Upon the restoration of Ferdinand the Seventh, another sudden swing of the pendulum brought the Cubans again under autocratic rule. Extreme means were resorted to with a view to stamping out the growing revolutionary spirit and reducing the people to their former state of ready submission to authority. None of these measures was so ill-judged, or so lasting in its evil effects, as the Royal Order of 1825. This conferred on the captains-general “the whole extent of power which by the royal ordinance is granted to the governors of besieged towns ... most amply and unrestrictedly authorizes Your Excellency not only to remove from the Island such persons, holding offices from government or not, whatever their rank, class, occupation, or situation in life may be, whose residence there you may deem prejudicial, or whose private or public conduct may appear suspicious to you, employing in their stead faithful servants of His Majesty, who shall fully deserve Your Excellency’s confidence; but also to suspend the execution of whatever royal orders or general decrees in all the different branches of the administration, or in any part of them, as Your Excellency may think conducive to the royal service; it being in any case required that these measures be temporary, and that Your Excellency make report of them for His Majesty’s sovereign approval.” This order was intended to be observed under the most strict responsibility, “_le mas estrecta responsibilidad_,” and to be only temporarily in effect. It remained in force, however, and its terrible powers later became the scourge of the land, although they were not immediately felt. The Captain-General upon whom they were first conferred, General Vives, refrained from exercising them, and under the judicious administration of Count Villanueva, as Intendant, the people had no cause to remember the fearful instrument for oppression which their rulers had at command. The term of General Tacon (1834-1838) ushered in the era of tyranny, spoliation and incapacity that marked the government of Cuba in the remaining period of Spanish domination, during which the revolutionary spark that was ignited earlier in the century grew into an inextinguishable flame. Long before this period the Spaniards and Cubans had drifted apart. There was nothing essential in common between the latter and the official class or the soldiers, unless we allow for some degree of common origin. The natives had gradually learned to entertain hatred for the Spaniards, who, in their turn, felt the greatest contempt for the Cubans. Neither side took the least pain to dissemble their feelings, except that in Habana friendly relations were, as a rule, maintained between the two classes, and this even during revolutionary periods. The relations and sentiments of the governing class and the people to one another were much like those which existed between Norman and Saxon in the century following the Conquest.