the king had found the charges against the
Marquis unfounded. So he restored him to office on the fifth of July,
1712, and in February of the following year he re-entered upon his
duties as Captain-General of Cuba. During the three years of this his
second term, Governor Torres actively promoted the armament of corsairs
which were sent out to counteract the manoeuvres of the enemy pirates
cruising along the Spanish-American coasts. Among the men entrusted with
this venturesome task one especially distinguished himself by his
prowess: Don Juan del Hoye Solorzano. He was later appointed governor of
Santiago de Cuba. About the same time Spain suffered the loss of a rich
fleet, which, sailing from Vera Cruz under command of General Ubilla,
with port at Habana, was on its way to the mother country. It was
wrecked at el Palmar de Aiz, the place where the New Canal of Bahama was
located. To the energetic efforts of the Marquis de Casa-Torres, who at
once ordered divers to go to work, was due the recovery of more than
four million pesos and some valuable merchandise.

The thirty-third governor duly appointed by decree of the Spanish court,
dated December 15, 1715, was the Field-marshal Don Vicente Raja. He was
inaugurated May 26, 1716, and although in office little more than a year
succeeded in completely reorganizing the tobacco industry of the
island. He was accompanied on his arrival from Spain by a commission of
financial and industrial experts; the director of the bank of Spain, D.
Salvador Olivares, the Visitador, a judge charged with conducting
inquiries, D. Diego Daza, and the licentiate D. Pedro Morales, the chief
of the revenue department. The historian Alcazar gives a clear account
of the proceeding of this commission and the disturbances they created.
He relates that the success of the first tobacco sales in the Peninsula
had suggested the establishment of a factory in Seville. But Orri, the
great landowner and planter, knew that the three million pounds of
tobacco produced by Cuba would not suffice for consumption, and not
wanting to have recourse to the inferior leaf produced in Brazil and
Venezuela, decided to monopolize the tobacco industry of Spain. To
realize this plan he proposed to increase the production of tobacco in
Cuba by extending its cultivation over the whole island and guaranteeing
the laborers full value of their harvest, but insisting that the product
be submitted for examination to the committee p