Well might Spain urge upon other nations, as an argument against the recognition of those countries, that the South Americans were unfit for a state of independence. She knew the full extent of moral degradation to which her own policy had reduced them; but it was futile to allege it, when it had become manifest to all the world that her own power to reduce them again to subjection was gone for ever, and that the people of South America had not only achieved their complete independence, but were resolved and fully able to maintain it. The notoriety of those facts left no alternative to foreign governments whose subjects had any real interest in the question, whatever might be the speculative opinions of some parties as to the eventual prospects of the New States. In this country our ignorance of the real condition of the people of South America naturally led us to look back to what had taken place in our own North American colonies, and with but little discrimination perhaps, to anticipate the same results, whereas nothing in reality could be more dissimilar than the circumstances of the colonial subjects of Great Britain and Spain when their political emancipation took place. In the British colonies all the foundations of good government were already laid: the principles of civil administration were perfectly understood, and the transition was almost imperceptible. On the other hand, in the Spanish colonies the whole policy, as well as the power of the mother country, seems to have been based on perpetuating the servile state and ignorance of the natives: branded as an inferior race, they were systematically excluded from all share in the government, from commerce, and every other pursuit which might tend to the development of native talent or industry. The very history of their own unfortunate country was forbidden them, no doubt lest it should open their eyes to the reality of their own debased condition. When the struggle came, the question of their independence was soon settled irrevocably; but as to the elements for the construction at once of anything like a good government of their own, they certainly did not exist. Under these circumstances, what was perfectly natural took place. In the absence of any other real power, that of military command, which had grown out of the war, obtained an ascendency, the influence of which in all the New States became soon apparent. They fell, in fact, all of them more or less under military despotism. The people dazzled with the victories and martial achievements of their leaders, imperceptibly passed from one yoke to another.