CHAPTER XI
Washington's warning of entangling alliances comes to one's mind on reading the curious results of the concerted action against Britain decided upon by France and Spain in Europe, while the United States were fighting the British in North America, and the Spanish colonies of Cuba and Louisiana were attempting to wrest from them the Gulf coast. The lure of Gibraltar had led to a state of blockade; but this was far from satisfying to the insatiable ambition of the Spanish prime minister, Florida Blanca, still bent upon making the world ring with the sonority of his name. Ignoring all arguments to the contrary presented by the French statesman Vergennes, and even by some of the Spanish authorities familiar with the situation, he began to insist upon an immediate attack on Britain and gradually persuaded the French allies. An expedition was fitted out and in June, 1779, the fleet consisting of thirty-one French ships of line and twenty Spanish warships sailed for the Channel.
It was the largest and best equipped force that had been seen on the Atlantic in many years; for the Spanish shipbuilders had been busy during the past years of unrest and threatening war clouds and had turned out vessels far superior in construction to those of Britain. The French were not over hopeful; even light-hearted Marie Antoinette was conscious of the importance of the enterprise and the great risk it involved; for she wrote in a private letter: "Everything depends on the present moment. Our fleets being united, we have a great superiority. They are in the Channel; and I cannot think without a shudder that, from one moment to the next, our destiny will be decided." The French staked their hope upon the reputation of the Spanish as fighters on sea. Montmorin said: "I hope the Spanish marine will fight well; but I should like it better if the British, frightened at their number, would retreat to their own harbors without fighting." King Carlos alone was optimistic; he imagined a rapid invasion, a prompt victory and the humiliation of Britain, which he had so long wished for.
The unexpected was to happen for both French and Spaniards. The fleet appeared at Plymouth on the sixteenth of August, but, without even an attempt at attacking the town, for some unexplained reason was idle for two whole days. Then a storm came up and drove it westward. When the weather became more favorable, the vessels returned and the British retired before them. There was no action to speak of; there was nothing lost and nothing gained, and realizing the futility of the undertaking, the chiefs decided to abandon it. The French returned to Brest, and the Spanish to Cadiz. To the onlooking world the actions of the expedition appeared nothing less than quixotic. The reasons for this incomprehensible performance gradually became known; the expedition had sailed under many chiefs, but it lacked the one chief, whose will and word was to prevail and insure unity of purpose. Unable to agree upon any one plan of action, they decided upon no action whatever. The Spanish admiral, who had been fired with the spirit of Florida Blanca and been eager to display the famous military prowess of his nation in a big fight with the enemy, was so furious, that he vowed on his honor after this experience rather to serve against France than Britain. Marie Antoinette wrote to her mother: "The doing of nothing at all will have cost us a great deal of money."
But while a legitimate engagement between the French and Spanish vessels on the one and the British on the other side was for the time being avoided, the three countries did not disdain to stoop to smaller means to inflict damage upon the commerce and the navigation of one another. Nor did they hesitate to attack the vessels of neutral countries, if they suspected them of lending aid to the belligerent they were opposing; and as this spirit began to spread, it led to a state of anarchy upon the seas, which recalled the golden age of piracy. British privateers and other vessels cruised about the ocean in quest of booty and attacked and robbed indiscriminately whatever ships they suspected; and very frequently this suspicion was only a pretext. Dutch commerce and navigation especially suffered from these depredations, and as French and Spanish vessels began to vie with the British in these violations of neutrality, the council chambers of the European powers, from Lisbon to Petrograd and from Naples to Christiania began to ring with vociferous protests against these disgraceful conditions. When Spain issued an order that all ships found by her vessels to be carrying provisions and to be bound for Mediterranean ports, should be brought into the harbor of Cadiz and their cargoes sold to the highest bidder, even Britain was alarmed and indignant.
That was the moment which brought into prominence Sir George Rodney, the British commander, whose naval exploits soon were to worry the Spanish colonies, as did once those of British freebooters. Rodney sailed with his squadron on the twenty-ninth of December, 1779, and by the eighth of January had captured seven warships and fifteen merchantmen. At Cape St. Vincent, where he arrived on the sixteenth, he destroyed a part of the Spanish squadron under command of D. Languara. In the spring of the same year he had several encounters with the French fleet, under command of Admiral Guichen, with results so favorable for him that Britain soon resounded with his praise. His progress had so far been almost unobstructed, but in the summer it was temporarily checked, when the Spanish squadron, commanded by D. Solano, joined that of the French. However, the curious disparity of French and Spanish temperament once more manifested itself in a manner which disastrously affected their work. Unable to agree on important questions of action, their cooperation threatened to come to naught. In the mean time an epidemic of fever broke out in both fleets and D. Solano returned with his ships to Havana, while Admiral Guichen sailed for France.
The new governor, who had succeeded Navarro in the administration of Cuba, was Lieutenant-General D. Juan Manuel de Cagigal. Alcazar calls his governorship a provisional one; Blanchet asserts that he received his appointment in reward for the valuable services he had rendered during the recent conquest of Pensacola, he having been the first to enter through the breach which the Spanish had made in the fortifications. Cagigal was a native of Cuba; he entered upon his office on the twenty-ninth of May, 1781, and remained until December of the same year. He contributed largely to the efficiency of the expedition which was fitted out under the command of D. Solano, the General of the Spanish fleet, consisting of twelve vessels with one thousand men on board, and was to join the French fleet at Guarico. The object of the expedition was to capture the island of Providence and eventually take other island possessions of the British in the contiguous seas. According to Alcazar, Providence was taken, but the defeat of the French squadron by Rodney made the position of Cagigal critical and attention had to be concentrated upon the defense of Havana.
