The Spaniards had not the constructive genius of the Romans, and both in the mechanical contrivances of civilisation and in the moral force which founds laws and institutions they were far inferior. But they played very much the same part in South America which the Romans did in Europe. France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy are not more distinctively Roman than Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Colombia are Spanish. As Spain was in language and institutions the most completely Romanised of all European countries, so she has left her mark upon the West more distinctively than any other colonising Power. For good or evil, Buenos Aires, Lima, and the rest are Spanish cities, and there seems no reason to believe that they will ever be anything else, and the Spanish influence seems likely to be as permanent as the Roman in Southern Europe. Nor will any candid student of the history of the continent be unwilling to acknowledge that it was no small achievement for a nation to build up and administer such an empire, and he will regret that ignorance and prejudice have prevented the world from giving the praise due to a vast political and religious experiment which, in spite of extraordinary difficulties, was successful as far as its own character was concerned, and which, when it broke down by reason of the weakness of the mother country, left behind it all its institutions, political, religious, and social. Governors became Dictators or Presidents, but everything remains substantially Spanish. FOOTNOTES: [38] The following is a typical example. "In 1602 a custom-house was established at Cordoba for the purpose of levying duties equivalent to 50 per cent. of the value of all commodities passing between Peru and the River Plate. It was not till 1665 that this irritating restraint on commercial business was relaxed" (C. E. Akers, "A History of South America," p. 11). [39] "The commerce between Peru and Buenos Aires is chiefly for cattle and mules; such as are concerned in the former, go first to the Governor, and ask his leave to drive a herd of cattle into Peru, which is never refused when backed by a present of some thousand pieces of eight" ("An Account of the Spanish Settlements in America (1762)" 331). [40] "In the trade to America every nation endeavours to engross as much as possible the whole market of its own colonies, by fairly excluding all other nations from any direct trade to them" (Adam Smith, "Wealth of Nations," ii. 129). [41] Thackeray, "A History of William Pitt," ii. 73, 74. [42] "Wealth of Nations," i. 203. [43] Writing of the time of Galvez, Funes (iii. 225) says: "Civil and military appointments were never before distributed with such complete partiality to the European Spaniards. In general, the native-born were shut out; they were not esteemed worthy to be appointed door-keepers of the offices." He also remarks that there was similar exclusiveness in the distribution of ecclesiastical preferment.