Death reaped a rich harvest between 1786 and 1788, in removing men so closely identified with the fate of the colonies and the mother country that they were not soon to be adequately replaced. On the thirtieth of November, 1786, D. Bernardo de Galvez died in Mexico, where he had reigned as viceroy since he left Havana eleven months before. By his rare executive talent and his extensive knowledge he had become one of the most efficient colonial governors that Spanish America had known, and to him was in a great measure due their progress and prosperity. A few days later died in Madrid his uncle D. José de Galvez, the noted minister of the Indies, whose name is also identified with colonial reforms. But the greatest loss to the colonies and to Spain was the death on the twenty-eighth of December, 1788, of King Carlos III. The kind and prudent sovereign had in a reign of almost thirty years, handicapped as he was by the Spanish tradition of absolutism, tried his best to further the growth and the welfare of his country and its dependencies, and inaugurated policies more liberal than any his predecessors had followed. He had endeared himself to his people and was sincerely mourned. The accession of Carlos IV. to the throne of Spain was not calculated to advance Spain and her colonies beyond the degree of development they had attained during the long reign of his father. He was forty years of age and by stature and physiognomy was singularly fitted to represent so important a kingdom as Spain. But he was as unintelligent as ignorant, and allowed himself to be guided by his wife, Maria Louise, princess of Parma, who was as clever and scheming as he was dull and indolent. She was an autocrat, who suffered nobody to share the reins with her, and imperceptibly they slipped into her hands, until she was absolute sovereign of the kingdom. Two years after the death of Carlos III. Florida Blanca was forced to resign. Count Cabarrus, an ardent champion of reform, and a man of considerable executive power, was arrested. D. Gaspar Melchior de Jovellanos, one of the most profound thinkers and noblest patriots that Spain could claim in the eighteenth century, was removed from the important position he held in Madrid and exiled. Campomanes, too, fell into "disgrace" in 1791. All these men, distinguished for their character and their ability, were replaced by some feeble creatures with no idea or will of their own, puppets in the hands of the queen, who transformed the court of Madrid into a den of corruption.