Little by little, however, the prejudices were dissipated, and both Alcalá and Salamanca called Strada to lecture in their halls. Nevertheless, each new success only raised a fresh storm. Thus it was bad enough when the rector of the University of Salamanca, Anthony of Córdova, who was just about to be made a cardinal, entered the Society; but the excitement became intense when, in 1550, Francis Borgia, who was Duke of Gandia, Viceroy of Catalonia, a friend of the Emperor, a soldier who had distinguished himself in the invasion of Provence, and whose future usefulness was reckoned upon for the service of his country, let it be known that he, too, was going to become a Jesuit. To prevent it, the Pope was urged to make him a Cardinal, but Borgia, who was then in Rome, fled back to Spain. When, however, he finally appeared as a member of the Order, houses and colleges were erected wherever he wished to have them: at Granada, Valladolid, Saragossa, Medina, San Lucar, Monterey, Burgos, Valencia, Murcia, Placentia and Seville. In 1556 Charles V was succeeded by Philip II, who asked that the cardinal's hat should be given to Borgia, but the honor was again refused. On three other occasions the same offers and refusals were repeated. By the time Francis Borgia became General of the Order it had already developed into eighteen provinces, with one hundred and thirty establishments, and had a register of three thousand five hundred members. Besides attempting to convert the Vaudois heretics, the Society maintained the missions of Brazil and the Indies and established new ones in Peru and Mexico; by the help of the famous Pedro Menéndez, who is the special object of hatred on the part of American Protestant historians, it sent the first missionaries to what is now Florida in the United States. Segura and his companions were put to death on the Rappahannock; and Martínez was killed further down the coast, while Sánchez, a former rector of Alcalá, reached Vera Cruz in Mexico in 1572 with twelve companions to look after the Spaniards and natives and to care for the unfortunate blacks whom the Spaniards were importing from Africa.