The first occurred in 1823, when the Liberator, Simon Bolivar, offered to aid the disaffected party by throwing an invading force into the island. The conspiracy then formed, by the aid of the proffered expedition, for which men were regularly enlisted and enrolled, would undoubtedly have ended in the triumph of the insurrection, had it not been discovered and suppressed prematurely, and had not the governments of the United States, Great Britain and France, intervened in favor of Spain. In 1826 some Cuban emigrants, residing in Caraccas, attempted a new expedition, which failed, and caused the imprisonment and execution of two patriotic young men, Don Francisco de Agüero, y Velazco, and Don Bernabé Sanchez, sent to raise the department of the interior. In 1828 there was a yet more formidable conspiracy, known as _El Aguila Negra_ (the black eagle). The efforts of the patriots proved unavailing, foiled by the preparation and power of the government, which seems to be apprised by spies of every intended movement for the cause of liberty in Cuba. We have alluded to the revolution of La Granja, in Spain, and we have now briefly to consider its effects on the island of Cuba, then under the sway of General Don Miguel Tacon. We shall have occasion to refer more than once, in the course of our records of the island, to the administration of Tacon; for he made his mark upon Cuba, and, though he governed it with an iron hand and a stern will, as we shall see, yet he did much to improve its physical condition, even as Louis Napoleon, despot though he be, has already vastly beautified and improved the sanitary condition of the city of Paris. The first place on the island which received intelligence of the revolution of La Granja, and the oath to the constitution of 1812 by the Queen-Regent of Spain, was Santiago de Cuba, the capital of the eastern department. It was then commanded by General Lorenzo, who immediately assembled the authorities, corporations and functionaries, in pursuance of the example of his predecessors,--who, without waiting for the orders of the higher authority of the island, had, under similar circumstances, prepared to obey the supreme government of the nation,--and proclaimed through his department the Code of Cadiz, without any opposition, and to the general joy of Spaniards and Cubans. His first acts were to reëstablish the constitutional _ayuntamiento_, the national militia, the liberty of the press, and all other institutions, on the same footing as in 1823, when King Ferdinand recovered absolute authority, and made arrangements for the election of deputies to the new Cortes.