This specimen of the fine writing of the period has hidden within it two truths which stand out in the history of the difficulties between the blacks and the whites on the island of Cuba. First, although we must discount a bit the Countess's account of Rafael's valor, and the ease with which he subdued the uprising, by taking into account the fact that he was her cousin, and that therefore she naturally looked at him with over-favorable eyes, nevertheless the fact remains that the blacks were usually amenable to the commands of their owners, unless aroused to an unusual pitch of ferocity, and were, through fear or respect, not difficult to reduce to control. In the second place, it has been the history of the relations between the blacks and whites in every country that with anything like fair treatment those who worked about the house, or acted as body servants, became personally attached to their masters--to whom it is true there was often a tie of consanguinity--and showed the same spirit of loyalty which was displayed by Pepilla's women slaves. Shortly after this insurrection, reported by the Countess Merlin, there was another near Aguacate, which was more formidable and more difficult to subdue. Meanwhile, the government was handling the matter of slave insurrections in a vacillating manner. Laws were made which granted the slaves a right to assemble and to establish societies, even to form military bodies for the public defense; actually giving them greater rights than white laborers; and this went hand in hand with such cruel injustice as public whipping posts. The white population, on the other hand, even in localities where there was a great preponderance of blacks, could not form a militia. Turnbull, the English consul, fancied that he saw in these slave insurrections a chance to advance the interests of his country. It is claimed that he also had visions of a republic in which the blacks ruled with himself as president. He was _persona non grata_ with the aristocracy of the island, and is supposed to have been actuated in part by a desire to avenge social slights. He was charged with planning to effect a huge black uprising, to seize and execute enough of the white population to cow the rest and then to set up his black republic. But it is impossible to determine the truth or falsity of these accusations. Turnbull had many enemies who were only too glad to charge him with any crime.