onomy, subject to the authority of the
central government.

This proved to be the stumbling-block; the deputies could not agree on
the details, passions were aroused, violent discussions took place.
The Carlists, seeing a favorable opportunity, plunged the Basque
provinces, Navarra, Cataluna, lower Aragon, and part of Castilla and
Valencia, into civil war. At the same time, the Radicals promoted what
were called "cantonnal" insurrections in Cartagena, and Spain seemed
on the verge of social chaos and ruin.

A _coup d'etat_ saved the country. General Pavia, the Captain-General
of Madrid, with a body of guards forced an entrance into the halls of
congress and turned the Deputies out (January 3, 1874). A provisional
government was once more constituted with Serrano at the head. His
first act was to dissolve the Cortes.

* * * * *

The events just summarized exercised a baneful influence on the
social, political, and economic conditions of this and of its more
important sister Antilla.

Royalists, Carlists, Liberals, Reformists, Unionists, Moderates, and
men of other political parties disputed over the direction of the
nation's affairs at the point of the sword, and as each party obtained
an ephemeral victory it hastened to send its partizans to govern
these islands. The new governors invariably proceeded at once to undo
what their predecessors had wrought before them.

They succeeded each other at short intervals. From 1837 to 1874
twenty-six captains-general came to Puerto Rico, only six of whom left
any grateful memories behind. The others looked upon the people as
always watching for an opportunity to follow the example of the
continental colonies. They pursued a policy of distrust, suspicion,
and of uncompromising antagonism to the people's most legitimate
aspirations.

The reactionists, in their implacable odium of progress and liberty,
considered every measure calculated to give greater freedom to the
people or raise their moral and intellectual status as a crime against
the mother country; hence the utter absence of the means of education,
and a systematic demoralization of the masses.

Don Angel Acosta[53] mentions the Count de Torrepando as an example of
this. He came from Venezuela to govern this island in 1837, with the
express purpose, he declared, of diverting the attention of the
inhabitants from the revolutionary doings of Bolivar.

Gambling was, and is still, one o