The History of Cuba Volume II Part 7

CHAPTER VII

By the terms of the treaty signed at Versailles on the tenth of February, 1763, Britain was to give back to Spain the city and territory of Havana in the condition in which the British had found it and Spain was to grant the British a term of eighteen months, so that those who had established themselves upon the island could insure their interests by transferring their property. To administrate the political and military affairs of Cuba and carry out these stipulations, a new governor was appointed in the person of the Lieutenant-General Conde de Ricla, a relative of the famous Minister Aranda. Ricla arrived in Havana on the thirteenth of June and prepared to enter upon his duties, while the British authorities made preparations to wind up their affairs and to embark. Spanish love of festive demonstrations of joy must have culminated in a frenzy of exultation on the day when Admiral Keppel solemnly and formally gave up Havana to the Tenente Rey, the King's Lieutenant, who took possession of all military posts. It was the sixth of July, 1763, ever since remembered as the glorious day when Cuba was delivered from the British yoke. The new governor entered through one of the iron gates of the city, driven in an open coach, and acclaimed by the enthusiastic vivas of the population. On the same day the British authorities set sail, and the city entered upon a celebration of the event which lasted nine days. The Spanish colors fluttered from every roof, the houses were draped in them, the doors were garlanded in green, and when the evening came, lights shone in every window and sky rockets were set off on every street corner, turning the tropical night into day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ATARES FORTRESS--(ERECTED 1763)]

The new governor was a man of rare character and was endowed by the royal government with more power than any of his predecessors had enjoyed. He received a salary of eighteen thousand pesos annually. The task before him was one of reorganization and reconstruction. He was charged and expected to inaugurate a new era in the administration of the colony, to employ the most judicious means to prevent errors committed by his predecessors and to insure a prompt and efficient enforcement of the principles of colonial policy which the time demanded. He was also to repair all the fortifications and defenses of the island, rebuild whatever had been destroyed and add to them whatever was needed as rapidly as possible, so they would be proof against any possible coup-de-main on the part of any enemy. The reconstruction of the Morro and of the a.r.s.enal destroyed by the British, and the erection of the forts of Cabanas and Atares was entrusted to the able engineers D. Silvestro Abarca and D. Agostino Crame, who later drew the plan for that of Puerto Principe, intended to protect that place and prevent any landing by la Chorrera. The records of the period show that six million pesos were spent on those fortifications. New hospitals and other public buildings were also erected. The work was greatly facilitated by the number of negroes that had been added to the population since the British domination of the city. The great activity of the building trades stimulated the circulation of gold and gave a new impetus to all business life.

That the antagonism between the Spanish and British was not confined to Havana, which had suffered British occupation, is proved by the influx of immigrants from Florida, when this province was ceded to England.

Unwilling to live under British dominion, many French and Spanish families of that colony left their old homes for new ones in Cuba. A great number of them settled in Matanzas and its environs, on land which belonged to the famous Marquis Justiz de Santa Anna. The generosity of this man in gratuitously ceding that land endeared him to these immigrants. Their love for the place they came from induced them to give to the towns into which their settlements were formed, names that suggested the old home, as San Augustin de la Nueva Florida proves. As soon as the enemy had left, the residents of Havana who had retired to the interior of the island returned to the city and resumed their occupations. Bishop Morell, who had been exiled to Florida by the British, also returned. He brought with him the white-wax bee, which in time became a new source of wealth for the island.

It was a period of reconstruction and readjustment during which not only were old business relations renewed and reaffirmed, but many new steps taken to insure the welfare of the community. Those elements of the population which were particularly concerned with the honest and efficient management of its affairs, had during the British occupation become aware of some malpractices that had escaped their attention or to which they had become so accustomed that they did not make any effort to check them. There were always on the island rumors of corruption in this or that department. Occasionally a fraudulent functionary was tried and convicted, but the great majority of these dishonest officials escaped without ever being brought to trial. The frequent change of governors with the inevitable periods of interim administration gave unscrupulous men ample opportunity to fill their pockets at the expense of the government. Nor can it be doubted, that the governors sent over by the Spanish court were invested with a farther reaching authority than was advantageous for the colony. For they enjoyed not only a political power almost absolute, but directed the economic affairs of the colony.

