Meanwhile in Havana itself all possible forces were mustered for defense. The volunteers from the other towns were drilled into an efficient state of discipline. Such was their zeal that they gladly served without pay while a considerable number of them in addition provided their own rations at their own cost. For the necessary expenses of their maintenance Rojas, the Royal Treasurer, used what royal funds were in hand regardless of the purpose for which they had been designed, and when these were insufficient he collected taxes without authority, on the principle that the safety of the city and Island was the supreme law. At the beginning of April some welcome aid arrived from Mexico, which even Quiñones was now glad to have. The Viceroy sent four vessels, bearing about 300 fighting men, with six months' supplies of food and with pay for eight months in advance. These increased the force under Quiñones to more than 900 well-trained soldiers. During the month of April Luzan arrived from Bayamo with nearly 100 more men, thus increasing the garrison of Havana to about 1,000. This was a force which the Captain-General confidently believed would be able to resist and to repulse any force which Drake might be able to land.
Luzan had meantime, in February, received from Spain orders to resume the governorship of the Island with full power, to return to Havana, and to consider his term of office indefinitely prolonged. He had been appointed in 1579 for a term of four years and had assumed office in 1580, so that his original term was by this time long since expired. Reckoning the four years from his actual assumption of office in the summer of 1580 his term had ended in 1584. If his return to Havana was not altogether agreeable to Quiñones, and it is quite probable that it was not, at least a semblance of harmony was preserved between them, and there was certainly efficient if not cordial co-operation. To this auspicious state of affairs the Royal Treasurer contributed in no small degree.
In fact, in the face of the great peril which confronted it, all Cuba arose to the occasion with a unity of public spirit never before known in its history, and wholly admirable. All the officials, civil and military, insular and royal, were in accord, and all classes of the population, Spaniards, Indians and negro slaves were loyal and devoted in their support. In these circumstances it is of fascinating interest to speculate upon what might have happened had Drake made the expected descent upon Havana. It is well within the limit not only of possibility but of probability that he would have been decisively defeated. It is even possible that in the conflict with more than a thousand well-armed, well trained and resolute Spaniards, than whom there were then no braver or better fighting men in all the world, he would himself have been captured or slain. And such a disposition of Francis Drake in the summer of 1586, only two years before the descent of the Invincible Armada upon the shores of England, might well have changed the history of the world.