The negotiations for the ransom of the town were less successful. Angulo had fled far inland, and could not be reached, and the Spaniards who remained could not offer more than a thousand pesos, a sum which Sores scorned. In default of ransom, therefore, the place was looted and burned. Three buildings alone remained standing: La Fuerza, the church, and the hospital. Indeed, the interior of the church was almost entirely destroyed. Sores and his men were fierce Huguenots, and they tore down the images of saints and took the robes and altar vestments to make cloaks for themselves. All the boats found in the harbor were burned. The neighboring estates for miles around were destroyed, and some of the negroes who offered resistance were hanged. The harbor was carefully surveyed and sounded, to facilitate future entries. Finally, his work being thus thoroughly done, Sores sailed away at midnight of August 5, less than a month after his arrival.
At the end of September a little French vessel, containing only a dozen men, entered the harbor, inspected the ruins of the city, and seized a Spanish caravel which lay there, taking it away with them to the harbor of Mariel, where there were several French ships. Ten days later the entire French force entered the harbor of Havana and landed many men. They did not, however, molest the Spanish residents nor destroy the new buildings which they were beginning to erect, but seemed to regard them with good humored tolerance, as too insignificant to merit attention. Indeed, there were only a few dozen of the Spanish, all told, and they were helpless and disheartened. The Frenchmen contented themselves with going to several of the outlying farms and taking all the hides they could find to add to the cargo which they were already carrying. They remained there, on amicable terms with the Spanish, for more than a fortnight, and then sailed away.
These things occurred at the time when Philip of Spain was marrying Queen Mary of England and was taking possession of the Netherlands, and when Spain vaunted herself as the foremost military power of the world. It must not be wondered at that the people of Cuba, and particularly of Havana, regarded themselves as grievously neglected by those who should have been their protectors, and bitterly reproached not alone the governor but even the King himself for not having afforded them more ample protection. The explanation was, doubtless, that Spain regarded Mexico, South America, and of course her European possessions, as of far greater importance than the island whose gold mines were about exhausted, which had failed to provide iron for Spanish artillery, and which had served chiefly as a stepping stone to more valuable lands. It was a strange irony of fate that the island which was thus slighted was destined to be the most faithful and the longest held of all the colonial possessions of Spain.
CHAPTER XVI
The disastrous events which have been related in the preceding chapter suggested to the Spaniards in Cuba and also to the government at Seville the desirability, if not the necessity, of establishing a more militant administration of affairs if the island was not to be the prey of all comers and perhaps ultimately be lost to the Spanish crown. Thitherto, with the exception of Velasquez and the possible exception of De Soto, every governor of the island had been a civilian and a lawyer. It seemed an experiment worth making, then, to appoint a military man to the office, in the hope that he would be better fitted to provide for the protection of the island against the privateers and corsairs who roved the seas in increasing numbers and with increasing boldness. True, immediately after the abdication of Charles I and the accession of Philip II, in 1556, a truce was concluded between France and Spain, which was to last five years. But few expected that it would last so long, as indeed it did not, being broken in two years; and even while it did last privateering was by no means abolished. In any case, be it peace or be it war, Spain had tried to hold her western empire by virtue of Divine Right and ecclesiastical decrees, and had failed. Now she would try holding what was left of it with military and naval force; and to that end would have a soldier for governor of Cuba.
The man chosen was indeed an expert and competent soldier, by no means devoid of statesmanship. Diego de Mazariegos had been one of the most efficient lieutenants of Cortez in Mexico, and distinguished himself as a brave and skilful fighter against the Indians. He had also given much attention to international relations, and to the privateering which had become such a scourge of the seas. Indeed, it was through some of his writings on this latter subject that the court of Seville was led to consider him as a candidate for the Cuban governorship. Dr. Angulo had been appointed in 1550, and five years was long enough, it was thought, for a man to serve, unless he served better than Angulo had done in the latter part of his term. So Mazariegos was selected to succeed him, in March, 1555. Juan Martinez, a lawyer, was selected to go with him as lieutenant governor. These were the last appointments made in Cuba by King Charles before his retirement from the throne.
Some time was required for preparations for the voyage and for residence in a new land, so that Mazariegos and Martinez did not sail from Spain until late in the summer. On the way they suffered shipwreck and Martinez and all his family were drowned. Mazariegos escaped, but lost everything he had with him save the clothes which he was wearing. This disaster made it necessary still further to postpone his assumption of the governorship, so that he did not reach Cuba until March 7, 1556. It is noteworthy that instead of landing at Santiago, as every other governor had done, he went straight to Havana, where Angulo awaited him, and the very next day, March 8, he was installed as governor. In accordance with custom he conducted an investigation of Angulo's accounts and general administration, which was permitted to pass as a merely formal and perfunctory performance. The passionate demands for Angulo's indictment and punishment were by this time forgotten.
Havana had been partially rebuilt since the raid of Captain Sores, and had been completely transformed in character. It had a very much larger population than before, and that population was restless and turbulent to a degree. It contained adventurers from every country and of every type; fortune hunters, fugitive criminals, gamblers, bankrupts, the shady output of Mexico, Darien and Peru, who sought in Cuba a No Man's Land in which they would not be troubled with law and order. In this expectation they reckoned without their host. Or perhaps they counted upon the rough and ready soldier as likely to countenance a large degree of laxity. If so, they were mistaken. Mazariegos had indeed the personal morals of a soldier of fortune. Soon after the death of Angulo he took the latter's widow for his mistress and lived with her openly, to the great scandal of the church, until after the death of the lady's mother, when he married her, as he said he had all along intended to do; the delay being due to his unwillingness to have a mother-in-law. But this was regarded by the governor as a trifling peccadillo. Upon graver offenses, murder, robbery, brawling and what not, he frowned with the wrath of a Precisian.
Nor was he any respecter of persons. When Francisco de Angulo, the son of the lady whom he had taken as his mistress and was soon to make his wife, scandalized law and order with his drunkenness and brawling, he exiled him to Mexico. For like offenses he also banished Gomez de Rojas, the youngest brother of Juan de Rojas, one of the foremost citizens of Havana; expressing as he did so a fervent wish that the young man might quickly meet with an evil death. As for his own nephew, Francisco de Mazariegos, when he became notorious for gambling, lechery and fighting, he inflicted upon him with his own hands a physical chastisement which was a more than nine days' example to all the other youth of the town.
Santiago still being the nominal capital of the island, the new governor thought it incumbent upon him at least to visit it. In fact, he spent nearly the whole year 1557 there, endeavoring to provide it with means of defence against French privateers. He stationed a captain of the army there, with four small cannon, some muskets and pikes, and a supply of gunpowder, urging the citizens to learn to fight so as to defend themselves. Then, in January, 1558, he hastened back to Havana to defend it against raiders who were said to be on their way thither. Five months later a French privateer visited Santiago, took the place without so much as a blow from the captain, considered it too small and poor to be worth looting or burning, and sailed away again after collecting only 400 pesos ransom; probably the smallest ransom on record for a capital city!