The result was inevitable. Rojas lost heart. It is possible that he still clung to his beliefs, but realized that the obstacles to his policy were too great for him to overcome. It may be, on the other hand, that he became convinced that he had erred, that the Indians were not as fit for freedom as he had supposed, and that their general emancipation was impracticable. In any case, he gave up the struggle. "Before God and his conscience," he said, he was convinced that little if any good had come of the experiment of freedom, and that it would be best to abandon it and to return the Indians to the control of well-disposed Spaniards; with a proviso that any who wished for freedom and showed fitness for it should be emancipated. A tone of sadness but of sincerity pervaded the report in which he made this recommendation. The King accepted it and approved it, doubtless with the same reluctance and regret which Rojas must have had in making it; and that chapter of Cuban history was ended. Not one of all the early governors of Cuba deserves more grateful memory than Rojas. Not one of them surpassed him in ability, in statesmanship, in executive efficiency, in breadth and penetration of vision in discerning the needs and the possibilities of the island. Not one, certainly, surpassed if indeed any rivalled him in integrity, benevolence, and self-sacrificing devotion to duty. Velasquez, indeed, occupied the governorship for a longer period, and was associated with more striking events; naturally, being the first and the founder of the line. But not even he had as true a public spirit or as just a conception of the ways and means by which a substantial and prosperous commonwealth was to be developed, as had Manuel de Rojas. Yet no other governor in those times was more shabbily and ungratefully treated than he, both during and after his administration. A wise, just judge, an indefatigable administrator, above all an honest man, he devoted himself to the task of promoting the interests of the island, of its people, with a sincerity and a whole-heartedness unfortunately uncommon in those days or in any days. It is true that he failed to solve the problem of saving the Indian natives, and some others which confronted him. But that was not for lack of noble effort or high purpose. It was because he was either honestly misled by those upon whom it was necessary for him to rely, or because he found himself confronted with difficulties too great for a man to overcome alone, and at the same time abandoned if not actually betrayed and antagonized by those who should have aided him and with whose aid he might have been triumphant.