It was an easy task to get the better of a commander of such little foresight. Realizing the confusion of the Cuban forces the enemy separated into two columns and proceeded to surround Morales and his men. In the panic which broke out, the voice of Morales was heard to order a retreat. He himself escaped into the city. The British dispatched two hundred men to take Morro, which they found abandoned, the garrison having fled instead of making an attempt to save the fort and their honor. When the British commander entered Morro he was reported to have made the remark, that he alone with his dog and his sword could have defended the place. Morro and Santiago were captured and the enemy unhindered indulged in plunder. The bells of the churches were taken, the artillery of the fort, three vessels lying in the harbor, and a number of negro slaves. Unable to get the furniture and jewels which had been hidden by the residents, the enemy vented their wrath on the Morro, which they blew up; they destroyed the cathedral and killed a few people. For almost a month they lingered about the place and still the governor did nothing to force them to leave. When the governor of Cuba heard of the plight of Santiago, he immediately summoned an expeditionary corps of five hundred men and hurried to the relief of the sorely tried town; but when he arrived on the fifteenth of November, he learned that the British had on that very day evacuated the town. The historian Urrutia reports that the Audiencia of Santo Domingo entrusted the licentiate D. Nicolas Munez with the investigation of this disgraceful defeat and brought about the removal of Morales. By order of the king he was replaced by the Field Marshal D. Pedro de Bayoa, who was also given two hundred soldiers and war provisions for future eventualities of this kind. The island had at that time a population of over three hundred thousand inhabitants. The number of negroes had increased and furnished the labor so much needed to work on the plantations. The cultivation of the land was carried on with greater efficiency and began to yield rich results. Governor Salamanca, in spite of his glorious military antecedents, devoted himself preferably to works of peace. He succeeded in promoting tobacco culture and was the author of the decree issued on the fifteenth of October, 1659, which authorized the extension of the fields into the uncultivated plains that were not used for any other purposes. He was profoundly concerned about the morals of Cuban society and attempted to combat the laxity and dissipation that characterized its life. But it seems that his moralizing had no great effect upon the people that were bent upon taking life easy and plunged into pleasure with greater zest than they pursued their work.