In 1719, in a report on the condition of the country to the king of Spain, Governor de la Haya[XXXII‑38] of Costa Rica says: "In reference to the establishment and maintenance of missions which had been the primary object in the conquest of Talamanca, nothing had been done since the massacre of September 1709; no precautionary measures had been taken in behalf of missionaries."
The Recollets did not believe this policy of indifference and neglect to be according to the royal pleasure, and petitioned the king for the establishment of a suitable garrison and the founding of a Spanish settlement. By whatever motives impelled, several parties came from the mountains of Talamanca at sundry times between 1713 and 1716, to request the presence of missionaries from Cartago.
In response to the petition of the Recollets, the king, by cédula dated September 1, 1713, directed the president to convene a junta of state officials and persons familiar with Talamanca, to devise and adopt by majority vote plans for the occupation of that territory. The junta, which was not held until the 9th of September, 1716, consisted of the president of Guatemala, the oidores, royal officials, two Recollets, and a representative of the revenue of Cartago. The Recollets advocated the planting of mission stations protected by a garrison. The rest of the council favored the establishment of a military guard of fifty soldiers, and the removal of fifty families from Cartago to Boruca; it was a compromise measure, but it carried the votes.
The fathers were discouraged. The town chosen was without the missionary field, and the force named inadequate to effect subjugation, and needlessly strong for a simple escort. But the arrival of a new president, Rivas, and the disastrous earthquake of 1717 in Guatemala, crowded such matters from view.
EARTHQUAKES.
In a report dated the 14th of March 1723 Haya tells us how, from the 16th of February till the 14th March, there had been rumblings beneath the city of Cartago, as if from the rushing of subterranean rivers, while the volcano of Irazu kept open jaws, and belched forth billows of smoke. The sulphurous exhalations well nigh stifled the people alike on the slopes and in the valleys. Sheets of flame illumined the sky by night, until miles of the horizon were brighter than in the glare of day. Red-hot cinders and scoriæ multiplied in volume until the waters of the neighboring stream, river, and lake were turned into seething mud; the city was strewn with burning dust; and buildings were loosened from the trembling earth.
Costa Rica, if we can believe Haya, was the poorest province in all America. The only currency was cacao; silver was never seen, and the name for aught its people knew might have been adopted in derision. Officers were incapable and stupid; the people quarrelsome, chimerical, and unruly. There was not in all the province a physician or apothecary; nor even a barber. Of foreign trade there was practically none.
In Cartago the ayuntamiento had come to an end; at Esparza, the only other city of the province, there had been none for thirty-nine years past, for no one had money enough to send to Spain to have an appointment confirmed.[XXXII‑39]
PIRATES AND THE MILITARY.
The decay of the settlements in Costa Rica might have been irremediable but for the sharp pruning judiciously applied by Haya.[XXXII‑40] His successor, Francisco de Valderrama, made a report to the captain-general of Guatemala in 1732 containing a curious revelation of the condition of affairs. The governor describes himself as fulfilling the functions of a clerk rather than those of a governor, as there was not a single person in the province capable of writing. Offices remained vacant, because the poverty of the country did not allow of even its chief residents appearing in the plaza in a coat. If the erection of Fort Matina, then in progress, was to proceed, an artificer would have to be sent out, as the only one familiar with such work was an old Indian whose proper business it was to repair roofs, and he unfortunately had just died of the small-pox.[XXXII‑41] Twice during the year 1740 the province was harassed by pirates, who carried off, as was their custom, the crop of cacao, and such slaves as they could lay hands upon.