Asia was avidly sought. Marco Polo had written that east of Cathay was the island of Cipangu (Japan) and 7,448 smaller islands. Also, the legendary isles of Antilla, Brazil and the Seven Cities were yet undiscovered.

It was customary, therefore, when soliciting aid from monarchs, to invoke the possibility of possessing the fabulous inlands which were step-ping stones to the Orient. Patents for discovery, as a matter of form, usually referred to the search as being for islands.

Herrera gives only a brief account of Ponce's second effort:

One of these (principal captains of the Indies) was the Adelantado Juan Ponce de Leon who had discovered the Florida in the year twelve (1512, actually 1513) and traveled seeking that fountain Santatan, named among the Indians, and that river whose waters made youthful the old. He had retired since the Caribes of the Island of Gudaloupe maltreated him.

Now (in 1521) he determined to arm, in the Island of San Juan de Puerto Rico where he had his home, two vessels in which he spent a great deal of his estate. He went with them to the Florida, which was yet taken for an island. This was to prove to himself by passage if it was mainland -- as he says in his letters that he wrote in this year to the Emperor, to the Cardinal Adriano governor of these realms in that season, and to the secretary Samano.

Upon arrival to take land in the Florida, having passed much labor in the navigation, the Indians came out to to resist him. And fighting with him obstinately they killed him some people. And wounded in the thigh he returned to Cuba with those who remained. There he finished his days.

The hardships of trying to set up a colony in Florida were portrayed only a few years after Ponce's venture by Oviedo in his 1535 "Historia":

Not tired by either the expenditures or labors (of his earlier exploration) Ponce returned to arm with more determination and expense. He provided and put in order certain ships to enter into the mainland on the north border, on that coast and point which enters 100 leagues of longitude into the sea, and little more or less than 50 of latitude.

It appeared to him that in addition to that which might be obtained and known in the islands

which are there, other secrets and important things also could be known in the mainland. And (he thought) to convert those people to God, with great utility to his person in particular and generally for those who went with him. These were 200 men and 50 horses in the said ships.

To render this armada effective he spent much. He went to that land in the year 1520 (1521). As a good settler he took with him mares, calves, swine, sheep, goats, and all manner of domestic animals useful to the service of man. Also, for agriculture and working the fields, there were provided all seeds -- as if the business of settlement was nothing more than to arrive and cultivate the land and pasture his cattle.

But the climate of the region was very different and not in accord with that which he imagined. The natives of that land were a very rough people, very savage, belicose, ferocious, and indomitable. They were not accustomed to quiet; nor so easily leaving their liberty in the direction and will of other men; nor in the election of those Friars who went in his company for exercise of the Divine Cult and service of the church.

Though the clerics might preach all they wished, neither they, nor he that brought them, could be understood by the natives with the brevity they imagined. God in his absolute Power did not cause them to be understood by these barbarous peoples who were savage indolators, filled with sin and vices.

This armada arrived at that land in the year that is said. At once, as they disembarked, the Adelantado Juan Ponce, like a prudent man, gave orders that the people of his armada should rest themselves. When they appeared so, he moved with his people and entered the land in a skirmish or battle which he had with the Indians.

As he was a spirited captain he found himself among the first, but not so dexterous in that land as in the Islands (of the Caribbean). So many and such enemies charged him that his people and force were not sufficient to resist them. In the end they routed and killed part of the Christians. More than double of Indians died.

Ponce came out badly wounded with an arrow and decided to go to the island of Cuba to cure himself if he could, and to return to this conquest with more people and power. Thus he embarked and arrived at that Island, at the Port of Havana, where after arrival he lived little. But he died like a Catholic and received the sacrements.