SUGAR CULTURE. 



277 



tion of Don Luis de las Casas ; the founding of the 

 Consulado and the Patriotic Society ; 1 the destruc- 

 tion of the French colony of St. Domingo, and the 

 consequent increase in the value of sugar; the 

 improvements in machinery and furnaces, due, in 

 great part, to the refugees from Haiti; the more 

 intimate intercourse between the planters and the 

 merchants of Havana ; the great amounts of capital 

 invested in the sugar and coffee plantations; are 

 causes which have successively influenced the pros- 

 perity of Cuba. This has continued to advance, 

 notwithstanding the evils of conflicting branches of 

 government, which embarrass the march of pro- 

 gress. 2 



1 Since suppressed. 



2 The complicated state of the administration of justice and of 

 jurisdiction is such, that in the " Memoria acerca de la situacion 

 presente de la Ysla de Cuba," p. 40, twenty-five different civil and 

 ecclesiastical tribunals are enumerated. These subdivisions of the 

 administration of justice well explain what we have already stated 

 regarding the great and increasing number of lawyers. — H. 



