It does not appear that Velasquez made a favorable response to this request, if indeed he made any at all. He had previously manifested his impatience to learn what Grijalva was doing and what he had found, by sending Christopher de Olid with one vessel to offer him reenforcements and supplies, if needed, and to get a report of his achievements. Off the Mexican coast, however, that expedition ran into a succession of violent storms which so discouraged and dismayed Olid that he abandoned his errand and scuttled incontinently back to Cuba without so much as communicating with Grijalva. The latter, accordingly, after spending the summer and early fall in Mexico, and despairing of receiving the increased authority which he deemed essential to the further success of his expedition, reembarked and returned to Cuba, arriving at Matanzas early in October.
There he found Olid, who had reached that port only a few days before, and who had not yet communicated with Velasquez the news of the failure of his errand. Olid's report to Velasquez, which was then promptly dispatched, contained therefore the news of Grijalva's return as well as his own. As soon as he received this, Velasquez sent word to Grijalva to come at once to Santiago and report to him in person, but to let his men remain at Matanzas, or at Havana, since he wanted them to serve in another Mexican expedition which he was already fitting out. Most of the men were willing to do this, and were accordingly maintained there at the cost of Velasquez, or of the Spanish Crown, until he was ready to use them; though a certain number expressed themselves as having had their fill of exploring and accordingly returned to their homes in various parts of Cuba.
Grijalva repaired, as summoned, to Santiago, and there met what we must regard as an unjust and unmerited fate. Velasquez expressed entire dissatisfaction with his conduct, particularly in not having planted permanent settlements in Mexico; the very thing which Grijalva had wanted to do but was forbidden by Velasquez himself to do. This extraordinary inconsistency on the part of Velasquez can probably be explained on the ground that he himself had been forbidden by the Jeronimite Fathers to plant such colonies, and did not venture to disobey them, but had hoped that Grijalva would disobey them. He further let his unhappy nephew know that, because of his failure to disobey orders, he would have no further use for him. He was sending out another expedition to Mexico, to plant permanent colonies there, but it would be under other leadership, and Grijalva would have no part in it whatever. As Grijalva had already alienated most of his men by refusing to break his orders, he was thus left friendless, and he played no further part in the history either of the Cuba which he had loyally served or of the Mexico of which he was the discoverer and first explorer.