Cagigal was succeeded in 1821 by Nicholas Mahy, an old man, of a distrustful and arbitrary disposition, who was entirely out of sympathy with the liberal movement in Cuba. He could see no way of retaining her for Spain except by keeping her people in subjection under an absolute despotism. He proceeded to carry out his ideas with a high hand, and it is a matter of speculation to what lengths he might have gone, had not death speedily cut short his career. He ruled for only a single year, after which no new Captain-General was sent out from Spain but Sebastian Kindelan, Mahy's subordinate, took command. He was a sterner disciplinarian than even his former master. His sole object seemed to be to reunite the military and civil power in the hands of the Captain-General. He was willing to stoop to any means to accomplish his purpose, and he was backed up by a large body of troops imported from Spain. Feeling ran high between these--as the Cubans termed them--"interlopers and troublemakers" and the local militia, and serious trouble was with difficulty avoided. Then in 1823 Ferdinand VII. was again in power in Spain; weak, crafty, scheming, malicious, and grasping; and it is needless to say that Cuba was visited with new oppression. CHAPTER XX It was on May 2, 1823, that Don Francisco Vives, afterward Conde de Cuba, arrived in Cuba to take over the office of Captain-General. Let us first contemplate the good which he accomplished for Cuba, before scanning the darker pages of his high-handed rule. Vives reorganized the rural militia, and he caused the construction of a number of important fortresses and the completion of others already begun. He divided the island into three military departments. Under his instructions two asylums for the insane, el Departmento de Dementes, and the Casa de Beneficencia, were constructed. He made an effort to mark the historic spots of the island, and under his auspices a temple was built on the spot in the city of Havana where was reputed to have been celebrated the first mass. So much for the good done by Vives. Now we come to a different story. This Captain-General was a despot of the most pronounced type, the kind dear to the hearts of the rulers in the mother country. He obtained from his royal master, in 1825, an order placing Cuba under martial law, and giving the Captain-General complete control of her destiny. It reads as follows: