The man selected for the new Captain-Generalship was a practical soldier of experience named Diego Hernandez de Quiñones. He took office in July, 1582, and found La Fuerza substantially complete, save for the construction of a moat, and containing a garrison of 120 men, the majority of whom were always more or less sick because of the dampness and unsanitary conditions of the place. The fortress had been completed, however, in some respects in a highly unsatisfactory way. Thus there was no stairway inside the building connecting the lower and upper stories. There was a stairway on the outside of the building, constructed of wood and it was obvious that in case of attack that stairway might easily be destroyed by cannon shot and thus communications between the two stories of the fortress be cut off. The moat had not yet been constructed, and numerous wooden and even some masonry houses had been constructed close to the fort, which might give sheltered approach to an attacking party.
The King and the Council obviously apprehended some friction between the Governor and the newly appointed Captain-General, and they therefore prepared an elaborate code of rules and regulations intended to avert such trouble and to conduce to harmonious co-operation between the two officials. Thus it was provided that in all matters of law relating exclusively to the soldiers, the Captain-General should have entire jurisdiction. In all matters relating entirely to civilians, the Governor should have jurisdiction. In cases in which both soldiers and civilians were concerned the two officials should act together with concurrent jurisdiction, and in case they could not agree the senior royal official at Havana should act as umpire between them.
This plan seemed fair enough and was expected to work well. But Luzan immediately protested against the whole scheme with much vigor and even violence of speech. In this he was heartily supported by the town council of Havana. When his protests were ignored by the Crown, or at least were not favorably heeded, he asked to be relieved from office as Governor and to be assigned to duty elsewhere. This request the King refused to grant, at the same time bidding Luzan to avoid any quarrel or disagreement with Quiñones. In spite of this admonition within a few weeks a bitter quarrel arose over the case of a soldier and a civilian who had had some strife over an alleged insult offered by the soldier to a young woman. From this there developed a bitter feud between the Governor and the Captain-General which soon became apparently irreconcilable. Each reviled the other, not only in his public capacity but in relation to his private life and morals. The partisans of each took up the strife and the entire city was soon involved in it.
Such was the deplorable state of affairs, when, as already related, Torquemada began his investigations. He found affairs in what seemed to him as bad a state as possible. The City of Havana, and indeed the entire Island of Cuba, were rent by faction. The Governor and the Captain-General each had a band of armed retainers in Havana, and these were at the point of open conflict which would amount practically to civil war. Regarding the emergency as critical, Torquemada acted promptly and strenuously. He ordered both the Governor and the Captain-General under arrest, commanding Luzan to remain within his own dwelling and Quiñones to remain within La Fuerza. Then he literally read the riot act to them both. He reproved them scathingly for their lack of loyalty to the King in letting personal animosities and jealousies have sway over their sense of duty. He secured from each a full statement of his complaints and grievances against the other. Then he compelled them to submit their cases to a tribunal consisting of himself, the Captain of a Mexican fleet who happened to be visiting Havana, and two judges of the Supreme Court of Hispaniola. As a result of the deliberations of this tribunal the two men were compelled to shake hands and pledge friendship and co-operation. They were then released from arrest and told to attend to their respective duties without any more nonsense.
This did not halt Torquemada, however, in his investigation of the general conduct of Luzan's administration in other respects than the quarrel with Quiñones. The charges which were made against the Governor were of a very serious character. It was said that he had interfered with the administration of justice by preventing people who had grievances from communicating with the courts or with the royal government in Spain. He had defied the authority of the Supreme Court in Hispaniola and treated it with contempt. He had enriched himself by taking bribes. He had encouraged desertions of soldiers from the garrison of La Fuerza. He had interfered with the functions of the Royal Treasurer and other officials. In view of these accusations Torquemada ordered Luzan to relinquish the exercise of all official functions until the truth or falsity of the charges could be determined. Then he removed from Havana to Bayamo and summoned Luzan to follow him thither in order that the case might be tried in a place free from the local influence of Havana. Luzan obeyed the order but at the same time sent his sister to Spain to intercede with the King and the Council for the Indies, and also sent her husband to Hispaniola to plead his cause before the Supreme Court.
The result was that in mid August of 1584 the Supreme Court reversed Torquemada's order and authorized Luzan to resume the full exercise of his powers and functions as Governor. Luzan at once did so and immediately the old quarrel with Quiñones was resumed. So furious did their strife become that within three months the Supreme Court reversed its own orders and restored that of Torquemada. At this Quiñones cast off all restraint and summarily ordered Luzan to leave Havana and to go to Santiago to protect that place against the hostile raiders who were hourly expected to descend upon the Cuban coast. Luzan demurred, whereupon Quiñones threatened him with arrest. Thereupon Luzan left Havana, but instead of going to Santiago went to Guanabacoa and thence by slow degrees to Bayamo, where he opportunely arrived, as we shall see, at the beginning of January, 1586.
In the interim the civil affairs of Havana were conducted by the Town Council until the end of 1585, when one of Menendez's soldiers, Pedro Guerra de la Vega, was sent by the Supreme Court of Hispaniola to serve as Mayor. He got on well enough with Quiñones, but not with Rojas, the Royal Treasurer, who frankly declared him unfit for office and charged him with possessing a too itching palm. His administration of affairs seems to have been confined to purely local matters and, as we shall see, in a very short time, before the spring of 1586, Luzan was again exercising his full civil authority as Governor, though still most of the time absent from Havana. Quiñones was also in full authority as Captain-General, and these two former enemies were acting together in complete accord.
This radical change in the aspect of affairs was due to an impending crisis, the most serious thus far in the history of the Island. A new enemy had arisen, far more formidable than any the Island had yet known. For years Cuba had been harried by French privateers often little better than pirates, but now the English rovers of the sea began to infest the Spanish Main. In 1577 Sir Francis Drake entered upon his memorable voyage around the world, defiantly navigating that South Sea which Spain has regarded as exclusively her own, and ravaging the Peruvian treasure ships even more ruthlessly than the French had preyed upon those of Mexico. Early in Luzan's administration warnings were given that this bold adventurer was planning a descent upon the West Indies and probably, therefore, upon Cuba.
This menace naturally caused great alarm at Havana and throughout the Island, and urgent appeals were made to the royal government and also to the Viceroy in Mexico for aid. It was represented that galleys were needed to patrol and to defend the coast. Artillery was needed for La Fuerza and for other fortifications at Havana and elsewhere.