Partly because of the shortage of currency and the inadequate harbor—but also because Florida’s east coast had little to export, once the sassafras boom ended—St. Augustine was not a regular port of call. This meant that whoever was chosen collector of the situado must double as garrison purchasing agent. Wine and flour produced in New Spain and sold in Havana cost over twice as much there, in 1577, as the same provisions in Spain. Governor Menendez Marquez found it necessary to exchange situado silver for gold at a loss and send it to Spain by a light, fast frigate, to buy meat and olive oil. In 1580 the presidio obtained permission to send two frigates a year to the mother country or the Canaries, but as prices and taxes rose there, flour and other foodstuffs had to be found increasingly in the colonies. [Note 40: Gov. Menendez Marquez, Santa Elena 10/21/1577; Gov. Menendez Marquez to Treasurer Martin de Quiros 4/8/1578. The exchange cost from gold to silver at Lima was 12% in 1557.] (Bushnell KC)