The History of Cuba Volume I Part 19

To fortify her coasts and strengthen the garrison of her forts became an urgent need for Cuba and brooked no delay. For while the government of Spain deliberated at leisure upon means to furnish the much-needed aid, the enemy was alive to the opportunity which inadequate defense offered.

The invasion of Santiago de Cuba, which is the most important event of Salamanca's governors.h.i.+p, was a flagrant example of what could at any time happen at any point along the Spanish American coast. One October day in the year 1663, a British squadron, according to some authorities consisting of fifteen, according to others of eighteen s.h.i.+ps of various sizes appeared at the entrance to the port, with unmistakably hostile intention. The commandant of the Morro immediately informed the governor, D. Pedro Morales, of this unwelcome arrival, but the governor did nothing except summon the troops to their respective quarters. Morro was garrisoned by only eighty men, under an inexperienced captain; some historians give the number as only twenty-five. It seems to have been an unpardonable carelessness on the part of the governor not to have at once dispatched an enforcement to the garrison. The inhabitants volunteered to make a sortie to attack the enemy. But the governor did not seem to realize the seriousness of the situation and forbade them to take any action against them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MORRO CASTLE, SANTIAGO

The oldest of the fortifications of the former capital of Cuba, erected in the sixteenth century to protect the place from French and English raiders. It occupies a commanding position on a headland overlooking the splendid harbor and the waters which were the scene of the destruction of the last Spanish fleet in Cuban waters.]

The enemy's forces landed at a point called Aguadores, three quarters of a league from the city. They numbered eight hundred men and encountered no opposition whatever. But as it was then night, they decided to encamp on the little plain of Lagunas and wait until daybreak. The officials of the garrison, relying on their familiarity with the ground, urged the governor to let them make a sortie with three hundred picked men and take them by surprise. But Governor Morales still doubted that they would have the courage to attack the city and refused the proposal of the brave troops as he had the offer of the people. When the morning came, his amazing credulity must have received a stunning blow. For the enemy, fully armed, began to move towards the city. Disconcerted and confused, Morales hastily ordered the troops out and placed himself at their head. Without any order or strategic plan they moved towards the heights of Santa Anna, where as sole defense he had planted a cannon and had some trenches dug.

It was an easy task to get the better of a commander of such little foresight. Realizing the confusion of the Cuban forces the enemy separated into two columns and proceeded to surround Morales and his men. In the panic which broke out, the voice of Morales was heard to order a retreat. He himself escaped into the city. The British dispatched two hundred men to take Morro, which they found abandoned, the garrison having fled instead of making an attempt to save the fort and their honor. When the British commander entered Morro he was reported to have made the remark, that he alone with his dog and his sword could have defended the place. Morro and Santiago were captured and the enemy unhindered indulged in plunder. The bells of the churches were taken, the artillery of the fort, three vessels lying in the harbor, and a number of negro slaves. Unable to get the furniture and jewels which had been hidden by the residents, the enemy vented their wrath on the Morro, which they blew up; they destroyed the cathedral and killed a few people.

For almost a month they lingered about the place and still the governor did nothing to force them to leave. When the governor of Cuba heard of the plight of Santiago, he immediately summoned an expeditionary corps of five hundred men and hurried to the relief of the sorely tried town; but when he arrived on the fifteenth of November, he learned that the British had on that very day evacuated the town. The historian Urrutia reports that the Audiencia of Santo Domingo entrusted the licentiate D.

Nicolas Munez with the investigation of this disgraceful defeat and brought about the removal of Morales. By order of the king he was replaced by the Field Marshal D. Pedro de Bayoa, who was also given two hundred soldiers and war provisions for future eventualities of this kind.

The island had at that time a population of over three hundred thousand inhabitants. The number of negroes had increased and furnished the labor so much needed to work on the plantations. The cultivation of the land was carried on with greater efficiency and began to yield rich results.