According to Blanchet this joint expedition of the French and Spanish forces, which had for its ultimate object the capture of Jamaica, had elected for its chief D. José de Galvez, giving him for the duration of the campaign authority over the Captain-General of Cuba and the president of Santo Domingo. By order of Galvez, Cagigal had set out from Havana in April, 1782, with forty-eight transports and two thousand men to possess himself of the British island of Bahama, and in particular of Providence. During his absence D. José Dahan exercised the authority of the governor. Cagigal was not aware that a week before his sailing Admiral Rodney had defeated the French squadron of Count de Grasse, which he was to join in the attack on Jamaica. However, Providence was taken and a sufficient garrison left there to make the conquest secure. Blanchet indulges in some criticism of Cagigal that he had left Havana, and taken all the troops with him at such a critical time. For when he reached Matanzas after a heavy gale which had dispersed his ships, he found the authorities no little alarmed since a British fleet had been sighted.
Cagigal immediately hurried to the capital, fortified the approaches, employing one thousand negroes in the work, and formed an intrenched camp. He armed the militia, which was reenforced by many civilians, eager to fight the enemy, and when on the fifth of August el Morro gave notice of the presence of the British, everybody was prepared for the defence. Sir George Rodney, now Admiral, had calculated upon taking Havana by surprise. He brought with him a squadron composed of twenty-six ships of the line, and carrying a large number of troops. When he arrived and began to reconnoiter, he perceived the formidable preparations that had been made for the defence of the place, and deciding that it was imprudent to attack Havana by land, planned to approach it from Jarico. In the meantime Cagigal had received reenforcements which seemed to assure the safety of the capital. Daring as was the gallant Britisher, he was not inclined to waste his material in an enterprise so doubtful of success, and to the great relief of the Cubans he sailed away.
In his administration Cagigal did not prove as efficient as in his military operations. He was a born soldier. He had followed the military profession in Portugal, Oran and at Gibraltar; he had participated in the unfortunate expedition against Argel, had fought in Florida and had been with D. Pedro Caballero at Buenos Aires. He disliked the atmosphere of official bureaus and the complicated machinery of government. This lack of interest in the indispensable functions of his office brought him into serious trouble. He had counselors or asesores attend to matters which did not immediately require his intervention, and as such had employed the Venezuelan D. Francisco Miranda, who eventually became prominent in the history of his own country. When Miranda returned from a commission in Jamaica, he disembarked some contraband in Batabano. The Intendente Urriza, who was informed of the matter, at once sent a complaint to Cagigal, who, either from indifference or indolence, never even stopped to examine the case, but simply resolved to suppress it. He had, however, not taken into account the presence of the functionaries of the royal Hacienda or Treasury, who communicated the incident to the proper authorities in Spain. An urgent order for Cagigal's removal from office was the result; and the Captain-General of Caracas, D. Luis de Unzaga, was sent to take his place as governor of Cuba. Miranda fled. Cagigal was sent to Guarico and later dispatched by D. José de Galvez to Cadiz, where he was for four years a prisoner in Fort Santa Catalina. During the proceedings against him it was found that he was in no way implicated in the smuggling operation of Miranda. He was rehabilitated during the reign of King Carlos IV. and in the war with the French Republic had once more an opportunity to prove his military abilities. He died as Captain General of Valencia.
The strong impulse towards progress which had been given to Cuba in that period of peace when the administrations of Buccarelli and la Torre devoted their main energies to internal improvements and to modest attempts at laying the foundations of Cuban culture, had of course subsided during the recent unrest and the predominance of military interests. Nevertheless, there is evidence that the spark kindled a few years before was not quite dead. A long-felt want had been the absence of any periodical publication that would give the people of Cuba information upon the current political events and also be a medium for advertising purposes. According to some historians the first periodical of this kind, the _Gazeta_, published under the direction of D. Diego de la Barrera, made its appearance in the year 1780; others give as the date of its foundation the year 1782.
Whatever the date of its publication may have been, the _Gazeta de la Habana_ became a medium through which the people were kept informed of the doings of the various administrative departments. The issue dated April eleventh, 1783, contains some statistics concerning the silver coins with milled edges cut away, which had been recently withdrawn from circulation, which is of interest as it suggests the relative financial rank of the different localities mentioned.
In the Treasury of the General Silver Reales Administration: with milled edges Weight cut away in ounces Havana 311,625 23,340 10 Guanabacoa 2,808 151 Santa Maria del Rosario 21,870 1,117 12 Arroyo Arenas 7,049 380 14 Santa Clara 237,665 12,558 San Juan de Los Remedios 68,153 3,848 Trinidad 40,137 2,145 Sancti Spiritus 197,905 11,670 14 Puerto Principe 73,792 3,207 Bayamo 94,499 4,615 7 Holguin 31,013 1,701 Baracoa 6,396 1,465 -------- ------ 1,092,940 66,231 5
The _Gazeta_ added to this report: "There have been collected from the public over two million pesos (cut away), and in their exchange they yielded a little over eighty thousand pesos fuertes (efficacious), and although the loss is excessive as a whole it must be stated, that in particular it was not very grave, the money being distributed in small amounts among the public."
