After two years, during which he administered the affairs of the government with great sagacity and introduced many valuable reforms, Conde de Ricla asked permission to retire from his office and return to Spain. The Court accepted his resignation and appointed as his successor the Field Marshal D. Diego Manrique, who took charge of the government on the thirtieth of June, 1765. But he was almost immediately taken sick of yellow fever and died on the thirteenth of July, a few days after his inauguration. The Municipio of Havana urgently requested Ricla to resume the duties of governor, but he firmly refused and embarked for Spain. There may have been reasons for his determination not to continue in office, that are not mentioned by Valdes and Alcazar. For Blanchet remarks that the Conde de Ricla, though a man of action and efficiency, seems in the awarding of privileges and assignment of punishments not to have conducted himself quite properly. Ricla is described as having been a man of small stature, and grave but not unpleasant manner. He died in 1780 as minister of war in Spain. There is a memorial to his services in carrying through the extensive work on the fortifications of Havana in the chapel of Cabana, where on a block is found this inscription: "During the reign in Spain of His Catholic Majesty Senor D. Carlos III. and the government in this island of the Count de Ricla, Grandee of Spain and Lieutenant-General of the Royal Armies, was begun, in the year 1763, this fort of San Carlos, that of Atares in the Loma de Sota and the rebuilding and enlargement of el Morro. The works of this fort were continued and those of el Morro and Atares were finished during the government of the Lieutenant-General of the Royal Army Senor Baylio D. Antonio Maria Buccarelli, etc." The provisional governorship of the Teniente de Rey, the King's Lieutenant, D. Pascal Jiminez de Cisneros, lasted from the thirteenth of July, 1765, to the nineteenth of March, 1766. He conscientiously endeavored to continue to rule in the spirit of his predecessor and to carry out the instructions given him by Ricla before he left for Spain. Some disturbances took place during that time, caused by the tobacco-planters and by the soldiers. The former began to object to selling their entire harvest to the factory. The latter had become dissatisfied on account of the irregularity with which they were paid.