stitution
was then established in Havana, with branches in the island, called the
Royal Society for Improvement, already alluded to in our brief notice of
Don Francisco Arranjo. The object of this society was to aid and protect
the progress of agriculture and commerce; and it achieved a vast amount
of good. At the same time, the press, within the narrow limits conceded
to it, discussed with intelligence and zeal the interests of the
country, and diffused a knowledge of them.

In 1836 the revolution known as that of La Granja, provoked and
sustained by the progressionists against the moderate party, destroyed
the "Royal Statute," and proclaimed the old constitution of 1812. The
queen-mother, then Regent of Spain, convoked the constituent Cortes, and
summoned deputies from Cuba.

Up to this time, various political events, occurring within a brief
period, had disturbed but slightly and accidentally the tranquillity of
this rich province of Spain. The Cubans, although sensible of the
progress of public intelligence and wealth, under the protection of a
few enlightened governors, and through the influence of distinguished
and patriotic individuals, were aware that these advances were slow,
partial and limited, that there was no regular system, and that the
public interests, confided to officials intrusted with unlimited power,
and liable to the abuses inseparable from absolutism, frequently
languished, or were betrayed by a cupidity which impelled despotic
authorities to enrich themselves in every possible way at the expense of
popular suffering. Added to these sources of discontent was the
powerful influence exerted over the intelligent portion of the people by
the portentous spectacle of the rapidly-increasing greatness of the
United States, where a portion of the Cuban youths were wont to receive
their education, and to learn the value of a national independence based
on democratic principles, principles which they were apt freely to
discuss after returning to the island.

There also were the examples of Mexico and Spanish South America, which
had recently conquered with their blood their glorious emancipation from
monarchy. Liberal ideas were largely diffused by Cubans who had
travelled in Europe, and there imbibed the spirit of modern
civilization. But, with a fatuity and obstinacy which has always
characterized her, the mother country resolved to ignore these causes of
discontent, and, instead of yielding to the pop