This was a critical period in the conflict which had gradually involved the principal countries and was watched with apprehension by all the sovereigns of Europe. Up to this date Florida Blanca, who, from a simple lawyer in the provinces had risen to be prime minister of Spain, had not attained the goal of his ambition and secured for Spain victories, the glory of which should cast a halo about his name. On the contrary, circumstances began so to complicate the task which he had imagined to be comparatively easy, that he was puzzled and began to lose some of his extraordinary self-assurance. Bancroft gives in his "History of the United States" (Vol. VI. p. 441) a very interesting review of the situation and of the relation of Spain to the Revolutionary War, which was drawing towards its close. He says:
"The hatred of America as a self-existent state became every day more intense in Spain from the desperate weakness of her authority in her trans-atlantic possessions. Her rule was dreaded in them all; and, as even her allies confessed, with good reason. The seeds of rebellion were already sown in the vice-royalties of Buenes Ayres and Peru; and a union of Creoles and Indians might prove at any moment fatal to metropolitan dominion. French statesmen were of the opinion that England, by emancipating South America, might indemnify itself for all loss from the independence of a part of its own colonial empire; and they foresaw in such a revolution the greatest benefit to the commerce of their own country. Immense naval preparations had been made by the Bourbons for the conquest of Jamaica; but now, from the fear of spreading the love of change Florida Blanca suppressed every wish to acquire that nest of hated contraband trade. When the French ambassador reported to him the proposal of Vergennes to constitute its inhabitants an independent republic, he seemed to hear the tocsin of insurrection sounding from the La Plata to San Francisco, and from that time had nothing to propose for the employment of the allied fleets in the West Indies. He was perplexed beyond the power of extrication. One hope only remained. Minorca having been wrested from the English, he concentrated all the force of Spain in Europe on the one great object of recovering Gibraltar, and held France to her promise not to make peace until that fortress should be given up."
From that time began a series of secret manoeuvres in favor of a general peace, and rumors of the signing of treaties that had then not even been drafted, began to float across the ocean and agitate the colonies of Spanish America. But naval operations in the waters of the West Indies continued almost without cessation. The French fleet under de Grasse had before its return to France restored to the Dutch St. Eustatius. It had captured St. Christopher, Nevis and Montserrat. When in February, 1782, Admiral Rodney appeared at Barbados with twelve new ships of line in addition to his fleet, and was towards the end of the month joined by the squadron under command of Hood at Antigua, it became necessary for the French to look for a junction with the Spanish fleet. For this purpose de Grasse left Port Royal to Martinique on the eighth of April and hurriedly sailed for Hispaniola. After a small engagement at Dominica, Admiral Rodney by a skillful ruse brought on a battle with the French between Guadeloupe, Saintes and Marie Galante. The British had on their side superiority in number and quality, having thirty six vessels, all in good repair and manned by well-trained and disciplined sailors. The French ships were better constructed, but inferior in number, and their mariners were known to be less efficient and experienced. The combat raged for eleven hours. Four of de Grasse's ships were captured, one sunk. The British lost about one thousand men in killed and wounded, the French about three times as many. This defeat of their ally tended to depress the spirits of the Spanish people, both in the mother country and the colonies, for they saw Britain once more exercising almost undisputed authority over the seas.
By this time the belligerents were all becoming tired of the war and were seriously hoping for peace. The situation in France had after this new defeat become specially precarious. Her coffers had been depleted by participating in a war in which she had nothing to gain. Hence her statesmen were particularly anxious to end a conflict the ideal aim of which had been attained by the recognition of the independence of the United States from Britain. But she was bound by the alliance with Spain; and Spain was inflexible in refusing to acknowledge that independence and in insisting upon her demands, among them above all others, in Europe, the return of Gibraltar, in America the territory east of the Mississippi, including the right of navigation on that river. Conferences between John Jay and Benjamin Franklin, the special American emissaries, and the French minister Vergennes and his able assistant Rayneval were constantly taking place. Couriers were speeding back and forth between Paris and London. Rayneval attempted to bring the subject of Gibraltar to the attention of the Earl of Shelburne, saying: "Gibraltar is as dear to the king of Spain as his life," but he was told that it was out of the question even to propose to the government to cede it to Spain. He pleaded for Spain's claim of the Mississippi and its eastern valley, and received an ambiguous reply, implying that Britain might be induced to cede Jamaica. But the indirect offer was ignored, just as had been that of Porto Rico some time before. The more the negotiations progressed, the more did Spain, persisting in her traditional conservatism, prove a stumbling block to peace. For as late as September, 1782, in a meeting between Lafayette, Jay and Aranda, did the latter, as representative of King Carlos III., refuse to acknowledge the independence of the new republic.
In the mean time Spain was clamoring for action against Gibraltar, and the French and Spanish fleets united in an attempt to reduce the fort under the command of the Duke of Crillon. But three years of blockade, with intervals of famine and privation, had not broken the spirit of the British garrison. While the first question of the king of Spain on awakening every morning was: "Is Gibraltar taken?" the British continued to defend it with a stubbornness which threatened to prolong the struggle interminably. Receiving constant supplies from the British fleet under Lord Howe, General Eliot was able to hold his own and the futility of this expedition soon became apparent. When the Spanish batteries were blown up and General Eliot made his audacious sortie, the hope of this victory had to be abandoned.
Spain at last realized the necessity of yielding to the inevitable. Her debt had been increased by twenty millions sterling, her navy had been almost annihilated and she had gained nothing but an island or two. King Carlos III., who had so long withheld his recognition of the United States and blocked the negotiations for peace, because the American envoys justly demanded that recognition before they could deal with the representatives of Spain, finally yielded to the pressure of the moment and the preliminaries of peace were signed on the thirtieth of November, 1782. By the separate articles of this treaty, the claim of the United States to all the country from the St. Croix to the southwestern Mississippi, from the Lake of the Woods to the St. Mary's, was verified. By a separate article the line of north boundary between West Florida and the United States was defined, in case Great Britain at the conclusion of the war should recover that province.