The governors of Cuba had in former times authority to handle the revenues and in accord with the munic.i.p.al councils were wont to elect delegates to discharge these duties. In 1551 they had begun to exercise these functions as ministers de capa y espada, which means literally of cloak and sword. There were two of them for the island; they enjoyed seat and vote in the town corporations and were considered royal officials. They supervised the work of the Auditor and Treasurer and together with the Governor were judges in cases of contraband. Later there were appointed tenientes (lieutenants), one for each of the following communities, Bayamo, Puerto Principe, Trinidad, Matanzas, San Juan de los Remedios, Sancti Spiritus, and Guanabacoa, and two for Santiago de Cuba. The new ministers of the Tribunal de Cuentes (Exchequer) were provisionally endowed and the whole department hitherto in charge of the royal officers was reorganized and managed under a new system by the newly appointed Intendant. To him was probably due the new cla.s.sification of the revenue rates, which was as follows:

(1) Duties on imports and exports, (2) of the fleet, (3) of the armadilla, (4) of the royal Fifths (i.e. a duty of 20% on prizes, etc., paid to the Spanish government), (5) the duty on anchoring, (6) the duty on frucanga, i.e. beverages made of water and mola.s.ses, which at a later time, when the use of wine, beer, etc., became more general, went into oblivion.

These duties were from twenty-one to two and one half per cent.

according to the articles, the time and the place they came from. There were also two per cent. duties on importations, on fruits of the country brought to Havana in smaller vessels; on the gold and copper of the mines of Jaguas, Holguin, etc., and there was also what was called the extraordinario del Morro, which consisted in collecting four pesos for each vessel sent to Spain and the American continent. The enforcement of these custom regulations was entrusted to the Intendant referred to above, who in October of the year 1764 was given the right to use a special building for the offices of this department.

For the military reorganization of Havana had been appointed Marshal Senor Conde D. Alexandre O'Reilly, who as Inspector-General devoted himself to the organization of line troops and militia and was materially a.s.sisted in his work by Aguiar. O'Reilly succeeded in getting the veteran troops and militia of the island into good condition. By studying the city, dividing it into districts, naming the streets--simple requirements which according to Valdes had at that late date not yet been established in Havana--O'Reilly learned that the city alone could raise a battalion of disciplined militia of white men. After organizing two such battalions in Havana and Guanabacoa, he realized that this force was insufficient for the protection of the capital and he raised two more battalions, composed of colored men. When on examining the polls or registers of tax-payers he found that owing to the poverty and also the ignorance of the majority of the people he could not proceed with the draft system without including the married and other cla.s.ses, he decided to resort to conscription.

In 1764 there was created by royal decree a military and provincial administration for Cuba in the manner of the peninsulas. D. Miguel de Altavilla took charge of it in February, 1765. He established in Havana an accountant's (auditor's) office, a treasury and custom-houses at various points, subject to the department. This organization required many employees, and increased the expenses of the administration. The salaries of the officials amounted to one million two hundred thousand pesos, while until the year 1761 they had been only four hundred and fifty thousand pesos annually. As the Mexican a.s.sistant of the director never arrived in time to help with the accounts, the Royal Hacienda, as it was called, was not a sinecure. The revenues rose within a short time to one million two hundred and fifty thousand pesos, but whether this was due to the high duties or to the wise administration of the Intendencia does not appear.