Governor Salamanca, in spite of his glorious military antecedents, devoted himself preferably to works of peace. He succeeded in promoting tobacco culture and was the author of the decree issued on the fifteenth of October, 1659, which authorized the extension of the fields into the uncultivated plains that were not used for any other purposes. He was profoundly concerned about the morals of Cuban society and attempted to combat the laxity and dissipation that characterized its life. But it seems that his moralizing had no great effect upon the people that were bent upon taking life easy and plunged into pleasure with greater zest than they pursued their work.

But while the population of the island enjoyed comparative security and prosperity, that of the coast towns was steadily worried by danger of invasion. When Governor Salamanca retired from office, the menace was still far from removed. After a provisional government of ten months, Don Rodrigo de Flores y Aldama, Field Marshal and Caballero de Alcantara, entered upon his administration on the fifteenth of June, 1663. With him arrived also a new bishop, Don Juan Saenz de Manosca, a Mexican of immaculate purity and uncompromising severity. He took charge of the diocese on the sixth of August and continued with greater success than Governor Salamanca in the moralization of the community. Realizing the increasing danger of invasion Governor Aldama at once set about to push the work on the walls of Havana. The garrison was increased by two hundred men.

But Aldama was only a year later appointed Captain-General of Yucatan, and a new governor succeeded him, the Field Marshal Don Francisco Davila Crejon y Gaston, who had previously been governor of Gibraltar and Venezuela. He entered upon his office on the thirtieth of July, 1664, and immediately set to work with great energy and perseverance to hasten the construction of more fortifications. His predecessors had stored up an immense amount of building material and there was no reason why the work should not be carried on without delay. But Davila encountered serious difficulties and obstacles because his plans were opposed by the engineer Marcos Lucio and the viceroy la Espanola Marques de Muncere.

The resources of the exchequer were at that time so scanty that Orejon ordered the provisory use of f.a.gots in the construction of the fortifications of Havana.

However, El Morro of Santiago de Cuba which had been blown up by filibusters a few years before, was rebuilt under his orders. The batteries of La Punta, la Estrella and Santa Clara were established.

The governor of Santiago and D. Pedro Bayone finished these works and also walled up the convent of San Francisco making it equivalent to a fort. In the year 1665 the French pirate Pedro Legrand penetrated into Santo Espiritu with a force of filibusters. He set fire to thirty-three houses and demanded a ransom from every inhabitant. During that and the following year, the pirates plundered more than two hundred haciendas (farms) carrying off cattle and furniture. They committed unspeakable outrages, violating even the wives and daughters of the men whose homes they destroyed or robbed.

One of the most curious historical doc.u.ments of this period is "De Americansche Zee Rovers," a narrative of piratical exploits on the coasts of Cuba and other Spanish possessions by a member of the redoubtable fraternity, Alexander Exquemeling, a Dutch pirate, whose talent for piracy was coupled with the gift of literary style and a pious disposition. The book was translated into many languages and was very popular at the time; it gives a vivid account of the life and habits of the buccaneers and of conditions in the colonies they visited.

Exquemeling had come to Tortuga in one of the vessels of the Dutch West India Company and, as was frequently done then, was sold into servitude for three years. Being ill-treated by his masters, he made his escape and joined the Brothers of the Coast. He was with Morgan at the capture of Puerto del Principe in Cuba, at an attack upon Porto Bello on the Isthmus of Darien and at the dastardly sack of Panama, and indulges in no little moralizing about the monster Morgan and his a.s.sociates.

In the year 1670 steps were finally taken by the British and the Spanish government to crush this outlaw power of the seas. As if in defiance of this act the expedition against Panama was made which Exquemeling describes with evident horror. He also reports that the new governor of Jamaica, who had been particularly instructed to enforce the treaty against piracy, which in the diplomatic doc.u.ments goes under the name "American treaty," ordered three hundred French corsairs who had been s.h.i.+pwrecked on the coast of Porto Rico to be slaughtered. But he does not forget to add that the same governor only a few years later secretly abetted the operations of the pirates and even shared in their booty.

One s.h.i.+p alone carried such rich freight, that every member of the pirate crew received four hundred pounds and the governor himself a handsome sum of hush-money.

