The capital was shattered by an earthquake in 1684. The people melted away, and fine houses, which were deserted by their owners, remained tenantless, and went to ruin. Valverde,[27] a Creole of the island, is the chronicler of its condition in the middle of the eighteenth century. He observes that the Spanish Creoles were living in such poverty that mass was said before daylight, so that mutual scandal at dilapidated toilets might not interfere with the enjoyment of religion. The leprosy was common, and two lazarettos were filled with its victims. The negro blood had found its way into almost every family; a female slave received her freedom as a legacy of piety or of lust. She could also purchase it for two hundred and fifty dollars; and if she was with child, an additional twelve dollars and fifty cents would purchase for the new-comer all the glories and immunities of Creole society. These were to doze and smoke in hammocks, and to cultivate listlessly about twenty-two dilapidated sugar-plantations and a little coffee. The trade in cattle with the French part of the island absorbed all the business and enterprise that remained. Still Valverde will not admit that the Spanish Creole was indolent: it is in consequence of a deficiency of negroes, he explains, that they cannot labor more! A great injury was inflicted upon the colony by the exclusive commercial spirit of the mother-country. Spain was the first European government which undertook to interfere with the natural courses of trade, on the pretence of protecting isolated interests. In the eleventh century a great commercial competition existed between some Italian, French, and Spanish cities. To favor the last, when they were already enjoying their just share of trade, the King of Aragon prohibited, in 1227, "all foreign vessels from loading for Ceuta, Alexandria, or other important ports, if a Catalan ship was able and willing to take the cargo"; the commerce of Barcelona was in consequence of this navigation act seriously damaged.[28] Spain treated her colonies afterward in the same spirit; and other countries, France in particular, pursued this narrow and destructive policy, wherever colonial success excited commercial jealousy and avarice. "The commerce of the colony was all confined to the unwise arrangement of a Government counting-house, called the _Casa de la Contratacion_, (House of Trade,) through which all exports were sent out to the colonies and all remittances made in return. By this order of things, the want of free competition blasted all enterprise, and the exorbitant rates of an exclusive traffic paralyzed industry. The cultivation of the vine, the olive, and other staple productions of Spain, was prohibited. All commerce between the colonies was forbidden; and not only could no foreigner traffic with them, but death and confiscation of property were decreed to the colonist who should traffic with a foreigner,--slave-vessels alone being excepted."[29]