importation of slaves), and a series of competent intendants set the island's government finances on good standing for decades to come. During the second constitutional period after the Riego Revolt, new deputies to the Cortes were elected by the island's population, the Diputación Provincial met again. An important change from the first period was that the captaincy general and the governorship were separated. Francisco González de Linares, a long-time Venezuelan resident who had fled after collapse of its royalist government, was appointed governor. Pablo Morillo's successor as head of the royalist forces in Venezuela, Miguel de la Torre, was appointed captain general. After Ferdinand VII's second abolition of the Constitution, La Torre was made joint governor and captain general, with extraordinary powers to suppress any potential revolt. He would hold the office of captain general for more than fifteen years. Despite La Torre's wariness of the island's liberal tendencies, his long administration was key to the development of large-scale sugar production on the island. This scale of commodity-crop agriculture had been developed decades earlier in Cuba. Figures from the period show the growth in this period. In 1820, 17,000 tons of sugar were produced and 5.8 percent of the land was under any type of cultivation. By 1897, Puerto Rico produced 62,000 tons of sugar and had 14.3 percent of its land devoted to agriculture. The small landholdings, which had been traditional since the 16th century, were purchased to develop large plantations. After sugar, coffee was the second most important crop. In 1818 70 million pounds of coffee were produced, a figure which grew to 130 million pounds by 1830. The increased agricultural activity was done partly by new slave labor, workers imported from other Caribbean islands. In 1817 Spain had signed a treaty with Britain pledging to outlaw Spanish involvement in the slave trade, but it was not seriously enforced until after 1845. But in Puerto Rico, slaves made up only 11.5 to 14 percent of the work force, a much lower proportion compared to other Caribbean islands of the time, . In judicial matters, Puerto Rico was granted its own audiencia from 1832 to 1853. Previously appeals had been heard by the former Audiencia of Santo Domingo, now resident in Cuba. Mid-Century: Slow progress towards autonomy The death of Ferdinand VII brought about new changes. Regent María Cristina reconvened the Cortes, in its traditional form, and Puerto Rico