But the grim tragicomedy of Morgan's career reached its climax when the scoundrel, who had brought untold misery to homes in Cuba and other Spanish colonies, suddenly turned about, became respectable, married the daughter of one of the most prominent citizens of Jamaica, and was appointed Judge of the admiralty court. Nor was this all: Charles II knighted him and in 1682 the whilom buccaneer, as Sir Henry Morgan, became Deputy Governor of Jamaica. He held the office three years, during which he mercilessly sacrificed some of his former comrades. Then King James II came upon the throne, and Spain having gathered sufficient evidence to accuse "Sir Henry" of secret complicity with the pirates, he was discharged, sent to England and spent some years in prison. The "American Treaty," however, dealt a blow to piracy in the Western hemisphere; and in due time relieved the inhabitants of Cuba as of other Spanish possessions in America for the nightmare that had threatened them for over a century.

CHAPTER XXV

In spite of the "American Treaty" which had for the moment bound Great Britain and Spain together for mutual protection against the pirates, the designs of land-hungry British courtiers and adventurers were by no means abandoned. Spain was not blind to the fact that she had all powers against her, that were playing an important part in the development of the New World. French, Dutch and British were stung with the desire to appropriate to themselves some of its wealth. For many years the British government had jealously watched the progress of Dutch navigation and commerce. Its settlements in North America had whetted the appet.i.te for colonial expansion, which, once awakened, was bound to be satisfied by whatever means diplomacy or strategy offered. Though England and Spain were then nominally at peace, Cromwell was haunted by dreams of British world power and as soon as the Revolution gave him authority to act as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, pursued his visions of conquest.

The act of navigation which was issued in the year 1651 does not with a word mention British monopoly of the colonies; it only established the principle of exclusive maritime commerce by British vessels, equipped for the most part with British citizens, and prohibited foreigners from importing into the Commonwealth other products than those of her own soil or those the sale of which was established in the importing country. Cromwell's idea was without doubt to attack Dutch commerce and build upon its ruins a national British commerce. Holland opposed in vain the act intended to break the friendly relations between the two nations. Parliament was concerned only about British interests and refused to revoke her laws to please her neighbor and ally. The war between England and Holland became inevitable. Cromwell's squadron triumphed and Dutch commerce had to give way to British.

This lesson was not lost upon France which was also haunted by visions of colonial empire and was therefore interested in defending the principle of monopoly. As early as the reign of Queen Isabella, French ambition and desire for colonial possessions had become manifest. As British vessels began to prey upon Spanish colonies, France followed their operations with keen interest and at opportune moments managed to acquire a slice of territory in the New World. In the year when the British had taken possession of Barbadoes, France took half of San Cristobal; when the British settled on the other half of that island, the French took possession of Martinique, Guadeloupe and other small islands. They founded a colony in Cayenne and a.s.sisted by corsairs got a hold on the western part of Santo Domingo.

But the greed for territory once awakened, was not easily appeased, and the courtiers of the Restoration, in need of new avenues of wealth to carry on their wonted extravagance, were among the most rapacious claimants of land in America. In the Spring of 1663, the province of Carolina was established, extending from the thirty-sixth degree of north lat.i.tude to the river San Matheo and some dissatisfied planters from Barbadoes founded a settlement in the fall of the same year. Having been included by the Spaniards within the limits of Florida, this arbitrary act was bound not to pa.s.s unchallenged by Spain. In defiance of the Spanish authorities at St. Augustine the Earl of Clarendon obtained from the King in June, 1665, a charter granting him and his partners all territory lying between the twenty-ninth and the thirty-sixth degree of north lat.i.tude from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Not satisfied with these acquisitions, the British turned covetous eyes upon Cuba. A letter written by a Major Smith in the year 1665 and published in the Universal Museum of London in the year 1762, gives an account of the island which requires no comment. It reads:

