Such periods of extraordinary growth are infallibly followed by a standstill during which individuals as communities seem to gather strength for new efforts. Nor is it likely that a country will successively produce men of such marked individuality and forceful character. The governor that followed Las Casas could not reasonably be expected to come up to the high standard of his predecessor. The Lieutenant-Governor Conde de Santa Clara, who was inaugurated on the sixteenth of December, 1796, was a man of generous character and agreeable manners towards all classes of society, but he was not a man of that broad culture which distinguished Las Casas and his associates in the famous Sociedad. D. Juan Procopio Barsicourt de Santa Clara was a native of Barcelona, and had come to Havana at a critical moment. The colonies of the West Indies and the Gulf coast were deeply worried about the slave revolt of Santo Domingo. The Cuban forces that had taken part in the attempt to quell the uprising, and the French and Spanish immigrants that had fled to Cuba from the terrors of the insurrection had brought with them tales of the doings of the insurgents which filled with vague apprehensions all territories that contained a numerous slave population. Moreover, the favorite of the queen of Spain, Manuel Godoy, had by his blunders involved Spain in a new war with Great Britain, and Spanish America was once more threatened by her old enemy. This menace forced the new Governor to turn his attention first towards the defenses of the island. He constructed between San Lazaro and la Chorrera the battery known as Santa Clara, and took other measures for the protection of Havana as well as Santiago. Among the municipal improvements which he effected the most important for Havana was his removal of the principal matadero (slaughterhouse), from the city to a place outside of its walls. The existence of this establishment had long been considered a public nuisance; for the foul smells which it spread in the neighborhood and which the wind sometimes carried over the whole town were a menace to the health of the inhabitants, and the frequent commotion caused by bulls that escaped from the enclosures was also a feature that made a most unfavorable impression. Both the suburb of Jesus Maria and el Horcon being without any direct water supply, Santa Clara had a fountain constructed in each place.