The unqualified terms of condemnation in which most of our writers refer to the Spanish rule of Cuba, can only be accounted for on the assumption of ignorance of the history of the Island and the general conditions of the times. Spain had an admirable code of laws for the government of her colonies. This code, called _Las Leyes de Indias_, was formulated during the reign of Philip the second. It was designed to insure the humane and equitable treatment of the native subjects and, considering the times, was a highly enlightened measure. The laws were frequently violated by colonial governors, but it was hardly in the power of the home government to prevent such abuses. In those days of long distances and slow communication, it was necessary that viceroys should be invested with practically unlimited powers and undivided authority. The only alternative would have been the adoption of some form of popular government, which no nation had at that period dreamed of applying to its distant possessions. As a matter of fact, a liberal policy prevailed in Cuba during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Public assemblies of citizens were held to elect the members of municipal corporations; no taxation was permitted without the sanction of these bodies;[1] charges were freely lodged and sustained against governors. During the same period, the British colonies in the West Indies were not so well governed as was Cuba and some of their governors were more flagrantly tyrannical and dishonest than the worst of Cuba’s captains-general. Spain’s chief fault and the cause of her downfall as a colonial power, lay in failure to respond to the growth of sentiment in favor of popular rights. She became more autocratic as other nations became more liberal. In truth, she had ineptitude for colonial government, but her sovereigns generally evinced a sincere concern for the welfare of their foreign subjects.