How are we to defend it?"

Treasurer Salinas writes in 1554: "The French have taken several
ships. It would have been a great boon if your Majesty had ordered
Captain Mindirichága to come here with his four ships to defend this
island and la Española. He would have found Frenchmen in la Mona,
where they prepare for their expeditions and lay in wait. They declare
their intention to take this island, and it will be difficult for us
to defend it without artillery or other arms. If there is anything in
the fort it is useless, nor is the fort itself of any account. It is
merely a lodging-house. The bastion on the Morro, if well constructed,
could defend the entrance to the harbor with 6 pieces. We have 60
horsemen here with lances and shields, but no arquebusiers or pikemen.
Send us artillery and ammunition."

The demand for arms and ammunition continued in this way till 1555,
when acting Governor Caráza reported that 8 pieces of bronze ordnance
had been planted on the Morro.

The existing fortifications of San Juan have all been added and
extended at different periods. Father Torres Vargas, in his chronicles
of San Juan, says that the castle grounds of San Felipe del Morro
were laid out in 1584. The construction cost 2,000,000 ducats.[37] The
Boquerón, or Santiago fort, the fort of the Cañuelo, and the
extensions of the Morro were constructed during the administration of
Gabriel Royas (1599 to 1609). Governor Henriquez began the
circumvallation of the city in 1630, and his successor, Sarmiento,
concluded it between the years 1635 and 1641. Fort San Cristobal was
begun in the eighteenth century and completed in 1771. Some
fortifications of less importance were added in the nineteenth