Trouble beset Ponce on every side. The viceroy was reluctant to part with money for this project despite evidence that English strength and influence was increasing daily, especially among the Indians. Shortly after Ponce took control, a terrific storm hit the city. High tides undermined houses, flooded fields and gardens, and polluted the wells. Sickness took its toll. The old wooden fort was totally ruined. Waves washed out a bastion, causing it to collapse under the weight of its guns. The other seaward bastion and the palisade were also breached in several places.
Then in the spring of 1675 when another provision ship was lost, Ponce had to lead a group of workers on a long march into Timucua to fetch provisions from the Indians. Only a few masons were left to carry on the work at the Castillo.
Despite all these problems, Ponce made progress. The north curtain was completed and the east and south were well underway. But looking west the soldiers could see only open country.
On May 3, 1675, the long-awaited supply ship from México safely arrived. Among its few passengers was a new governor for Florida, Sgt. Maj. Don Pablo de Hita Salazar, a hard-bitten veteran of campaigns in Europe, and most recently governor of Veracruz. Surely it was because of his reputation as a soldier that he was assigned to Florida. Besides continuing the work on the fort he was ordered to “dislocate” the Charleston settlement. Led to believe the viceroy would help in the difficult task ahead, Hita, in fact, found that official singularly reluctant.
At St. Augustine, the work had been dragging, but Hita made some positive points in writing the crown: “Although I have seen many castillos of consequence and reputation in the form of its plan, this one is not surpassed by any of those of greater character.” Furthermore, he endorsed the statement of the royal officials, who were eager to point out the brighter side of the picture: “If it had to be built in another place than St. Augustine it would cost a double amount because there will not be the advantage of having the laborers, at a real of wages each day, with such meagre sustenance as three pounds of maize, nor will the overseers and artisans work in other places with such little salaries ... nor will the stone, lime, and other materials be found so close at hand and with the convenience there is in this presidio.”
So much money—34,298 pesos—had been spent on the fort, and it was not yet finished, so it was important to tell the authorities the positive benefits of this project, for at this point the old stockade was a ruin and the new one was unusable. Reports from English deserters told them that Charleston, less than 215 miles to the north, was well defended by a stockade and 20 cannon.
Using characteristic realism, energy, and enthusiasm that would have done credit to a much younger man, Don Pablo set about making his own fortification defensible. The bastion of San Carlos—at the northeast corner of the Castillo—was the nearest to completion. Hita ordered it finished so that cannon could be mounted on its rampart.
While the masons were busy at that work, he took his soldiers and razed the old fort. The best of its wood went into a barrier across the open west side of the Castillo. In 15 days they built a 12-foot-high earthwork with two half-bastions, faced with a veneer of stone and fronted by a moat 14 feet wide and 10 feet deep. At last the garrison had four walls for protection.
Next the powder magazine in the gorge of San Carlos was completed and a ramp laid over it to give access to the rampart above. The three curtains rose to their full height of 20 feet. At the southeast corner the workers dumped hundreds of baskets of sand and rubble into the void formed by the walls of San Agustin bastion and filled it to the 20-foot level.
Both carpenters and masons worked on the temporary buildings and finished a little powder magazine near the north curtain. A timber-framed coquina structure, partitioned into guardhouse, lieutenant’s quarters, armory, and provision magazine, took shape along the west wall. Finally, a few of the guns from the old fort were mounted in San Carlos and San Agustin bastions and along the west front. After three years of work, the Castillo was a defense at last.