The tentative effort at establishing a mail service during a previous administration was taken up in 1765, when the tax administrator D. Jose de Armona established the internal and external mail service of the island. It was found that every fortnight there was sent from Havana to Santiago de Cuba the mail, touching at Villa-Clara, Sancti Spiritus, Puerto Principe and Bayamo. According to royal decree of 1718 there should have been sent annually to Spain eight avisos or ships of one hundred tons, carrying letters from the Philippines and America, four of them stopping for provisions and supplies at Havana. These avisos (advice-boats, light vessels for carrying dispatches) sailed at the beginning of January, the end of March, the middle of June, and the first days of November. Most of the letters at that time were carried by smugglers. Armona succeeded in establishing a weekly postal communication between the towns mentioned above and also engaged postillions to carry mail sacks of San Juan de los Remedies, Trinidad and other towns not included in the other line. Every month except September, _la Coruna_, a vessel with the mail of Cuba and Spanish America, sailed from Havana for Spain. The work of Armona was extraordinary in face of the great difficulties which he had to overcome, both in regard to the lack of sufficient funds and to the lack of efficient and reliable officials. When he retired from the department the mail service of Cuba was neglected and even the line established between Havana and other towns of the island reduced its operation to one mail a month.

In the meantime the tragedy of the siege of Havana was being discussed in Spain before the tribunal charged with the investigation of the conduct of the men then at the head of the government in Havana and supposed to be responsible for its defeat by the British. After many months of tedious conferences, the Military Council, according to Alcazar, condemned Ex-Governor Prado to degradation of rank and banishment, Conde de Superanda and Tavares likewise, and the colonel of engineers Ricaut to ten years' suspension from office. The Teniente-Rey Soler, the colonels Caro and Arroyo and the artillery-commander Crel de la Hoz escaped with severe admonitions. Thus was the curtain rung down upon the epilogue to the tragedy of that siege.

After two years, during which he administered the affairs of the government with great sagacity and introduced many valuable reforms, Conde de Ricla asked permission to retire from his office and return to Spain. The Court accepted his resignation and appointed as his successor the Field Marshal D. Diego Manrique, who took charge of the government on the thirtieth of June, 1765. But he was almost immediately taken sick of yellow fever and died on the thirteenth of July, a few days after his inauguration. The Municipio of Havana urgently requested Ricla to resume the duties of governor, but he firmly refused and embarked for Spain.

There may have been reasons for his determination not to continue in office, that are not mentioned by Valdes and Alcazar. For Blanchet remarks that the Conde de Ricla, though a man of action and efficiency, seems in the awarding of privileges and a.s.signment of punishments not to have conducted himself quite properly. Ricla is described as having been a man of small stature, and grave but not unpleasant manner. He died in 1780 as minister of war in Spain.

There is a memorial to his services in carrying through the extensive work on the fortifications of Havana in the chapel of Cabana, where on a block is found this inscription:

"During the reign in Spain of His Catholic Majesty Senor D. Carlos III.

and the government in this island of the Count de Ricla, Grandee of Spain and Lieutenant-General of the Royal Armies, was begun, in the year 1763, this fort of San Carlos, that of Atares in the Loma de Sota and the rebuilding and enlargement of el Morro. The works of this fort were continued and those of el Morro and Atares were finished during the government of the Lieutenant-General of the Royal Army Senor Baylio D.

Antonio Maria Buccarelli, etc."

The provisional governorship of the Teniente de Rey, the King's Lieutenant, D. Pascal Jiminez de Cisneros, lasted from the thirteenth of July, 1765, to the nineteenth of March, 1766. He conscientiously endeavored to continue to rule in the spirit of his predecessor and to carry out the instructions given him by Ricla before he left for Spain.

Some disturbances took place during that time, caused by the tobacco-planters and by the soldiers. The former began to object to selling their entire harvest to the factory. The latter had become dissatisfied on account of the irregularity with which they were paid.

The new governor appointed by the court of Madrid for Cuba was the Field Marshal Senor Baylio D. Antonio Maria Buccarelli, a native of Sevilla.

