South America was in every respect most unfortunate. The weakness and misfortunes of Spain followed closely upon the growth of the revolutionary spirit which disturbed the whole world, and though the Continent was for a long time comparatively little affected by it, vigorous intrigues in Europe kept it alive, and when the time was ripe the revolutionists set to work. Equally unfortunate was it that the Revolution took place at a time when unchecked democracy was considered a practicable form of government. Experience has shown that it is beset with difficulties in all States; but where a portion of the people have political instincts and capacity, public affairs may go on, even if to some extent hampered by professions of a belief in ochlocracy, without serious disaster. Few people in the world could have been found less suited to direct democratic institutions than the Spanish Creole was at the time of the War of Independence. Little town communities, paternally governed groups of villages, all with complete local self-government and united only by common loyalty to a King or Viceroy--such was the form of government under which the Indo-Spaniards might have lived and prospered; but the constitutions which they attempted to formulate were altogether incongruous under the circumstances. Political theorising has cost South America very dear. Canning's oft-quoted sentence about the "New World which was called into existence to redress the balance of the Old" is, in the sense in which it is often quoted, a piece of cheap rhetoric. But, in fact, he was arguing that it was not worth while to go to war with France on account of the marching of French troops into Spain; the present Spain, he said, was not the country of which our ancestors were jealous; the Spain over the waters is independent, and the fact has entirely changed the balance of power.