Regular (as opposed to patrimonial) administration of the Florida accounts began in 1577 as a consequence of the Castillo visit, but was slow to develop. In 1580 the crown attempted to tighten its control on all overseas treasuries and impose new taxes. Juan de Cevadilla and Lazaro Saez de Mercado were the appointees who brought the orders to St. Augustine, promising, “From now on, the amount being spent will always be known, and the care that is taken of the exchequer.” The Florida treasury, they discovered, was not as stable as it should be. Their predecessors kept them waiting three months to take office. Governor Menendez Marquez denied their authority as royal judges, as administrators of the situado and supplies, and as regidores. He refused to allow them a notary or bailiff to assist with the inspection of ships. He would not let them have a key to the royal warehouse nor show them the payroll for construction of the fort. He tried to make them receive goods without the proper affidavits. He had soldiers building huts half a league from town, and he would not tell the royal officials why. The crown took up these complaints over the next three years in a steady stream of admonitory cedulas. The most significant of these approved the new treasury proprietors’ plan to take turns being situador, converting them almost involuntarily from servants of the crown into Florida entrepreneurs. [Note 22: Juan de Cevadilla and Lazaro Saez de Mercado 3/6/1580; Juan de Cevadilla 5/12/1580 and 1/22/1582]