He entered upon his office on the nineteenth of March, 1766, and was evidently determined to continue and if possible improve upon the many reforms and improvements that had been introduced by Ricla. Among them were certain police regulations which tended to insure the safety of the residents, as well as order and cleanliness on the streets. He also resolved to abolish the abuses of the bar, by putting a stop to the extortions practised by unscrupulous lawyers on ignorant clients. This decidedly new departure from any precedent was outlined in a proclamation of good government, which he published according to Valdes on the seventh, according to Alcazar on the twelfth of April, 1766. In this memorable address to the people, he announced that he would devote two hours daily to giving hearing to complainants; at this hearing were to be present attorneys and clerks to take down the depositions and render advice, and the judgments there delivered were to be signed without delay, except on holidays. By these verbal audiences he succeeded in clearing up many cases before they went to the regular courts, thus protecting the people against exploitation by the numerous officials attached to the lower courts and avoiding expensive lawsuits.

This new reform in the judicial department of the island especially benefited the slaves, whose rights he endeavored to protect and insure.

The extraordinary discretion with which he performed this function of his office, preserving his dignity and affability in the most trying situations, endeared him to the people.

The most difficult task before him, and one calling for unusual prudence and tact, was the execution of the royal decree concerning the expulsion of certain religious orders against whom drastic measures had been taken in Europe. The movement began in Portugal in 1759, when the Jesuits were expelled from that country. Two years later the society was dissolved and its members banished from France. Then the opposition to them made itself felt in Spain. King Carlos III. had always been their zealous protector, but he suddenly turned against them after the curious Sombrero-and-Manta revolution in Madrid in 1766. His favorite, the Marquis Squilaci, a Neapolitan, had tried to inaugurate various reforms in the city, among them the cleaning of the streets, which were in an unspeakable state of filth, the regulation of the prices of food and the installment of a lighting system. Simple and reasonable as were these innovations, they met with furious opposition on the part of certain cla.s.ses of the people. This opposition was fanned into open revolt by another ordinance which he issued. It was directed against the enormous sombreros and voluminous mantas (cape cloaks) worn with preference by individuals who could thus easily disguise themselves, hide their ident.i.ty and carry dangerous weapons which played a dismal part in the numerous a.s.sa.s.sinations that had shocked the authorities. An organized revolt against these measures took place in Madrid and led to considerable bloodshed. The king was made to believe that the Jesuits were the prime agents in that insurrection, and at midnight of the seventeenth of February, 1767, Carlos III. signed a decree ordering their immediate expulsion from Spain. In this decree, the execution of which was entrusted to Count Aranda, the king gave as reason for this step, the necessity to maintain among his subjects order, obedience, quiet and justice. At the same time he ordered the temporal property of the society of Jesuits in the dominions of Spain to be adjudged to the treasury. The order was executed with a promptness and a quiet deserving especial comment. On the same day were sent to all judges, governors, regents and viceroys a secret message, accompanied by a circular letter saying that the message containing royal instructions to be obeyed by every one should not be opened before April 1. Those officials were moreover warned not to communicate the contents of the message to any one, and should the public by some chance obtain such knowledge, those responsible were to be treated as though they had violated the secret and were guilty of opposition to the Sovereign's orders. This measure was so effectively executed that the padres of the order were taken by surprise, and were speedily sent on their way out of the country without the slightest disorder. On the day of this expulsion the king had affixed a "pragmatica" on the doors of the palace and public buildings in the princ.i.p.al streets, in which it was said among other things, that the individual priests would be given seventy-two pesos annually for their means of subsistence, and the lay brothers sixty-five, that their pensions would be paid out of the property of the Society, and that it was prohibited in the whole monarchy to receive any individual of the Society in particular, or to admit them into any community, or any court or tribunal, or to appeal in their behalf. It was also prohibited to write or influence the minds of the people for or against this pragmatica or to enter into any correspondence with the members of the expelled order. This royal decree was carried into effect in all the colonies of Spanish America, and in Cuba it was Buccarelli to whom credit was due for the tact displayed in performing this extremely difficult duty. The proceeds of the property of the Society, which reverted to the state, were devoted by Buccarelli to the endowment of three professorships at the university, two for law and one for mathematics. The decision of the King met with no open opposition among the residents, although the Jesuit College, since then called the Seminario de San Carlos, and their church, actually the Cathedral, had been a center of interest to the society of Havana, and the much esteemed and beloved Senor D. Pedro Agostine Morell was reported to have been responsible for the coming of the order to Havana. Senor Morell died on the twenty-ninth of December, 1769, and was succeeded in his diocese by D. Jose Echeverria.

