About the time of the rebellion, the number of slaves in Cuba was between 350,000 and 400,000, and their value on paper was simply enormous. The $100,000,000 voted by the British Parliament as compensation to the disinherited slave-owners in the British West Indies would have been but a drop in the ocean in any scheme for Cuban emancipation by purchase. Indeed, to do the planters justice, they never expected anything of the sort, and all the more practical of them asked, was to be let down gently. This was effected by the proclamation of what was known as the Moret Law in 1870, which at once declared free all slaves over sixty years of age, and decreed that every child born after that year should be free likewise. In the first instance, the planters registered a distinct gain, as they got rid of a number of old and decrepit dependants no longer fit for work; but this was offset by the compulsory maintenance, until their eighteenth year, of all the free offspring of their slaves. Under this law, the odious institution perished in something like twenty years, because its burdens gradually outweighed its benefits, until the low wage for which the free negro is willing to work became the more economical method of production. Thus the strongest tie between Spain and Cuba was snapped, and the party of independence gained force, as many planters found no longer any advantage in supporting the authority of the crown. The rebellion dragged on; the Spanish troops continually poured in having to encounter the guerrilla warfare, for which the division of the island afforded so many opportunities. For, considerable though the population is, two-thirds of it has always been concentrated in the western corner, of which Havana is the capital, the remaining districts being very sparsely peopled. It is in these rebellion always throve; and the policy adopted by General Weyler, when in supreme command, was to make them a desert by destroying all sustenance, and forcibly removing the inhabitants, who, under the name of Reconcentrados, aroused so much sympathy.