Puerto Rico, notwithstanding its advantages of soil and situation, was
considered for the space of three centuries only as a fit place of
banishment (a _presidio_) for the malefactors of the mother country.
Agriculture did not emerge from primitive simplicity. The inhabitants
led a pastoral life, cultivating food barely sufficient for their
support, because there was no stimulus to exertion. They looked
passively upon the riches centered in their soil, and rocked
themselves to sleep in their hammocks. The commerce carried on
scarcely deserved that name. The few wants of the people were supplied
by a contraband trade with St. Thomas and Santa Cruz. In the island's
finances a system of fraud and peculation prevailed, and the amount of
public revenue was so inadequate to meet the expenses of maintaining
the garrison that the officers' and soldiers' pay was reduced to
one-fourth of its just amount, and they often received only a
miserable ration.
His Excellency Alexander O'Reilly, who came to the Antilles on a
commission from Charles IV, in his report on Puerto Rico (1765) gives
the following description of the condition of the inhabitants at that
time:
" ... To form an idea of how these natives have lived and still live,
it is enough to say that there are only two schools in the whole
island; that outside of the capital and San German few know how to
read; that they count time by changes in the Government, hurricanes,
visits from bishops, arrivals of 'situados,' etc.
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