Thus was the republic, the consummation of which King Carlos III. had in his loyalty to the old tradition of sovereignty so zealously tried to prevent, established upon the very continent, which Columbus had discovered, and to the greater part of which Spain had laid claim. If the Spanish king and his cabinet were at all conscious of the analogy presented by comparison of the commercial and other restrictions placed upon both colonies by the kingdoms from which they had sprung, they had reason to be filled with vague apprehensions at the rise of this new and free power among the countries of the world. They could not help seeing in the republic which by a long and tenacious fight had won her independence from the mother country, a neighbor whose example offered a dangerous precedent.
Perhaps it was with the intention of forestalling the development of such events in Cuba, as had led to the Declaration of Independence by the colonies to the north, that the Spanish King had some years before begun to remove the restrictions which had for two centuries and more hampered the growth of Cuban commerce and retarded her general development. It was a proof of his own growth towards a more liberal conception of the relations between a country and her colonies, that the removal of these restrictions was effected within so short a time. He opened the trade of Cuba and the other islands of his possessions in America in 1765, and that of Louisiana in 1768 to eight Spanish ports besides Cadiz; he gradually permitted direct trade from the Spanish ports to his dependencies in South and Central America; and in 1782 even allowed New Orleans and Pensacola to trade with French ports that had Spanish consuls.
The breath of freedom which seemed to sweep across the world during these last decades of the eighteenth century, might well have filled the sovereigns of Europe with fear for their possessions and prerogatives. Although Carlos III. was the most liberal monarch that Spain had had in a long time, he still clung to a rigorous paternal regime in the relations of the court to the colonies, the population of which began to resent the rule of officials sent to them from Madrid, and rarely concerned with their welfare. He had had more cause than other European sovereigns to dread the consequences which the American Revolution might bring in its wake. For an insurrection, headed by Tupac-Amaru, who called himself an Inca, had broken out in Peru, and was directed against the exactions of the corregidores; and though it was suppressed by the year 1782, incipient revolt seemed everywhere to be ready to break out. As Garcia Calderon says of that period in his book on Latin America:
"The revolution was not merely an economic pretext; it nourished concrete social ambitions. An equalizing movement, it aimed at destruction of privileges, of the arbitrary Spanish hierarchy, and finally, when its levelling instinct was aroused and irritated, the destruction of authority to the profit of anarchy. The Creoles, deprived of all political function, revolted; in matters of economics they condemned excessive taxation and monopoly; in matters of politics they attacked slavery, the Inquisition, and moral tutelage. Charles III. had recognized, in 1783, in spite of the counsels of his minister Aranda, the independence of the United States, which were to serve his own colonies as precedent, and he expelled the Jesuits from America, the defense of the Indians against the oppression of Spanish governors. The corruption of the courts, the sale of offices, and the tyranny of the viceroys, all added to the causes of discontent, disturbance and poverty."
The insurrection in Peru was but the tocsin sounding the alarm. It was to be followed by a number of revolts that shook the very foundations of Spain's colonial empire in America.
Cuba for some time to come remained untouched by the high tide of insurrection. It enjoyed a period of peace, which promoted the welfare of the people and insured their content. D. Luis de Unzaga, who entered upon his office as governor of the island in December, 1783, distinguished himself by his strenuous prosecution of officials, whose honesty he had reason to doubt. One of these was the administrator of the Factoria or tobacco factory, D. Manuel Garcia Barrieres, whose disposal and trial he ordered. This factory, which monopolized the tobacco crop of the island for the benefit of the royal government, received a subvention from Spain which at this time was increased to fifty thousand pesos annually. Unzaga also took steps to limit the number of inexperienced and unscrupulous lawyers, against whom some of his predecessors had already inaugurated a campaign, by refusing to issue new diplomas to barristers, there being at that time two hundred practicing in the island. A royal decree of the year 1784 was directed towards the same evil, but lawyers still remained too numerous in proportion to the population for in 1792 the island had one hundred and six, and Havana seventy two. Governor Unzaga had also some trouble with the governor of Santiago de Cuba, D. Nicolas Arredondo. D. Arredondo, who is remembered in history of the island as the founder of the first "Sociedad Patriotica," in which he had such fellow-members as D. Francisco Lozo de la Torre, D. Pedro Valiente, and D. Francisco Grinan, was accused of participating in contraband trade and was temporarily deposed. Ultimately it was discovered that the real offenders were two aldermen, the brothers Creaght. After a protracted trial the innocence of Arredondo was established and he was reinstated in office.
The greater the natural wealth of a country, the more are its inhabitants inclined to indulge in thoughtless or deliberate waste of resources which would be carefully husbanded in country less favored by nature. Cuba was wasteful of her forest wealth. The governors of the island had so far paid little or no heed to the wanton destruction of the forests by people who exploited them for their timber. In a proclamation issued soon after he was inaugurated, Governor Unzaga made a serious attempt at checking this criminal waste of the island's wealth. He prohibited the use of cedar for building purposes; he designated the land where the people could procure their supply of that valuable wood, and ordered that for each log cut the arsenal should receive two "knees." The state had for years looked with indifference upon the devastation of the forests, and, conceding to private individuals the absolute dominion over those that shaded favored territory, wanted to monopolize them for the use of the Navy. Not only the sugar refineries were using unreasonable quantities of that wood, but especially the shipyard. This enterprise, which received an annual subvention from the Spanish government of seven hundred thousand pesos, and was more active than those of the mother country, because negro labor was cheaper than white, used enormous quantities of cedar.
Thus the order of Governor Unzaga, while ultimately benefiting the island, caused for the moment no little heated discussion and unpleasant tension.
Among the foreigners of high rank that visited Cuba immediately after peace had been signed was the son of George III., William of Lancaster, who had served as midshipman in Rodney's squadron. According to Alcazar, he was most graciously received, being sumptuously lodged by Governor Unzaga, who in honor of his presence arranged many brilliant festivities, in which the aristocracy of the island had opportunity to show itself resplendent in all its wealth. So pleased seemed the prince with his stay that he might have prolonged it, had not the admiral reprimanded him, and insisting upon his immediate return on board, threatened to leave without him. Knowing Rodney's severity, the prince obeyed, although it must have been difficult for him to tear away from that gay life. The visit cost the Cubans great sums of money, officials and civilians having vied with one another in offering entertainment. The mess at which the General of the Marine, D. Solano, had treated him, is reported by Valdes to have cost four thousand pesos. A gold peso being about the value of three dollars, it was a handsome sum to spend on the son of the king who had been Spain's enemy in the war just concluded.
One of the most serious mistakes which Spain had always made in the administration of her American colonies was the appointment of men who were mostly natives of the mother country and not as familiar with the conditions and the needs of the territory they governed as those who had been born in the colonies. The short period of some administrations also greatly hindered a well-ordered systematic management of the different departments of the government. Earlier periods of the history of Cuba had such frequent changes of governorship; and the latter part of the eighteenth century was to undergo the same experience. When Unzaga retired on the eighth of February, 1785, he was succeeded by a man whose previous career had given him a reputation which recommended him to the Cubans; D. Bernardo Galvez, who had distinguished himself in the last expedition against Pensacola, and as former governor of Louisiana was thoroughly in touch with colonial life in Spanish America. Galvez was a native of Malaga, Knight Commander of the order of Calatrava and endowed with the title of Conde de Galvez. But the hopes of the island were much disappointed when only two months later he was transferred to the vice-regency of Mexico and was on the fifth of April temporarily replaced by the King's Lieutenant-teniente de Rey, and Field Marshal D. Bernardo Troncoso. He had been governor of Guatemala, and when he had barely become acquainted with Cuban conditions, was appointed governor of Vera Cruz. But during his brief administration he showed no little initiative and firmness of purpose and among other things succeeded in repressing the bakers' guild which had become very troublesome.
At this time the Spanish colonies of the continent, Louisiana and Florida, became aware of the hostility with which they were regarded by certain elements of the United States, that tried to foment disturbances along their northern boundaries. In June of that year Troncoso received news from Louisiana that a corps of two thousand three hundred Americans were organizing in the state of Georgia for the purpose of taking the fortifications of Natchez, which they alleged were on ground of their demarcation. Troncoso accordingly dispatched from Havana a few pickets of infantry and a company of dragoons, with the aid of which the governor of Louisiana could mobilize a column of twelve hundred regular troops to check the project.
With the inauguration of Brigadier D. José de Espoleto on the first of December, 1785, a little more stability came into the government of the island. One of the first official acts was the formation of the Regiment of Cuba, in which he was ably assisted by the Inspector D. Domingo Cabello. Espoleto entered upon the functions of his office in the spirit of the Marques de la Torre, to whose wise administration Havana was indebted for all the improvements and reforms that made her worthy of being the metropolis of the Spanish West Indies. Espoleto continued the work on the piers, hastened the completion of the buildings for the government and the Intendencia, inaugurated a system of water supply and street cleaning and established a public market for the convenience of the producers in the outlying districts and the city dwellers relying upon them for their supplies in dairy and garden products. He also introduced some reforms in the police department of Havana. But what was most important for that commonwealth was his settling upon it of a sum which was to be devoted to the permanent lighting of the city.
In his administration Santiago de Cuba took a significant step towards the more effective concentration of the literary activities of the island. This was the foundation of the first Sociedad de Amigos, which was approved of by the king and on the thirteenth of September, 1787, received a royal grant. In his colonial administration Espoleto tried to follow the example of Ricla and Buccarelli, ordering the publication of the decrees which they had enacted and which in the course of time had been forgotten, and did his best to enforce them. In this by no means easy task he was backed by D. José Pablo Valiente, an oidor of the Audiencia or judge of the Supreme Court, who had come to Havana in 1787 to start an inquiry into the disbursement of certain funds. By order of the king he had to investigate how the enormous sums, which the expeditions of the gallant Galvez had cost, had been invested; had to examine the state of the royal revenues and suggest needed reforms, watch the administration of justice and propose measures to raise the standard of the bar. One of the high officials who had given a previous administration trouble and was probably guilty of irregularities, Urriza, was so resentful of this investigation of his office, which D. Valiente was ordered to undertake, that he speedily resigned. He was succeeded by D. Domingo Hernani.
Death reaped a rich harvest between 1786 and 1788, in removing men so closely identified with the fate of the colonies and the mother country that they were not soon to be adequately replaced. On the thirtieth of November, 1786, D. Bernardo de Galvez died in Mexico, where he had reigned as viceroy since he left Havana eleven months before. By his rare executive talent and his extensive knowledge he had become one of the most efficient colonial governors that Spanish America had known, and to him was in a great measure due their progress and prosperity. A few days later died in Madrid his uncle D. José de Galvez, the noted minister of the Indies, whose name is also identified with colonial reforms. But the greatest loss to the colonies and to Spain was the death on the twenty-eighth of December, 1788, of King Carlos III. The kind and prudent sovereign had in a reign of almost thirty years, handicapped as he was by the Spanish tradition of absolutism, tried his best to further the growth and the welfare of his country and its dependencies, and inaugurated policies more liberal than any his predecessors had followed. He had endeared himself to his people and was sincerely mourned.
