gan to yield rich results.
Governor Salamanca, in spite of his glorious military antecedents,
devoted himself preferably to works of peace. He succeeded in promoting
tobacco culture and was the author of the decree issued on the fifteenth
of October, 1659, which authorized the extension of the fields into the
uncultivated plains that were not used for any other purposes. He was
profoundly concerned about the morals of Cuban society and attempted to
combat the laxity and dissipation that characterized its life. But it
seems that his moralizing had no great effect upon the people that were
bent upon taking life easy and plunged into pleasure with greater zest
than they pursued their work.

But while the population of the island enjoyed comparative security and
prosperity, that of the coast towns was steadily worried by danger of
invasion. When Governor Salamanca retired from office, the menace was
still far from removed. After a provisional government of ten months,
Don Rodrigo de Flores y Aldama, Field Marshal and Caballero de
Alcantara, entered upon his administration on the fifteenth of June,
1663. With him arrived also a new bishop, Don Juan Saenz de Manosca, a
Mexican of immaculate purity and uncompromising severity. He took charge
of the diocese on the sixth of August and continued with greater success
than Governor Salamanca in the moralization of the community. Realizing
the increasing danger of invasion Governor Aldama at once set about to
push the work on the walls of Havana. The garrison was increased by two
hundred men.

But Aldama was only a year later appointed Captain-General of Yucatan,
and a new governor succeeded him, the Field Marshal Don Francisco Davila
Crejon y Gaston, who had previously been governor of Gibraltar and
Venezuela. He entered upon his office on the thirtieth of July, 1664,
and immediately set to work with great energy and perseverance to hasten
the construction of more fortifications. His predecessors had stored up
an immense amount of building material and there was no reason why the
work should not be carried on without delay. But Davila encountered
serious difficulties and obstacles because his plans were opposed by the
engineer Marcos Lucio and the viceroy la Espanola Marques de Muncere.
The resources of the exchequer were at that time so scanty that Orejon
ordered the provisory use of fagots in the construction of the
fortifications of Havana.

However, El Morro of Santiago de C