Cuba's commerce, though still laboring under difficulties due to unreasonable trade laws of Spain, was gradually becoming so extensive that it needed some central organization to protect and promote its interests. The citizens had so far let things take their course as they might; lack of initiative was perhaps natural with a people under the strict paternal supervision which Spain exercised over colonies. Governor Las Casas roused their latent energies and induced them to organize for mutual profit and for the general progress of the island's commerce. For this purpose was established the Tribunal of Commerce or Consulado, which was also to act as a court of justice for mercantile litigants and bankrupts. The Consulado was founded on the sixth of June, 1795, and within a short time settled more than three hundred and twenty such cases. But the most important step towards the internal reform and improvement of the island was taken by Las Casas when on the second of January, 1793, he presided at the foundation of the "Real Sociedad Patriotica o Economica," which later changed its name to Junta de Fomento, or Society of Progress. Among his associates in this most significant enterprise were the marquises de Casa Calvo, Casa Penalver and San Felipe, the counts de Casa Bayona, Lagunillas, Buenavista, O'Farrel and Jaurequi, distinguished citizens like Romany, Sequeira and Caballero, and that greatest patriot among them all, Sr. D. Francisco Arango y Pareno, to whom credit is due for the inception of this organization. The different sections, into which this society was divided, devoted themselves to the development of agriculture, stockbreeding, industry, commerce, science and art, and were of inestimable service to the people. Reports of the meeting held on the twenty-first of December, 1796, showed a clearness and seriousness of purpose which commanded respect and augured well for the future of the undertaking. In those first four years of its existence it was the medium through which were established some much needed improvements for the facilitation of traffic. Within a few months after its foundation it invested some of its funds in the highway of Horcon which cost about thirty thousand seven hundred pesos. Then it built the Guadalupe road and finished the principal pier of that place. To introduce indigo culture on the island, it lent to the administration three thousand five hundred pesos without interest. When the royal professor of botany, D. Martin Sese, suggested to take with him a young native of Havana to study that science in its application to agriculture, the society again defrayed the expenses. There was hardly a work of public utility that was not materially assisted by this corporation.