The accession of Carlos IV. to the throne of Spain was not calculated to advance Spain and her colonies beyond the degree of development they had attained during the long reign of his father. He was forty years of age and by stature and physiognomy was singularly fitted to represent so important a kingdom as Spain. But he was as unintelligent as ignorant, and allowed himself to be guided by his wife, Maria Louise, princess of Parma, who was as clever and scheming as he was dull and indolent. She was an autocrat, who suffered nobody to share the reins with her, and imperceptibly they slipped into her hands, until she was absolute sovereign of the kingdom. Two years after the death of Carlos III. Florida Blanca was forced to resign. Count Cabarrus, an ardent champion of reform, and a man of considerable executive power, was arrested. D. Gaspar Melchior de Jovellanos, one of the most profound thinkers and noblest patriots that Spain could claim in the eighteenth century, was removed from the important position he held in Madrid and exiled. Campomanes, too, fell into "disgrace" in 1791. All these men, distinguished for their character and their ability, were replaced by some feeble creatures with no idea or will of their own, puppets in the hands of the queen, who transformed the court of Madrid into a den of corruption.
The policies pursued by Spain during this time culminated in so much confusion that Florida Blanca was recalled in 1792 and set about to make an attempt at restoring order in a thoroughly disorganized government. But he was deposed the same year, having been unable to obtain the favor of the queen. Aranda, who during the previous reign had been the representative of progress, peace and the liberal ideas that came to Spain from France, followed him with no better luck. For he too was dismissed within a year and his place was taken by the queen's favorite, Manuel Godoy, who some years later was to turn up in Cuba. Godoy was a handsome young officer; she made him a grandee of the first class with the title of Duke of Alcudia, and entrusted him with the ministry of foreign affairs. The proud old aristocracy of Spain grumbled at the rise of the upstart; but it succumbed to the spirit of servility which pervaded the atmosphere of the court, and sought the favorite's favor.
Such was the condition of the country which was exercising a paternal authority over Spanish America. It was not calculated to tighten the bonds existing between the mother country and the colonies. As transportation increased and news began to spread more rapidly and to circulate more freely, the eyes of the colonists were opened to the iniquities they suffered, and they began to question institutions and laws which they had formerly unconditionally accepted. The glamor of the period of conquistadores had long faded; the excitement of the age of piracy was slowly being forgotten. Cuba, like all Latin America, had entered upon that period, which President Poincaré in his preface to Garcia Calderon's book on "Latin America" calls "the colonial phase with its disappointments, its illusions, its abuses and errors; the domination of an oppressive theocracy, of crushing monopolies; the insolence of privileged castes, and the indignities of Peninsular agents." It needed strong and noble men to guide her through the period of unrest which even at that moment was culminating in the French Revolution.
The immediate echoes of this Revolution were heard in 1791 in Hispaniola, where at the very first risings of the people in France, the slaves had revolted, killing their masters and burning their property. It was only the prelude to the greater insurrection, which broke out later and in which Cuba became involved. In the mean time, this island had come under another interim governorship, and was drifting along on the tide of progress in some directions, while in others it had come to a standstill, if it had not retrograded. The provisional government of D. Domingo Caballo which began on the twentieth of April, 1789, and ended on the eighth of July, 1790, was not noteworthy for any important measures, unless it be another attempt at restricting the number and the activities of lawyers. The royal decree of the nineteenth of November, 1789, which prohibited the admission of any more professors of jurisprudence, native or foreign, to the bar of the island, was modified to read thus: "To the profession of lawyer, only those shall be admitted who studied in the greater universities of their countries and had practiced in some of their capitals, where there existed a superior tribunal certifying that they had practiced six years at the superior courts of Spain."
During Caballo's interim rule there occurred the ecclesiastical division of the island. The archbishopric of Santo Domingo was divided into two suffragan dioceses, both the bishopric of Santiago de Cuba which had existed since 1518 and the new bishopric of Havana being subject to the metropolitan mitre of Santo Domingo. To the bishopric of Santiago was appointed D. Antonio Feliu, a man of great piety and gentle disposition, who rapidly won the esteem of the community and the love of his flock. That of Havana, which also comprised Louisiana and Florida, was entrusted to D. Felipe José de Tres Palacios.
In spite of the apparent prosperity, the island was still suffering from centuries of restriction which had paralyzed the initiative of its population. Maria de las Mercedes (Jaruco), Countess de Merlin, says of that period in her work, "La Havana" (Paris, 1844):
"Owing to the long tyranny which had weighed upon the island, Cuba needed hands to cultivate her fields. The products were devoured by a monopoly; territorial property did not exist; for the proprietor could not even cut a tree in his woods without the permission of the royal marine; the population was reduced to 170,370 souls; the sugar production had become so inferior in quality, that no more than 50,000 barrels of sugar annually left the port of Havana; finally, the island was involved in debts and Mexico was obliged to aid it in the necessary expenses of the administration and agriculture."
The author, a niece of the Conde de Casa Montalvo, who was identified with the great revival of civic spirit during the administration of Governor Las Casas, also limns a rather discouraging picture of the state of education in the island, saying that in the year 1792, Havana had only one grammar school, of which the mulatto Melendez was the teacher, and that up to the year 1793 girls were forbidden to learn to read. So thoroughly familiar was the author with the political and economic conditions of Cuba, and closely associated with the men, whose energy, integrity and patriotic ambition ushered in that wonderful era of progress, that the three volumes of her work, consisting of letters to Chateaubriand, George Sand, Baron Rothschild, and others are full of valuable information presented in a most fascinating manner.