"Cuba is a very good island and in it is generally, for so large a country, the best land I have seen in America, although I have traveled the main continent in several places and crossed from the north to the south seas as also the north side of Hispaniola, and most parts of Jamaica. This great island is easily to be conquered, and would make the best plantation, besides the prejudice it would be to the Spaniards and the great advantage to our nation. For instance had we the port and city of Havana, which might in all probability be reduced with two regiments of good soldiers from Jamaica, carrying with them two or three sloops or shallops for sending men, provided with good arms and other necessities for an a.s.sault. The descent is to be undertaken presently after their armada hath pa.s.sed out of the Indies which is once in two years, towards the end of the summer. There is a good landing on the west side of the city where it lies open and you need fear no ambuscades, but not on the east side of the harbor, for there you will be galled by the Morro until the city be secured; but when once that is taken, you may easily reduce the castle also and there being no danger of retaking it until the next armada arrives, which will be almost two years, in which time you will have planters enough from other of your islands to manure the land and a.s.sist the soldiers in the defense of the island. This conquest being once effected, would utterly ruin the Spaniards and for these reasons; our s.h.i.+ps lying both here and at Jamaica, would be at all times ready to gather up their straggling fleet which it is difficult to keep embodied without the help of that port of Havana, it being windward from the bay of Mexico or Puerto Bello, without separation and on the other hand, to pa.s.s the Gulf of Florida is impossible should they lose the Havana where they rendezvous victual water and provide all things necessary for their return to Spain. When this is done, they wait for a convenient season of weather (being much observed from the changes of the moon) in order to pa.s.s the dangerous strait; for to say truly, the Spaniards are neither very fit for sea nor for land service, excepting some officers and soldiers bred in Flanders, for the latter and a few Biscaniers for sea affairs. They are so sensible of their weakness, and jealous of their riches in those parts that it is very difficult for any ingenious man, once taken by them, to get his liberty, fearing he might give such intelligence as would be the cause of their ruin, witness their blindfolding of all strangers, when they pa.s.s their cities and castles, for they much dread an old prophecy among them, _that within a short time the English will as freely walk the streets of Havana as the Spaniards now do_, which indeed had been easily performed with a third of the army sent to Jamaica and a far greater advantage to the nation; for I esteem that port and harbor of the Havana in the West Indies to be as great a check upon the Spaniards as Tangier in the straits of Gibraltar; and if we were once masters of both they would without doubt be so straightened as absolutely to admit us a free trade into their ports of America, where they import our commodities and sell them for ten times more than they first cost in Spain, by reason of the great plenty of silver, which trade would not only be of great advantage to us, but also prevent their future enslaving our nation in chains, as they now do; for being employed in their fortifications, they are worse used, all things considered, than if they were taken by the Turks. I have seen other parts of the West Indies, where the Spaniards might be fleeced of considerable quant.i.ty of riches; as at Panama, where there are silver bars piled up in heaps in the open street day and night, without guard, four, five or six months together, waiting the arrival of the armada, which when arriving in Puerto Bello, they transport it thither with so slender a guard for so great a treasure, that it would be easy prey for a thousand resolute men the expense of whose expedition would be small in comparison to the prize. But there is no resting or long tarrying about the business, the Spaniards being numerous here as in all other places of the main land; a catch and away.

This island of Cuba hath adjacent to it great conveniences of salt and fis.h.i.+ng and in it is very great plenty of horses, meat, sheep and hogs, both wild and tame, of a far larger and better breed than in other parts of America. Which hath also many rich mines of copper already open and it is the only place which supplies all the West Indies with metal for the infinite number of ordnance they have in all their ports and castles, both in the north and south seas; but whether it hath any mines of silver or gold, I know not; but if there were any such they would venture their opening a discovery fearing the invasion of that island which is of so easy access by sea and of such great importance to their whole interest in America; for which reason also they refuse to work any mines in Florida that are near the north sea (although they have there very many) but would rather employ themselves about others farther in the country although with great labor and cost for conveyance of the produce by land to Mexico; lastly, this island (to complete its praise) hath very good ports and harbors of great advantage to s.h.i.+ps for safe pa.s.sing the gulf; and should the Spaniards keep two or three frigates always plying off there between the western end of Cuba and the Havana, it were impossible for any s.h.i.+ps of ours that came from Jamaica to escape them. The scales turned would be their case to all America.

