es ago, of all but a part
of the "Espanola," since called Santo Domingo, and of the two
Antilles. Before the first quarter of the century had passed all the
continental colonies had broken the bonds that united them to the
mother country, and before the twentieth century the last vestiges of
the most extensive and the richest colonial empire ever possessed by
any nation refused further allegiance, as the logical result of four
centuries of political, religious, and financial myopia.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 45: They ceased altogether in 1810, as a result of the
revolution in Mexico.]

[Footnote 46: Benefactores and Hombres Illustres de Puerto Rico, p.
289.]

CHAPTER XXIII

REVIEW OF THE SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN PUERTO RICO AND THE POLITICAL
EVENTS IN SPAIN FROM

1765 TO 1820

After the conquest of Mexico and Peru with their apparently inexhaustible
mineral wealth, Spain attached very little importance to the archipelago
of the Antilles. The largest and finest only of these islands were
selected for colonization, the small and comparatively sterile ones were
neglected, and fell an easy prey to pirates and privateers.

Puerto Rico, notwithstanding its advantages of soil and situation, was
considered for the space of three centuries only as a fit place of
banishment (a _presidio_) for the malefactors of the mother country.
Agriculture did not emerge from primitive simplicity. The inhabitants
led a pastoral life, cultivating food barely sufficient for their
support, because there was no stimulus to exertion. They looked
passively upon the riches centered in their soil, and rocked
themselves to sleep in their hammocks. The commerce carried on
scarcely deserved that name. The few wants of the people were supplied
by a contraband trade with St. Thomas and Santa Cruz. In the island's
finances a system of fraud and peculation prevailed, and the amount of
public revenue was so inadequate to meet the expenses of maintaining
the garrison that the officers' and soldiers' pay was reduced to
one-fourth of its just amount, and they often received only a
miserable ration.

His Excellency Alexander O'Reilly, who came to the Antilles on a
commission from Charles IV, in his report on Puerto Rico (1765) gives
the following description of the condition of the inhabitants at that
time:

" ... To form an idea of how these natives have lived and still live,
it is enough to say that there are only two schools in the whole
isla