno had been appointed, and he accordingly had much time to attend
to his affairs in Spain and elsewhere before removing to Havana. His
duties were not to begin until 1581. But he removed to Cuba in the fall
of 1580 while Torres was being investigated. There came to Cuba with him
Juan Ceballos, who had been selected for Lieutenant-Governor. Both of
these officials were to receive the same salaries that their
predecessors had received, although Rojas, the Royal Treasurer,
vigorously protested that their salaries should be reduced by one-half.

Governor Luzan was very soon involved in numerous controversies, largely
over questions of dignity and precedents among insular officials.
Something of the spirit of the formal Spanish Court appears to have
permeated Cuba at this time, and the insular and municipal officials
became as great sticklers for forms and ceremonies and for recognition
of their comparative ranks as any of the Grandees at Seville or Madrid.
Thus Jorge de Balza, Adjutant General of the Royal Forces in the Island,
insisted upon the privilege of wearing his sword at meetings of the
municipal council of Havana, of which he was ex officio a member,
although it was a penal offense for anyone else, even the Governor
himself, to wear a sword or dagger in that assembly. Another controversy
arose, as might confidently be assumed, over La Fuerza. The office of
captain or commander of that fortress paid a salary of 300 ducats, on
which account several former governors had appointed themselves to the
place and had drawn that salary for themselves. Governor Carreno
regarded this practice as reprehensible. It was not right, he said, for
the Governor to hold another office and to draw a second salary.
Therefore, he appointed his own son, a lad just in his teens, to be
Captain of La Fuerza and to draw the salary. Whether the boy had the
spending of the money himself or dutifully handed it over to his father
is not a matter of record.

Governor Luzan stopped this nonsense and put a real soldier at the head
of the Fort and then quarreled with him. This commander was Captain
Melchior Sarto de Arana, an expert soldier who had been Luzan's comrade
in arms in the wars of Spain, in the Netherlands and