Governor Buccarelli made strenuous efforts to abolish contraband trading in the island. He tried also to promote coffee culture in Cuba, which had so far yielded so little as to be not even sufficient for home consumption. His Majesty granted an extension of customs for five years at that time. A new step for the improvement of the maritime department was taken in the year 1766, when the Apostadero was created a military and naval station. To the administration of this office was appointed D.

Juan Antonio de la Colina, who during the siege of Havana in 1762 had ordered the sinking of the three vessels for the purpose of closing to the British the entry of the port. Colina was invested with the same powers possessed in Spain by the Captain-General of the naval department. In the shipyard of Havana there were built at this time vessels of various sizes and purposes, among them the _Santissima Trinidad_, a vessel of one hundred and twelve guns, and three smaller but excellent ships. The _Santissima Trinidad_ was destined some years later to be destroyed in the battle of Trafalgar.

Two great calamities caused much distress and loss of lives and property during Buccarelli's administration. In July and August, 1766, earthquakes destroyed a great portion of Santiago de Cuba. It was estimated that more than one hundred persons perished. Among them was the governor, Marquis de Casa-Cagigal, who was removed from the ruins of his residence. The disaster called for such great funds for the alleviation of the suffering and the hardships occasioned by this catastrophe, that the Royal Treasury had to r.e.t.a.r.d the payment of the salaries to the officials of the island. The civilian population contributed generously to the relief funds collected in the princ.i.p.al towns of the island. Governor Buccarelli himself sent contributions to two hundred presidarios and to two engineers that had been stricken in the performance of their duties.

The losses and the sorrow caused by this calamity had barely been repaired and mitigated, when another disaster called for sympathy and active a.s.sistance on the part of those that were spared. This was the tremendous hurricane which swept over Havana on the fifteenth of October, 1768, and left the city a scene of desolation. The vessels in the harbor were torn from their anchorage, and drifted into the sea lashed into fury by the tempest; the trees in the orchards were uprooted, the fields appeared as if they had been churned. Buildings were carried away from their foundations and deposited in remote places.

It was difficult to estimate the damage done in the city and its neighborhood. Again a call for relief was sounded and responded to readily. To a.s.sist the sufferers a great sum came from the proceeds of the Jesuit properties recently seized, which according to the valuation of experts amounted to several million pesos.

Buccarelli was appointed Viceroy of Mexico, and retired on the fourth of August, 1771. He had proved a worthy successor of the much esteemed Count Ricla and left behind him an excellent reputation. It was said of him that he had never once lacked that political prudence which should ever guide the actions of an official in such a responsible position as was the governorship of Cuba. He was praised for his cautious inquiries into legal abuses and his judicious settlement of cases, some of which had for forty years occupied the time of the courts and filled the pockets of greedy attorneys. He was reported under the most exasperating circ.u.mstances to have always conserved his affable disposition and to have never lost his temper, however great may have been the provocation.

Upon the whole, he was looked upon as a man of rare n.o.bility of character and Cuba was loath to part with him. He was one of the few governors that had never given cause for any complaint. This was attested by the Minister of the Indies, then Baylio Knight Julian de Arriaga, who wrote to him by order of His Majesty that not the slightest complaint of his government had come to the court.

