Notwithstanding the confident tone of this [1568] letter [to the Jesuits], the next year saw what Lyon calls "a general crisis in Menendez's finances." The Adelantado forced the Crown to face the issue of funding by evacuating from his remaining outposts all troops beyond the 150 on the royal payroll. Four councils- State, Indies, Finance, and War-were convoked to address the Florida problem. Pleading his case in Madrid, Menendez found himself opposed at court by the highest officials of the Jesuit Order. To the best of their knowledge-and they were surprisingly well informed-the conversion of Florida was going poorly. Two of the three students in the first class at the college in Havana for the sons of Florida chiefs had died. Father Superior Segura, abandoning the long-view plan of educating the elites, had reunited the Jesuits in Cuba with those on the mainland. South of San Mateo all the Indians seemed to be up in arms, including those around St. Augustine, so he had distributed his forces farther north, assigning a lay brother named Carrera to Santa Elena, Father Rogel to Orista, and himself to Guale, with Brother Villareal (Sedeno, 1572). Again, their combined efforts had met with small success. From Guale, Segura had written to General Borgia: "The health and strength of Ours is failing here, with little benefit to the souls of the natives." Their efforts, he suggested, might be better spent in a mission field that offered greater returns, such as the Philippines. The governor wanted to keep them on in Florida "to serve as chaplains" [Note: Chaplainships were subordinate posts unsuited to the regular clergy, who were under vows of obedience to their superiors. As an 18th-century Franciscan explained: "The office of chaplain is not proper to our institute" (Bringas, 1796).] in the "three or four forts which remain to him on these coasts," for, in Segura's worldly wise opinion, even though Menendez was unable to "proceed with the conquest as he should," he was still "very anxious to retain his office" and not be "deprived of all governorship." Segura had learned in Puerto Rico from the superior of a Dominican monastery that, contrary to what the Adelantado had told the Jesuits in Seville, the Jesuit Order was not his first choice. The enterprise of Florida had been launched with six Dominicans, all of whom had subsequently returned to Spain. The Adelantado had taken measures to keep the Jesuits from doing the same thing in his absence. Several sloop captains had confided to Segura that they had been expressly forbidden to transport any of the "teatinos" from Santa Elena, under pain of being hanged from their own yardarms. Laymen frequently confused the Jesuits with the Theatines, another order founded to combat Lutheranism (Segura, 1569, 1573). Outmaneuvered politically, Menendez issued an order guaranteeing freedom of movement to the Jesuits in Florida, and once more the Crown came to the rescue of its strategic colony. In October 1570... (Bushnell SS)