Villanueva, however, oppressed and robbed the people in order that he might make frequent and munificent remittances to the treasury in Spain. The more they gave, the more they were urged to give. Spain cared nothing for the manner in which the money which she demanded was accumulated, only that by fair means or foul it might be forthcoming. Villanueva established the Bank of St. Ferdinand, but for all the good it did Cuba at this time, it might have remained unestablished. Its capital was seized by the crown as fast as it accumulated, and it proved to be just a new method for the extortioners. Spain had no more unscrupulous agent than her chief of the finance department. The victims were not quiescent, except in appearance. The rack keys were being too tightly turned. In the "Soles de Bolivar" and in other assemblies patriots were crying out for vengeance. In vain Vives tried to suppress the societies. Known members were arrested and thrown into prison, and meetings were forbidden; but the movement was like a conflagration which has gained start in many parts of a city. When stamped out in one place--when one society was destroyed--it only made its appearance in another. The principal headquarters were at Matanzas. Very carefully and in secret the leaders laid their plans for a widespread revolt, the date of which was set for August 16, 1823. But Vives had secret agents in the societies, and there were traitors as there frequently are in such movements. When the day of the revolt dawned the leaders were seized and imprisoned. There were many eminent Cubans among the patriots, the best known being the greatest of Cuban poets, José Maria Heredia. Perhaps some appreciation not so much of this man's courage as of his genius influenced the Captain-General. At any rate, instead of being condemned to death, he was sent into perpetual exile. A few of the members of the society learned of the betrayal before they could be taken and made their escape from the island. Those who were conspiring for the liberation of Cuba were not cowed, however, but simply temporarily overcome. One of the first acts of Vives under the royal decree of May 25, 1825, was to use every means possible to suppress and to annihilate the secret societies, but he simply made them more wary. The desire for liberty which had sprung up in the breasts of so many Cuban patriots was destined never again to be extinguished, and the history of the island from this time down to the War of Independence, in the closing decade of the century, is that of one long struggle for separation from Spain--sometimes open, more frequently secret but always continuous.