The next governor-general who seems to have left any permanent mark of usefulness is Valdes, whom I suppose I may be allowed to call their modern Lycurgus.  It was during his rule that the laws were weeded and improved, and eventually produced in a clear and simple form.  The patience he must have exhibited in this laborious occupation is evidenced by the minuteness of the details entered into, descending, as we have seen, even to the pants of bathers and the bibs of the infant nigger, but, by some unaccountable omission, giving no instructions as to the tuckers of their mammas.  If Tacon was feared and respected, Valdes was beloved; and each appears to have fairly earned the reputation he obtained.  Valdes was succeeded by O’Donnell, whose rule was inaugurated in negro blood.  Frightful hurricanes soon followed, and were probably sent in mercy to purify the island from the pollutions of suffering and slaughter.  During the rule of his successor, Roncali, the rebel Lopez appears on the stage.  The American campaign in Mexico had stirred up a military ardour which extended to the rowdies, and a piratical expedition was undertaken, with Lopez at the head.  He had acquired a name for courage in the Spanish army, and was much liked by many of them, partly from indulging in the unofficer-like practice of gambling and drinking with officers and men.  His first attempt at a landing was ludicrously hopeless, and he was very glad to re-embark with a whole skin; but he was not the man to allow one failure to dishearten him, for, independent of his courage, he had a feeling of revenge to gratify.[AA] Having recruited his forces, he landed the following year, 1851, with a stronger and better-equipped force of American piratical brigands, and succeeded in stirring up a few Cubans to rebellion.  He maintained himself for a few days, struggling with a courage worthy of a better cause.  The pirates were defeated; Lopez was made prisoner, and died by the garotte, at Havana, on the 1st of September.  Others also of the band paid the penalty of the law; and the ruffian crew, who escaped to the United States, now constitute a kind of nucleus for the “Lone Star,” “Filibustero,” and other such pests of the community to gather round, being ready at any moment to start on a buccaneering expedition, if they can only find another Lopez ass enough to lead them.

Concha became governor-general just before Lopez’ last expedition, and the order for his execution was a most painful task for poor Concha, who had been for many years an intimate friend of his.  Concha appears to have left an excellent name behind him.  I always heard him called “the honest governor.”  He introduced a great many reforms into the civil code, and established a great many schools and scientific and literary societies.  During my stay in the island, his successor, Canedo, was the governor-general.  Whenever I made inquiries about him, the most favourable answer I could get was, a chuck-up of the head, a slight “p’tt” with the lips, and an expression of the eyes indicating the sight of a most unpleasant object.  The three combined required no dictionary of the Academy to interpret.[AB]