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!
On his return to Havana, Mazariegos showed the value of a military governor for the protection of a city. For six weeks that summer a French squadron of four vessels lay off Havana, without venturing to attack the place, knowing that Mazariegos had mobilized and trained for fighting every able-bodied man in the place, and even some robust and athletic negro women. But the governor was not satisfied with defence alone. He contrived to get word to some Spanish captains at Nombre de Dios, who were going to convoy treasure ships to Spain, with the result that they presently came up unannounced and captured the whole French squadron. Again and again thereafter Havana was menaced, even attacked, but invariably Mazariegos repulsed the enemy, generally with heavy loss to the latter.
He felt, however, the need of better equipment, particularly of more cannon, and asked the crown to provide it. The crown declined or at any rate failed to do so, whereupon he set about doing it himself, and succeeded in getting, sometimes by rather strenuous means, a number of cannon and a good supply of powder. But a better fort than the ruins of La Fuerza was also needed, and to that enterprise he turned his attention with zeal. At the beginning of his administration Geronimo Bustamente de Herrera was commissioned by the crown to build a new fort, but after making plans and engaging workmen he fell ill and had to abandon the job. At the beginning of 1558, just as Mazariegos returned thither from Santiago, Herrera was replaced by Bartolome Sanchez, a competent engineer; who prepared new plans for the rebuilding of La Fuerza as it stands to this day. The Viceroy of Mexico, who was much interested in the safety of Mexican treasure ships which might put in at Havana, contributed 12,000 pesos in gold for the beginning of the work. There was much trouble in getting laborers for the work, in Spain. Sanchez wanted at least a hundred negro slaves. The government thought the number excessive, and gave him authorization for only thirty; whereupon he declared that the enterprise might as well be given up. In fact he secured in Spain only fifteen workmen, and with them he sailed for Cuba, hoping to secure the rest there, or elsewhere in the West Indies.
The work began early in December, 1558. A stone quarry was opened near Guanabacoa, and a kiln for making lime was built. But labor was still lacking. Sanchez wanted two hundred, negro slaves or others, and appealed to the people of the town to help him get them. In response they procured for him thirty slaves—their own, whom they were willing to turn over to him "for a consideration." Then the governor took a hand in the game. There were forty slaves at Santiago, who had been brought thither without the proper shipping papers, and were being held for that reason. Mazariegos sent to Santiago, confiscated them all, and brought them up to Havana, to work on the new fort. Some French prisoners who had been taken in a fight off Matanzas were also set at work on it. All tramps and vagabonds who were arrested were sent to La Fuerza or to the quarry, and for a time, until the crown stopped it, one third of the Indian village of Guanabacoa were kept at work on the fort.
Although Sanchez was in charge of the work and was responsible for it, Mazariegos spent much of his time there, watching it, directing it, and chastising with tongue and sometimes even with rod all who seemed laggards at the job. In time he succeeded Sanchez in authority. For Sanchez incurred much enmity on the part of some influential citizens, whose houses he took in order to make an open place about the fort. They accused him of corruption, of making gross errors in the plans for the fort, of fomenting discord, and of wasting money. He was too busy with building the fort to pay much attention to these things, even when they took the form of letters to the King. The outcome of it was that in the summer of 1560 Sanchez was removed from his place, and Mazariegos was put in charge of the completion of La Fuerza. A few months later Sanchez reached Seville, and pleaded his case to so good effect that the crown was convinced that injustice had been done him, and that he should not have been discharged. However, it was not practicable to reinstate him, though he was sent back a few years later to make an official inspection of the completed fort.
In addition to La Fuerza, Mazariegos built the first forerunner of the Morro Castle. In 1563 he built on the Morro headland a tower of masonry more than thirty feet high. It was intended primarily as a landmark, and was therefore painted white in order to make it visible at the greatest possible distance. But a watchman was generally kept in it, to espy approaching vessels and to signal to the city news of their approach. The tower is said to have cost only 200 pesos, and was paid for by the city of Havana.
Mazariegos presently became involved in affairs outside of Cuba. Many men deserted at Havana from the vessels of Angelo de Villafane, governor of Florida. Villafane complained and wanted Mazariegos to capture and return them. Mazariegos replied that he could not do it; to which we may doubtless add that he would not have done so if he could. He was desirous of