ense of a few misguided
jibaros, and they tried hard to persuade the governor to adopt severe
measures against their enemies; but General Pavia was a just and a
prudent man, and he placed the rebels at the disposition of the civil
court. They were imprisoned in Lares, Arecibo, and Aguadilla, and,
while awaiting their trial, an epidemic, brought on by the unsanitary
conditions of the prisons in which they were packed, speedily carried
off seventy-nine of them.

Of the rest seven were condemned to death, but the governor pardoned
five. The remaining two were pardoned by his successor.

So ended the insurrection of Lares. During the trial of the rebels,
the same members of the reform party who had been banished by
Governor Marchessi, Don Julian Blanco, Don Jose Julian Acosta, Don
Pedro Goico, Don Rufino Goenaga, and Don Calixto Romero, were
denounced as the leaders of the Separatist movement. They were
imprisoned, but were soon after found to have been falsely accused and
liberated.

[Illustration: Only remaining gate of the city wall, San Juan.]

Until the arrival of General Don Gabriel Baldrich as governor (May,
1870), Puerto Rico benefited little by the revolution of September,
1868. The insurrection in Cuba, which coincided with the movement in
Lares, made Sanz, the successor of Pavia, a man of arbitrary character
and reactionary principles, adopt a policy more suspicious and
intransigent than ever (from 1869 to 1870), but Governor Baldrich was
a staunch Liberal, and the Separatist phantom which had haunted
his predecessor had no terrors for him. From the day of his arrival,
the dense atmosphere of obstruction, distrust, and jealousy in which
the island was suffocating cleared. The rumors of conspiracies ceased,
political opinions were respected, the Liberals could publicly express
their desire for reform without being subjected to insult and
persecution. The gag was removed from the mouth of the press and each
party had its proper organ. The municipal elections came off
peaceably, and the Provincial Deputation, composed entirely of Liberal
reformists, was inaugurated April 1, 1871.

General Baldrich was terribly harassed by the intransigents here and
in the Peninsula. He was accused of being an enemy of Spain and of
protecting the Separatists. Meetings were held denouncing his
administration, menaces of expulsion were uttered, and he was insulted
even in his own palace. Violent opposition to his reform measures