Due to a shortage of ships, the crown was often forced to allow trade to foreign vessels. The earliest reinforcements ever to arrive in the new Florida colony, in the Archiniega expedition of 1566, shipped out in Flemish ships whose owners refused to embark from San Lucar without licenses to load return cargoes of sugar and hides in Cuba and Santo Domingo. [Note 66: Cedula to the House of Trade 1/23/1566] The Flemish operated legally; other visitors did not. (Bushnell KC)