The Spanish colony on the other hand sank lower than ever. Practically abandoned by the mother country, there was no commerce beyond a little contraband and only the most indispensable agriculture, the inhabitants devoting themselves almost entirely to cattle raising. The ports were the haunts of pirates, and a number of Dominicans also became corsairs. By the year 1730 the entire country held but 6000 inhabitants, of whom about 500 lived in the ruined capital and the remaining urban population was disseminated among the vestiges of Cotui, Santiago, Azua, Banica, Monte Plata, Bayaguana, La Vega, Higuey and Seibo. Such was the poverty prevailing that a majority of the people went in rags; and the arrival of the ship from Mexico, which brought the salaries of the civil officials and the military, was hailed with the joyful ringing of church bells. To how great an extent this depression was due to trade restrictions is evident from the circumstance that when in 1740 several ports were opened to foreign commerce there was an immediate change for the better. Agriculture expanded, exports and imports increased, money circulated, the cost of the necessaries of life fell, the population rapidly increased and many new towns sprang up. According to an ecclesiastical census the population had in 1785 advanced to 152,640 inhabitants. Of these only 30,000 were slaves, owing to the Spanish laws which made it easy for a slave to purchase his freedom. Many of the freemen were negroes or mulattoes. In 1751 the colony was visited by a severe hurricane, which caused the Ozama to leave its banks, and by a destructive earthquake which overthrew the cities of Azua and Seibo and did much damage to the church buildings of Santo Domingo. Azua and Seibo were reestablished on their present sites. Another earthquake in 1770 destroyed several towns in the French part of the island. From the beginning of the century the boundary between the French and Spanish colonies of Santo Domingo had been a source of constant friction and bickerings. A preliminary agreement had been made in 1730, but in 1776 a permanent treaty was drafted, it was ratified at Aranjuez in 1777, and the boundary was marked with stone monuments. When the French revolution broke out in 1789 both the Spanish and French colonies of Santo Domingo were enjoying a high degree of prosperity. In the French colony there were about 30,000 whites, and the haughty white planters were wont to indulge in every form of luxury and sybaritic pleasure; the negro slaves, whose number had grown to almost half a million, were subjected to the most barbarous ill-treatment; and a class of about 30,000 ambitious free mulattoes had arisen, many of whom where cultured and wealthy, but who were all rigidly excluded from participation in public affairs. It was evident that but a spark was needed to produce what might turn out to be a general conflagration.