CHAPTER VIII

While Cuba was enjoying the peace and prosperity which had followed its return to Spain, Louisiana, which by the Treaty of Paris had been ceded to Spain by Louis XV. of France, to indemnify her for the Floridas and the government of which was annexed to that of Cuba, was going through a most hara.s.sing period of anxiety. For this agreement, which transferred the French inhabitants of Louisiana to Spain, was a violation of that human right which at this very time was beginning to dawn in the awakening political consciousness of mankind, and was to be a source of serious conflicts between the French of Louisiana and the authorities that came to establish upon her soil the rule of the king of Spain.

Bancroft gives an interesting account of the events that occurred. He writes in his "History of the United States" (Vol. IV, p. 122):

"The Treaty of Paris left two European powers sole sovereigns of the continent of North America. Spain, accepting Louisiana without hesitation, lost France as her bulwark, and a.s.sumed new expenses and dangers, to keep the territory from England. Its inhabitants loved the land of their ancestry; by every law of nature and human freedom, they had the right to protest against the transfer of their allegiance."

The spirit which found ultimate expression in the formula: "no government without the consent of the governed" had been awakened in the people of the North American continent. As soon as the news reached Louisiana, that the territory was to be transferred under the rule of the Spanish king, the call for an a.s.sembly was issued and every parish in the colony sent representatives to voice their protest and deliberate upon measures preventing the execution of that transfer. Under the leadership of Lafreniere the people unanimously decided to address a pet.i.tion to the king of France, entreating him not to abandon them to foreign rule. The loyalty with which the colony had so far adhered to the kings of the mother country seemed to call for redress of the wrong which was about to be inflicted upon them.

The wealthiest merchant of New Orleans, Jean Milhet, went to Paris as the spokesman of the colony. He met Bienville, the pioneer founder of the city which enjoyed at that time the reputation of being an American Paris, and the octogenarian lent his aid in an attempt to appeal to the French minister, Choiseul. But Choiseul gave them no encouragement. His answer was, briefly: "It cannot be; France cannot bear the charge of supporting the colony's precarious existence." On the tenth of July, 1765, the Brigadier D. Antonio de Ulloa, who was appointed by Governor Buccarelli of Cuba to take possession of the territory ceded to Spain, sent a letter from Havana to the superior council of the colony at New Orleans announcing that he had orders to take possession of that city for the Catholic king. But the French authorities did not remove the flag of France and Acadian exiles continued to pour into the colony from the north. Ulloa finally sailed from Havana and on the fifth of March, 1766, he arrived in the bay.

The very elements of nature seem to have conspired to lend gloom to his arrival. A terrible thunderstorm and violent downpour of rain was a feature of the landing. He was accompanied by some civil officers, three Capuchin monks and eighty soldiers. The people, resentful of being forced to submit to foreign rule, received him coldly and sullenly. He had brought with him orders to redeem the seven million livres of French paper money which had been a heavy burden upon a population of not more than six thousand souls. He saw at once that the population was unwilling to give up its nationality and to change its allegiance from France to Spain. He learned that the French garrison peremptorily refused to serve under Spanish commanders. So he was forced to leave the government, which he was supposed to administer with the aid of the Spanish officials that he had brought with him, in the hands of the former French functionaries.

When in September of that year an ordinance was introduced by Ulloa forcing French vessels having special permits to accept the paper currency in payment for their cargoes at an unreasonable tariff, the merchants of the colony protested vigorously. They declared stoutly:

"The extension and freedom of trade, far from injuring states and colonies, are their strength and support."