The historian Valdes is not far from right, when he calls the history of Cuba, as compared with that of other countries, _nuestra pequena historia_--our little history. But that little history contains more than one great epoch and its biography more than one figure that stands out with something like sovereign impressiveness from the many names which it records. The administration of D. Luis de Las Casas is such an epoch, and he is such a man. Born in the village of Sapuerta in Viscaya, his was a picturesque career. He had embraced the military profession and been on the battlefields of Villaflor and Almeida; in Portugal he attracted the attention of Count O'Reilly, who took him on the expedition to Louisiana, where he was sergeant-mayor of New Orleans. On his return to Spain, he solicited permission to go to Russia and served under the flag of Marshal Romanzow, distinguishing himself in the campaign waged by the empress. Then he studied the science of government in Paris; but as soon as Spain was once more engaged in war, he joined the expedition of O'Reilly against Argel. His conduct at the capture of Minorca earned for him the title of Field Marshal and Commandant-General of Oran. He also took a gallant part in the unfortunate attempt to recover Gibraltar. On being appointed to the governorship of Cuba, he arrived in Havana the eighth of July, 1796, and on the following day took charge of his office.
One of his first official measures was to have a new census taken, for when the results of the one taken by la Torre were published, many questioned the correctness of the figures. It was said, not without some justice, that, if the population of the island in the year of the British invasion, 1762, was one hundred and forty thousand, it should have been more in 1775 than one hundred and seventy-one thousand six hundred and twenty, since the number of negroes that had been added to the population was in itself enormous, and there were also the immigrants from Florida that had settled on the island. Profiting by the criticism of his predecessor's work, Las Casas took great pains so to systematize the work of the census takers, that their investigations would be unexceptionally thorough and conclusive. When the result became known two years later, the population of the island was found to be two hundred and seventy-two thousand five hundred and one inhabitants.
In the second year of his administration, Governor Las Casas had an opportunity to show his generosity and his executive ability when Cuba was visited by another typical West Indian hurricane. It broke upon the island on the twenty-first of June and lasted fully twenty-four hours. The terrible windstorm was accompanied by a deluge of rain, which caused the overflow of the Almendares and its tributaries, uprooted the trees in orchards and nurseries, inundated plantations and damaged houses to such an extent, that great numbers of residents in the districts of Wajay, San Antonio, Managua and others were rendered homeless and reduced to poverty. The governor not only effectively organized the work of relief, but spent freely of his private funds to alleviate the suffering of the people. He showed the same spirit a year later, when Trinidad was visited by a conflagration which consumed property valued at six hundred thousand pesos. The establishment of the Real Casa de Beneficiencia was another work that proved his sincere concern for the welfare of the people, and especially those unfortunates who were dependent upon public charity. The founding of this asylum for destitute orphans of both sexes, including a school, in which they were to be taught a trade to make them self-supporting on reaching maturity, was first proposed by him in a meeting of citizens on the twenty-second of March, 1792. So warm and rousing was his appeal, that large subscriptions to defray its expenses were immediately signed. A royal patent of the fifteenth of December conferred upon the plan official approval. There was connected with the asylum a hospital, and both were temporarily organized and began their work in a provisional building, until on the eighth of December they were transferred to the structure erected for them.
Cuba's commerce, though still laboring under difficulties due to unreasonable trade laws of Spain, was gradually becoming so extensive that it needed some central organization to protect and promote its interests. The citizens had so far let things take their course as they might; lack of initiative was perhaps natural with a people under the strict paternal supervision which Spain exercised over colonies. Governor Las Casas roused their latent energies and induced them to organize for mutual profit and for the general progress of the island's commerce. For this purpose was established the Tribunal of Commerce or Consulado, which was also to act as a court of justice for mercantile litigants and bankrupts. The Consulado was founded on the sixth of June, 1795, and within a short time settled more than three hundred and twenty such cases.
But the most important step towards the internal reform and improvement of the island was taken by Las Casas when on the second of January, 1793, he presided at the foundation of the "Real Sociedad Patriotica o Economica," which later changed its name to Junta de Fomento, or Society of Progress. Among his associates in this most significant enterprise were the marquises de Casa Calvo, Casa Penalver and San Felipe, the counts de Casa Bayona, Lagunillas, Buenavista, O'Farrel and Jaurequi, distinguished citizens like Romany, Sequeira and Caballero, and that greatest patriot among them all, Sr. D. Francisco Arango y Pareno, to whom credit is due for the inception of this organization. The different sections, into which this society was divided, devoted themselves to the development of agriculture, stockbreeding, industry, commerce, science and art, and were of inestimable service to the people. Reports of the meeting held on the twenty-first of December, 1796, showed a clearness and seriousness of purpose which commanded respect and augured well for the future of the undertaking.
In those first four years of its existence it was the medium through which were established some much needed improvements for the facilitation of traffic. Within a few months after its foundation it invested some of its funds in the highway of Horcon which cost about thirty thousand seven hundred pesos. Then it built the Guadalupe road and finished the principal pier of that place. To introduce indigo culture on the island, it lent to the administration three thousand five hundred pesos without interest. When the royal professor of botany, D. Martin Sese, suggested to take with him a young native of Havana to study that science in its application to agriculture, the society again defrayed the expenses. There was hardly a work of public utility that was not materially assisted by this corporation.
Its efforts at promoting the cultural progress of the population were no less remarkable. A number of its members united in editing the _Papel Periodico_, which was published every Thursday and Sunday at a cost of fourteen reales per month and was of the size of a half sheet of Spanish paper. As the work of the society expanded, it gave to the press its "Memorias," a collection of original writing and translations by the members, covering a variety of subjects, among them contributions to Cuban history which contain valuable data. Some forty years after its foundation, it published at its expense the history of D. José Martin Felix de Arrate, which is one of the earliest works on the history of Cuba. But even more important were the constant and vigorous efforts of the Society to reform and improve public education. It founded many establishments of free instruction and offered special inducements to teachers, who could show a certain number of children with a more solid knowledge of grammar and the four fundamental principles of arithmetic than the schools had so far produced. The university, too, was encouraged in its work; the textbooks were improved and the curriculum was enlarged so as to include courses in geography, physics, history and Spanish literature.
The first director of the Society was Sr. D. Luis Penalver, bishop of New Orleans, and later archbishop of Guatemala, a man who was closely identified with the work of the Casa de la Benficiencia and other institutions. But, although all members were men distinguished for their gifts and their achievements, the soul and moving spirit was D. Francisco Arango, of whom we shall hear much more in our later narrative.
A worthy fellow-worker of Arango was D. José Pablo Valiente, who as Intendente organized the Royal Exchequer, and with no little risk to himself, permitted and encouraged commerce with neutral and friendly nations, regardless of still existing restrictions. He assisted in the establishment of the Consulado and the Sociedad Economica, made a gift of seven thousand pesos to the Casa de Beneficencia, encouraged the progress of public instruction and in many lawsuits brought before the Consulado played the role of a noble conciliator. With such men as these to assist him, the administration of Las Casas was soon regarded as the most glorious in the history of the island. For though Havana was the principal scene of the activities of these men, Las Casas did not fail to extend the blessing of his reforms and improvements to other communities. The towns of Santa Maria del Rosario, Santiago de las Vegas and others soon showed considerable growth; in the districts of Guanajey, Alquiza, Quivican, Managua and others, the territory under cultivation was steadily expanding; the village of Casa Blanca and the town of Manzanillo were founded, and the port of Nuevitas essentially improved. An excellent cooperator of Governor Las Casas was D. Juan Bautista Valiente, governor of Santiago de Cuba, who protected agriculture, founded primary and Latin schools, introduced a system of lighting in his city, started to pave its streets, and invested his savings in an edifice, which served to house the Ayuntamiento, the governor's and other offices and also contained the jail.
The first revolution in Santo Domingo in 1791 had warned Las Casas and brought home to the administration of Cuba the necessity of looking once more after the defences of the island. He was aided in this task by the chief of the navy yard, D. Juan Araoz, who hastened the work of naval constructions, and in a short time turned out six war vessels, four frigates and a number of boats of lesser tonnage. They proved of great usefulness in the operations against Santo Domingo and Guarico during the second uprising when in order to protect Spanish interests and inhabitants there were sent from Havana the regiment bearing the name of the city and from Cuba a piquet of artillery. That revolt is so closely associated with the problem of slavery, which had become the cause of grave apprehension to the government that it will be referred to in the following chapter. The massacre of French and other colonists in that unfortunate island brought a multitude of refugees to Cuba and materially increased its population.
An event in the last year of the administration of Las Casas gave rise to festivities of a memorable character. When the war between Spain and the French Republic broke out, General D. Gabriel Aristizabal, who operated in Hayti, did not want the ashes of Columbus to be lost during the ensuing disturbances. It seemed more appropriate, too, that they should not remain in the place where he had been slandered and persecuted and where the villain Bobadilla had put him in fetters, but in the island that had always smiled upon him. On the fifteenth of January, 1796, there entered into the port of Havana the warship _San Lorenzo_, carrying the casket. It was received by Governor Las Casas and General Araoz, the bishops Penalver and Tres Palacios, and between two lines of soldiers was carried to the cathedral, where it was deposited in a humble niche. Though the first city of the island did not then raise a monument to Columbus it was done by a much smaller town, Cardenas, which for this act alone deserves to be mentioned.
The inscription upon the stone, under which the remains of Columbus found rest, reads:
D. O. M. Clares Heros. Ligustin. CHRISTOPHORUS COLUMBUS A Se, Rei Nautic. Scient. Insign. Niv. Orb. Detect. Araque Castell. Et Legin. Regib. Subject. Vallice. Occub. XIII Kal. Jun. A.M. DVI Cartusianor. Hispal. Cadav. Custod. Tradit. Transfer. Nam. Ipse Praescrips. IN HISPANIOLAE METROP. ECC. Hinc Pace Sancit. Galliae Reipub. Cess In Hanc V. Mar. Concept. Imm. Cath. Ossa Trans. Maxim. Om. Frequent. Sepult. Mand. XIV. Kal. Feb. A. Md. C. C. X. C. V. I. HAVAN. CIVIT Tant. Vir. Meritor. In Se Non Immen. Pretros. Exux. In Optat Diem Tuitur. Hocce Monum. Erex. Praesul. Ill. D. D. Philippo Iph Trespalacios Civic AC Militar. Rei. Gen. Praef. Exme D.D. LUDOVICO DE LAS CASAS
When the administration of Las Casas came to an end, the municipality of Havana called a testimonial meeting for the sixteenth of December, 1796, which gave proof of the high esteem in which the extraordinary man was held by the people. Four years after his retirement, on the nineteenth of November, 1800, he died of poison. He had not escaped criticism by those who saw in his enforcement of forgotten laws and in many of his new ordinances the manifestation of an arbitrary spirit; but it was universally conceded that during his government Cuba reached a high-water mark in her development. Though the corruption and degradation of the court at Madrid had a baneful influence upon the Spanish colonies, the island which had enjoyed the blessings of his rule and caught a breath of the spirit of such men as Arango and Montalvo could never again be contented unquestioningly to accept the dictates of that court. The flood of new liberal ideas which, coming from France, swept over the whole world, could not be turned back at el Morro. They found their way into the hearts and the minds of the people and slowly but surely taught them to see where their ultimate salvation lay.