Neither wants it great sugar-works, which have both water-mill and horse mills and very many large cocoa walks; the most and best tobacco; in short, it produces all other commodities that any of our American islands have knowledge of."

This letter shows plainly how preoccupied was the British mind with the acquisition of Cuba, and foreshadows the coming events, for which Cuba in spite of all warning symptoms was little prepared. Clouds had gathered about the horizon of Spain and darkened its own outlook.

King Philip IV. had died on the seventeenth of September, 1665, and so inadequate was at that time the means of communication between Spain and her American dominions that it took seven months before news of the event reached the people of Cuba. The heir to the Spanish throne was the three-year-old Charles II. the queen, a.s.sisted by the junta, being named regent. If the reign of Philip IV. had been called the most disastrous in the history of the kingdom, that of Charles II. was hardly less so.

It was the period when Louis XIV. of France had begun to cherish a dream of universal empire and although a brother-in-law of the Spanish infant-king, did not hesitate to do his share in weakening the power of Spain. In spite of the critical position of the mother-country, the proclamation of the new king was celebrated in Havana with great pomp on the ninth day of May in the following year. At the review held in San Francisco square of that city appeared two companies of mounted militia, four companies of veteran infantry and four others of free Pardos (a mixed race of blacks and whites) and Morenos, sent by the Major Jeronimo Luque Salazar.

The perfidy of the French king contributed seriously to the insecurity of Cuba at this period. There is little doubt that he aided and abetted the operations of French pirates in the West Indies. The island of Tortuga was once more in their hands. Barbadoes and Jamaica were the haunts of great numbers of these outlaws, who kept the Spanish s.h.i.+ps sailing on these seas as well as Campeche, Tabasco, Honduras, Nicaragua, New Granada, Costa Rica, Santa Catalina, la Guayra and others of the rich Spanish colonies in the Western Hemisphere in a continual state of suspense. Governor Davila succeeded in several punitive expeditions against the pirates. The notorious Lolonois or El Olones, was executed in Nicaragua and in Cuba itself more than three hundred were hanged in the different places where they had been caught. During Davila's administration some wealthy citizens made bequests for the public good.

The most important was that of Martin Calvo, who left an income of five thousand pesos to be annually distributed as gifts among five poor orphan girls. Governor Davila Orejon y Gaston was in the military literature of his time known as the author of a work called "Escelencias del arte militare y variones ill.u.s.tres." He demonstrated in that work the importance of the port of Havana for the conservation of Spanish dominion in Mexico and Peru. He retired from the governors.h.i.+p on the sixth of May, 1670, and died in Venezuela.

The immediate successor of Davila was Field Marshal D. Francisco Rodriguez de Ledesma, Chevalier of the Order of Santiago. Determined to curb the brazen bullying in which the buccaneers were still indulging, he issued privateering patents to a number of valiant mariners and merchants, who were willing to face the foreign pirates in open fight and prevent further encroachments upon the coasts of Spanish America.

The two men who especially distinguished themselves in these expeditions were Felipe Geraldini and Major Marcos de Alcala. Ledesma also carried on the work of fortification. During his administration was built a portion of the cathedral under the supervision of D. Juan Bernardo Alonso de Los Rios; but the imposing edifice was not finished until many years later.

