sfied.

Naturally, and inevitably, this state of affairs reflected upon
Menendez, and compassed his downfall. He was not merely governor of
Cuba. He was Adelantado of Florida, and he gave to Florida his first
thought and chief attention. He spent most of his time there, leaving
Cuban affairs to be administered by acting governors of his own
selection. This was altogether unsatisfactory to the people of Cuba, and
especially of Havana. They wanted their governor to live among them,
where he would be accessible, and pay much more attention to them and
their interests. So they began agitating against him, and demanded a
governor who should not be Adelantado of Florida, nor subject to that
functionary. They did more than complain. They refused supplies. They
would not send to Florida the supplies which Menendez urgently needed
for his enterprises there. When the King reprimanded them and bade them
do their duty, they replied with surprising defiance that they wanted
payment, first, for supplies long ago furnished to the Havana garrison.
They also wanted to be relieved of the burden of being compelled to
guard or to watch the coast themselves, at their own cost for arms and
ammunition. They wanted these things done for them before they would
trouble themselves for the furtherance of the Adelantado's enterprises
in Florida.

Meantime, the Council for the Indies, at Seville, was also unfriendly to
Menendez. Tired of the delay in building La Fuerza, it recommended to
the king his removal in favor of someone who would more vigorously
expedite that essential work. It was the bitter irony of fate that he
should thus be condemned for failing to do the very thing upon which he
had most set his heart to do. The Council also condemned him for faults
of administration which were due, it held, to his personal neglect
through absence from the island, and it therefore urged that a governor
be appointed in his place who would spend his time chiefly in Cuba and
would give to that island and its interests his first and best thoughts.
These representations were made to the King as early as the spring of
1571, and they had much weight with him.

The sequel was that in 1572 Menendez was recalled to Spain, and was
commissioned for a work similar to that in which he had first won
distinction, to wit, the protection of Spanish commerce against hostile
privateers; only it was not now the commerce between Spain and Mexico
which he was to safeguard