Moreover, the island enjoyed a succession of capable and liberal governors, or captains-general; notably Luis de las Casas at the end of the eighteenth century, and the Marquis de Someruelos in the first dozen years of the nineteenth century. Under benevolent administrators and beneficent laws, and with Spain herself adopting the liberal constitution of 1812, Cuba had good cause to remain loyal to the Spanish connection. But these very same conditions and circumstances ultimately made Cuba supremely resolute in her efforts for independence. The men of Andalusian and Estremaduran ancestry had been loyal to Spain, but they were just as resolute in their loyalty to Cuba when they were once convinced that there must be a breach of relations. The same characteristics that made their ancestors the leaders of the Spanish race in adventure and in conquest made them now equally ready to be leaders in the great adventure of conquering the independence of Cuba from Spain. And if the liberal laws and policy of Spain, and the Constitution of 1812, had greatly commended Spanish government to them, the restored Spanish king's flat repudiation of all those things equally condemned that government. We must therefore reckon the rise of the spirit of Cuban independence from the date on which Ferdinand VII. repudiated the constitution which he had sworn to defend. From 1812 to 1820 that spirit passed through the period of gestation, and in the years following the latter date it was born and began to make its vitality manifest. The king's pretended repentance and readoption of the Constitution of 1812 in 1820 came too late, and when it was followed by several years of alternating weakness and violence, and by the French intervention in 1823, the Cuban resolution for independence was formed. To that resolution, once formed, Cuba clung with a persistence which for the third time entitled her to the name of "Ever Faithful Isle." But now it was to herself that she was faithful. [Illustration: JUAN JOSÉ DIAZ ESPADA Born at Arroyave, Spain, on April 20, 1756, and educated at Salamanca, Juan José Diaz Espada y Landa entered the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church, and on January 1, 1800, was Bishop of Cuba. Much more than a mere churchman, he applied himself with singular ability and energy to the promotion of the mental and physical welfare of the people as well as to their religious culture. He strongly assisted Dr. Tomas Romay in introducing vaccination into the island and in the prosecution of other sanitary measures, and was one of the foremost patrons of education. He also gave much attention to the correction of abuses which had grown up in the ecclesiastical administration. He died on August 13, 1832, leaving a record for good works second to that of no other ecclesiastic in the history of Cuba.]