Governor Ledesma was not to be spared an experience with the freebooters. In the year 1678 the governor of Guarico sent a certain Franquinay to Santiago with the evident intention of conquering the place. Franquinay, who was a French corsair well-known among the Brotherhood of the Coast landed with eight hundred men at Jaragua Grande in the eastern part of the island. There he engaged a half-witted native by the name of Juan Perdomo to act as guide and started with his forces to march toward the city. It was a moonlit night and on arriving at a point where the road branched into two, the pirate divided his forces, each taking one of the roads. On meeting again at the place where the two branches continued as the highroad, the idiot Perdomo began to shout "Santiago, Spain!" The moon had set in the mean time and in the darkness enveloping them, the pirates did not recognize their own forces and thought this call a signal to the enemy lying in wait for them. They began to fire upon their own forces, in the belief that they were betrayed and surprised by the Spaniards, and killed a great number of their own people, before they became aware of their mistake. In this way was Franquinay's plan to take and ransack the city of Cuba frustrated by a mentally deficient native, one who in the language of the Latin people is called an "innocent." The corsair turned back to the sh.o.r.e with the intention of re-embarking and left Perdomo behind. The half-wit, although manacled, managed to reach Santiago and related his experience to the great delight of the governor and the residents. This was the last attempt of pirate forces upon the capital, the inhabitants of which had been kept in a state of constant alarm for a century and a half. But the smaller towns of the vicinity were for some time hara.s.sed by Franquinay who, unable to accomplish his ambitious purpose, vented his wrath upon their population by committing the most cruel outrages.

The expedition of buccaneers under the command of M. de Grammont in February, 1679, was another event that justified the fears of the Cubans and their steps to insure the safeguard of their ports. M. de Grammont landed with a force of six hundred men at Guanaja and succeeded in capturing Puerto del Principe. But the inhabitants valiantly organized and armed themselves to fight the invader. With a scanty reenforcement of soldiers from the garrison they managed to defeat the enemy's horde and pursued them as far as the port of Guanaja. There M. de Grammont, who was wounded in the course of the combat, retired into a trench which was sufficiently fortified to offer some resistance. On the twenty-fifth of the month an engagement took place, which forced the pirates to take to their s.h.i.+ps and hurriedly to leave for the open sea.

They had not only accomplished nothing, but suffered the loss of seventy dead and many wounded.

Notwithstanding the two countries being at peace, the feeling between Great Britain and Spain was gradually becoming more and more hostile.

During the pirate raids and other expeditions of British vessels off the Spanish-American coasts, British soldiers and sailors had been taken prisoners and were held in what was equivalent to bondage. The British government had repeatedly remonstrated against this procedure, but the Cuban authorities had not forgotten Jamaica and other operations of the British in Spanish America and were not inclined to parley. s.h.i.+ps had been sent to Havana to demand the release of the men, but even then the emissaries of the British government failed to obtain any satisfaction.

Their demands were flatly refused. Finally the Earl of Clarence, who was then governor of Jamaica, dispatched the British s.h.i.+p _Hunter_ under command of Captain John Tosier to Havana. A full account of this expedition is given in "A Letter from Captain John Tosier, Commander of His Majesty's s.h.i.+p the _Hunter_ at Jamaica. With a narrative of his emba.s.sy to the governor of Havana to demand His Majesty's of Great Britain's Subjects kept prisoners there." The letter is dated Port Royal, Jamaica, March 28th, 1679, and was published in London in the same year.

Captain Tosier tells of previous efforts made to obtain the deliverance of these British prisoners, saying that even messengers backed by frigates of fifty guns had so far failed in their purpose. He sailed from Port Royal on the twenty-fifth of January and on the eleventh of February arrived off the coast of Havana. There he waited for two days for more settled weather before he approached within two miles of Morro castle, "top-sails a-Trip, Jack, Ancient and Pendant flying." He sent a boat with Mr. Richard Bere, Governor Carlisle's "Gentleman of the Horse"

as messenger and interpreter, and bearer of the list of British subjects kept prisoners in Havana. The guard of Morro castle ordered the boat ash.o.r.e, put a sergeant and soldiers on board and escorted the messenger to Governor Ledesma. Another guard remained on the boat. Governor Ledesma read the letter and the sailing orders and replied that the British prisoners were pirates. According to Captain Tosier's narrative he refused the British emissaries the customary salute and more or less politely ordered them out of the house. They were escorted back to the boat and "were forced to sea at seven o'clock at night."

