The immediate echoes of this Revolution were heard in 1791 in Hispaniola, where at the very first risings of the people in France, the slaves had revolted, killing their masters and burning their property. It was only the prelude to the greater insurrection, which broke out later and in which Cuba became involved. In the mean time, this island had come under another interim governorship, and was drifting along on the tide of progress in some directions, while in others it had come to a standstill, if it had not retrograded. The provisional government of D. Domingo Caballo which began on the twentieth of April, 1789, and ended on the eighth of July, 1790, was not noteworthy for any important measures, unless it be another attempt at restricting the number and the activities of lawyers. The royal decree of the nineteenth of November, 1789, which prohibited the admission of any more professors of jurisprudence, native or foreign, to the bar of the island, was modified to read thus: "To the profession of lawyer, only those shall be admitted who studied in the greater universities of their countries and had practiced in some of their capitals, where there existed a superior tribunal certifying that they had practiced six years at the superior courts of Spain." During Caballo's interim rule there occurred the ecclesiastical division of the island. The archbishopric of Santo Domingo was divided into two suffragan dioceses, both the bishopric of Santiago de Cuba which had existed since 1518 and the new bishopric of Havana being subject to the metropolitan mitre of Santo Domingo. To the bishopric of Santiago was appointed D. Antonio Feliu, a man of great piety and gentle disposition, who rapidly won the esteem of the community and the love of his flock. That of Havana, which also comprised Louisiana and Florida, was entrusted to D. Felipe José de Tres Palacios. In spite of the apparent prosperity, the island was still suffering from centuries of restriction which had paralyzed the initiative of its population. Maria de las Mercedes (Jaruco), Countess de Merlin, says of that period in her work, "La Havana" (Paris, 1844): "Owing to the long tyranny which had weighed upon the island, Cuba needed hands to cultivate her fields. The products were devoured by a monopoly; territorial property did not exist; for the proprietor could not even cut a tree in his woods without the permission of the royal marine; the population was reduced to 170,370 souls; the sugar production had become so inferior in quality, that no more than 50,000 barrels of sugar annually left the port of Havana; finally, the island was involved in debts and Mexico was obliged to aid it in the necessary expenses of the administration and agriculture."