Now if the Spanish rule was politically weak and tottering at this time, the evidence of this fact was strongly repressed, and financially the country was flourishing. At the head of the financial department was the Count de Villanueva. He made many reformations in the methods of collecting taxes--to enable Spain more readily to lay her hands on her spoils. He changed the methods of keeping accounts, and of checking up the books of the public treasury. His influence at the Spanish court was greater than that of the Captain-General, and so he was able to have him deposed as President of the Consulado and himself appointed in his stead. He exercised a despotic control over the functions of that body, and made them subservient to the improvement and development of Cuba for the enrichment of Spain. He saw to it that everything that could be taxed paid its share into the public treasury. As agriculture increased, its products were more heavily taxed. The plight of the Cuban who desired to own property and get on, was similar to that of a pieceworker who, when he speeded up productions, found the piece work price cut to take care of any surplus. The more the Cuban produced, the more he was taxed, and his last state was about the same as his first; the only ones who profited were the officials in Spain. Now for the first time taxes were imposed without even consulting those taxed, to say nothing of obtaining their consent. Villanueva was the friend of the Captain-General and his co-conspirator against Cuba's happiness, in spite of the fact that he wrested from him certain honors. He was naturally most popular with the Spanish court, and was cordially hated by all loyal Cubans. Yet Villanueva did do some things for the improvement of Havana. He had many roads in and near the city paved, and devices erected to clear the anchorage of the harbor of the infiltrations of mud, and to preserve the wharves. He had the waters of the Husille brought into the city by an excellent method. He established a regular mail packet system between Spain and Cuba, and it was under his administration that the Guines railroad was built. This road ran from Havana to Guines, a distance of forty-five miles, and was built under the direction of an American engineer, Mr. Cruger. It was the nucleus of a system which in 1848 comprised 285 miles of rails in operation, and 85 more in process of construction. These lines connected Havana with Guines, Batabano, Cardenas and Matanzas; Cardenas with Juacaro, Matanzas with Sabanilla and Colisco, Nuevitas with Puerto Principe, and Santiago de Cuba with the copper mines. They represented an investment of between five and six million dollars.