Early the next morning the answer was received by Captain Tosier. Within three hours he sent the boat ash.o.r.e once more, telling the governor of Havana "His Majesty's s.h.i.+p under my command is well Man'd, where he might be safe and welcome if he would vouchsafe to give her his company; and His Majesty of England never spared his powder to answer Civilities, nor received such indignities as waiters or guards on board of any of His Majesty's s.h.i.+ps of War, which will be a strange report, when His Majesty shall come to hear of it." Captain Tosier then demanded in the name of the King of England and "in obedience to the Catholic King" that forthwith all subjects of his "most Excellent Majesty" detained as prisoners in Havana be set at liberty and delivered to him to be transported to the Territories of the King of England. If pirates they were, they should have been sent to Old Spain to be tried. Great was the excitement at the government house in Havana, when this message reached there. But the Cuban authorities saw no other way out of the difficulty but to give up the captives. Captain Tosier reports that the governor ordered the prisoners to be called over in a back court near his house and examined some of them, one after another, and before he had done said: "Though I have no order to deliver them to you and though I may be blamed, yet take them all with you, and if there be any more, let them come forth immediately and they shall be discharged."

Captain Tosier had cause to be proud of his success, as the Spanish authorities had never before been known to deliver any British prisoners. The announcement that they were free was received with wild cheers by the forty-six Englishmen who had spent from one to six years in Cuban captivity. The following day the _Hunter_ sailed and at some distance out of Havana, Captain Tosier came across a long boat, containing one hundred and forty-four men with their commander, Captain John Graves who had sailed a month before for London and eight days before meeting the _Hunter_ had been cast away thirty leagues east of Havana and expected to be utterly lost or to be made prisoners by the Cubans.

Though Governor Ledesma had in this instance yielded to the pressure exercised by the British, he was by no means convinced of the honesty and sincerity of the Governor of Jamaica. He had reasons to believe that in spite of peace between the two countries the governor of Jamaica was secretly in league with the pirates that had molested Cuba, and that while pretending to persecute the outlaws, he had really encouraged them in their raids upon the Spanish colonies. Governor Ledesma collected evidence to that effect and presented it at the court of Spain. But his appeal arrived at a time when Spain's European losses had alarmingly decreased her prestige and when even her national wealth showed a perceptible shrinkage. So the court at Madrid did nothing but deliberate at length upon the ever present problem of insuring the safety of the colonies and limited its practical a.s.sistance to the sending over of a few s.h.i.+ps with instructions to organize an armada which was to patrol the coasts and force the outlaws to respect Spanish possessions. The island itself armed a few vessels and the garrisons were slightly increased.

The great earthquake of the year 1675 added to the sufferings of the people of Cuba and caused loss of life and property. Three years later a violent hurricane swept over the island and worked great havoc. It not only robbed great numbers of the inhabitants of their homes, and did serious damage to commerce and traffic, but it also destroyed the recently finished cathedral. Though such catastrophes were of no rare occurrence in that climate, they invariably left the people's spirits depressed and indirectly affected their initiative and enterprise. Thus the copper mines were abandoned about this time, because their production seemed out of proportion to the labor and expense of working them. But the real reason was probably the ignorance and inefficiency of the forces in charge of the work and the lack of energy and courage which frequently manifested itself in the wake of great disasters.

A change in the ecclesiastical affairs of Cuba caused considerable commotion during the administration of Governor Ledesma. Bishop Saenz de Manosca was promoted to the bishopric of Guatemala. The Trinitarian (in Mexico a member of a society hired to carry the corpse in the funeral procession) who had temporarily succeeded him was shortly after appointed Bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo. Thus the diocese came under the wise spiritual guidance of the Canon of Avila, D. Gabriel Diaz Vara Calderon, who was not only a learned theologian of great reputation, but a priest of uncompromising moral austerity. He devoted himself with great ardor to reforming the church in the West Indies. On a single visit to Florida he was reported to have made as many as four thousand converts. On his return to Cuba he inaugurated a reign of unwonted severity. He had been deeply shocked by the levity and frivolity of his diocesans; he had learned that even ordained priests and personages in high official positions were in the habit of attending public b.a.l.l.s and masquerades, the latter especially offering opportunity to indulge in polite intrigues and adventures of a dubious nature. He justly opined that men in clerical garb and those in responsible government offices lowered their dignity and abused the trust reposed in them by partic.i.p.ating in such entertainments. He prohibited his diocesans under threat of excommunication to attend such amus.e.m.e.nts and by this rigorous restriction of the gayeties in which the people had been accustomed to indulge, made not a few enemies. When he died on the sixteenth of March, 1676, public rumor attributed his death to poison administered by some person in revenge for his interference with the social life of his diocese.

Spain was at this period at the lowest ebb of her power. Financially she was on the brink of bankruptcy. Her commerce was paralyzed by stupid laws. The scandalous conduct of her officials had sadly lowered her prestige. Nature herself seemed to conspire against the once so powerful empire. Storms and inundations had swept over the country and ravaged the land, until its very soil had become unproductive. Tempests along her sh.o.r.es had destroyed even the s.h.i.+ps lying in port. The mentally and physically feeble monarch, Charles II., was a helpless puppet in the hands of his favorites. A believer in witchcraft, astrology and the black arts and devoted to superst.i.tious practices, he left the affairs of state to his prime ministers who conducted them with varying ability.

When Ledesma's governors.h.i.+p terminated on the thirty-first of August, 1680, there was appointed in his place D. Alonso de Campos Espinosa. But as Valdes and other authorities on Cuban history have nothing to record about his official career, it must have been only provisional, and was certainly very brief. For in September of that year the Field Marshal D.

Jose Fernandez de Cordova Ponce de Leon took charge of the office.

Governor Cordova proved to be a very conscientious and energetic functionary and distinguished himself first by the vigor and perseverance with which he pushed work on the fortifications of Havana.

He also showed his ability in fighting the pirate scourge. The filibusters had begun to organize bases of operation on the islands of Signale and Lucayas, similar to those of Tortuga. He sent against them an expedition headed by the captains Acosta and Urubarru, who succeeded in destroying the outlaw colonies in the name of the king and took a great number of prisoners. The chief event of Governor Cordova's administration was an encounter which the coast guard Galliot of the port Virgen del Rosario y Santa Jose had with a host of French invaders.

The governor and organized forces of patriotic citizens so ably seconded the guard in the defense of the place that the enemy was defeated.

Governor Cordova made many enemies by his vigorous persecution of the smugglers who had greatly increased in number and by their clandestine operations were interfering with and discrediting the legitimate trade of the island. They had become such a power that they had the audacity to bring denunciations and accusations against the governor before the court, which, however, set these charges aside and approved all of Cordova's measures directed against them. He also had grave difficulties with the commissary of the Santo Officio, D. Jose Garaondo. They were not yet settled, when Governor Cordova suddenly died on the second of June, 1685. There were rumors afloat that he, too, like Bishop Calderon, had been poisoned by his enemies. During the interim between his death and the arrival from Spain of his successor, the affairs of the island were administered by D. Antonio Manuel de Murgina y Mena and Captain D.

Andres de Munive, who shared between them the political and military authority.

The newly appointed governor of Cuba was the general of artillery, D.

Diego de Viana y Hinojosa. When he arrived in Havana in November, 1687, he brought with him the first copies of the "Codigo e Recopilacion de India," as the statutes or laws of the West Indies were called. They were in force by royal decree, although they were in reality only a confirmation of the famous Ordinances of 1542. They were distinguished by a spirit of rect.i.tude and impartiality and were particularly commendable for their justice towards the native Indians, who were exempted from all servitude and were accorded equal rights with the Spaniards. Unfortunately these laws suffered from one serious defect: they were framed so as to apply to all dominions of Spanish America and did not take into account the indisputable fact that laws applicable to and beneficent in Peru, might be prejudicial in Mexico and Cuba. This did not, however, diminish in the least the ethical significance and humanitarian value of this codex of some four hundred laws, decrees and mandates; they gave proof of the admirable sentiment of the mother country towards her colonies.