Confidence was restored, the customs
receipts rose to higher figures than ever before, and the prospects of
peace became brighter as revolutionists could no longer count on
captured customhouses to replenish their exchequer.
The position of President Morales was a difficult one. He was an
ex-Jimenista at the head of an Horacista government, and there was no
sympathy between him and his council. The Horacistas distrusted him
and forced him to dismiss his friends from the cabinet and to make
distasteful appointments. Seeing that he was being reduced to a
figurehead, Morales secretly tried to form a party for himself or make
arrangements with the Jimenistas who for months had been conspiring
and threatening to rise. The friction became more severe until
Morales, fearing that both his office and his life were in danger, on
the day before Christmas, 1905, fled from the capital, while the
Jimenistas rose in Monte Cristi and marched down to attack Santiago
and Puerto Plata.
It was the anomalous spectacle of a president leading an insurrection
against his own government.
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