Reports circulating about the disorders caused by this conflict between the French population and the Spanish authorities frightened the owners of merchant vessels that had been in the habit of trading at the colony and its commerce with them was for the time being almost suspended. The ordinance was rescinded, and Ulloa retired from New Orleans to the Balise. He had to be contented to establish Spanish rule at that spot and opposite Natchez at the river Iberville. Perhaps a man of different disposition would have been able to reconcile the colonists to the foreign regime. But Ulloa did not possess the amiable qualities that characterized the Governor of Cuba, Buccarelli. He had to learn, as did Lord Albemarle during his brief administration of Havana, that it was not an easy task to conquer the hearts of a people and win them over to the rule of foreign authorities.

According to Bancroft this irritating state of things continued for more than two years. He writes (p. 123):

"But the arbitrary and pa.s.sionate conduct of Ulloa, the depreciation of the currency with the prospect of its becoming an almost total loss, the disputes respecting the expenses incurred since the cession of 1762, the interruption of commerce, a captious ordinance which made a private monopoly of the traffic with the Indians, uncertainty of jurisdiction and allegiance, agitated the colony from one end to the other. It was proposed to make of New Orleans a republic, like Amsterdam or Venice, with a legislative body of forty men, and a single executive. The people of the country parishes crowded in a ma.s.s into the city; joined those of New Orleans; and formed a numerous a.s.sembly, in which Lafreniere, John Milhet, Joseph Milhet, and the lawyer Doucet were conspicuous. 'Why,'

said they, 'should the two sovereigns form agreements which can have no result but our misery, without advantage to either?' On the twenty-fifth of October, they adopted an address to the superior council, written by Lafreniere and Caresse, rehearsing their griefs; and in their pet.i.tion of rights, they claimed freedom of commerce with the ports of France and America, and the expulsion of Ulloa from the colony."

This address was signed by upwards of five hundred persons and at the meeting of the council on the very next day it was, contrary to the warnings of Aubry, accepted. The excitement of the people, when they heard this good news, was indescribable. The French colors appeared in the public square and veteran pioneers of the colony, women and children crowded around to kiss the cherished flag of the much beloved mother country. Nine hundred men pressed around the flag pole when it was about to be raised, eager to lend a hand in what was to them a sacred function, and men, women and children began to cry: "Vive le roi de France! Nul autre que lui pour nous!" This clamorous demonstration manifested to Ulloa the will of the people; and when they proceeded to elect their town officials, he abandoned the attempt of establishing Spanish rule in Louisiana. He set sail for Havana, and through his representatives sent the news of these events to Spain. That incident was so significant of the spirit of the times that Du Chatelet wrote to Choiseul:

"The success of the people of New Orleans in driving away the Spaniards is a good example for the English colonies; may they set about following it."

For at this very time the British colonies of America were entering upon their struggle for deliverance from restrictions upon trade as symbolized in the stamp act and the atmosphere upon the continent was rife with revolution. While the statesmen of France and even some of England were inclined to grant greater freedom of commerce, Spain still lagged behind. She had been the champion of the protective system for centuries, and though it had not added to her wealth, on the contrary, had helped to impoverish her, she was unwilling to depart from the time-honored policy. Grimaldi, the Spanish minister, thus set forth the stand which Spain was to take in this question:

"Besides, the position and strength of the countries occupied by the Americans excite a just alarm for the rich Spanish possessions on their borders. Their interlopers have already introduced their grain and rice into our colonies. If this should be legalized and extended to other objects, it would increase the prosperity of a neighbor already too formidable. Moreover, this neighbor, if it should separate from the metropolis, would a.s.sume the republican form of government; and a republic is a government dangerous from the wisdom, the consistency, and the solidity of the measures which it would adopt for executing such projects of conquests as it would naturally form."

This fear of a republic in Louisiana haunted the king of Spain and his cabinet and after discussing the question of returning it to France, it was almost unanimously agreed that Louisiana was needed "as a granary for Havana and Puerto Rico, a precaution against French contraband trade and a barrier to keep off the English encroachments." The Duke of Alva said, in a spirit true to his namesake of two centuries before: