The attitude of another important though less numerous and less demonstrative class, the manufacturers of sugar and tobacco, varied greatly according to the individual. Some were Spaniards; and they, like the merchants, were inflexibly opposed to the revolution, for similar reasons. Some were Autonomists, and they inclined toward compromise. They did not want their lands to be ravaged and their cane fields and buildings to be burned in war; not because they would hesitate at any necessary sacrifice for the welfare of Cuba but because they regarded such sacrifices as unnecessary. Some were members of the Cuban Independence party, and they cordially and eagerly supported the revolution; saying: "Let our fields and buildings be burned. If it is necessary in order to free the island that our property shall be ruined, let it be ruined!" This patriotic attitude of some of the great property-owners, who had most to lose through the ravages of war but who were ready to risk all, was finely displayed in the very midst of the conflict. There were in the Province of Santa Clara two very wealthy Cuban women, sisters. They were Marta Abreu, who became the wife of the Vice-President of the Cuban Republic, and who died in France, and Rosalie Abreu, whose home is preeminently the "show place" of Cuba and is perhaps the most beautiful residence in all the tropical regions of the world. These women gave large sums of money for the revolution and made many sacrifices for it, beside running great risks of utter disaster to their fortunes. They were both in Paris when news came of the death of Antonio Maceo, the brilliant and daring commander who had carried the war westward into Havana and Pinar del Rio and who fell in battle in the former province. His death was a disaster well calculated to shake the fortitude of the patriots, if not to strike them with despair. But immediately upon hearing the news Marta Abreu sent a cable dispatch to Benjamin Guerra, the Treasurer of the Junta, urging him not to be discouraged but to "keep the good work going," and adding that she and her sister were each mailing him a check for $50,000. Such a spirit was indomitable.