[=The Fate of Poland=] Nicholas the Czar fancied that he had spoiled these people by kindness and clemency. They should not be spoiled in that way any longer. Under his harsh decrees the Kingdom of Poland vanished. He ordered that it should be made a Russian province, and held by a Russian army of occupation. The very language of the Poles was forbidden to be spoken, and their religion was to be replaced by the Orthodox Russian faith. Those brief months of revolution and independence were fatal to the liberty-loving people. Since then, except during their brief revolt in 1863, they have lain in fetters at the feet of Russia, nothing remaining to them but their patriotic memories and their undying aspiration for freedom and independence. CHAPTER VII. Bolivar, the Liberator of Spanish America. In the preceding chapter mention was made of two regions in which the spirit of revolt triumphed during the period of reaction after the Napoleonic wars--Greece and Spanish America. The revolt in Greece was there described; that in Spanish America awaits description. It had its hero, one of the great soldiers of the Spanish race, perhaps the greatest and ablest of guerilla leaders; "Bolivar the Liberator," as he was known on his native soil. [=How Spain Treated Her Colonies=] Spain had long treated her colonists in a manner that was difficult for a high-spirited people to endure. Only two thoughts seemed to rule in their management, the one being to derive from the colonies all possible profit for the government at home, the other to make use of them as a means by which the leaders in Spain could pay their political debts. The former purpose was sought to be carried out by severe taxation, commercial restriction, and the other methods in which a short-sighted country seeks to enrich itself by tying the hands and checking the industries of its colonists. To achieve the latter purpose all important official positions in the colonies were held by natives of Spain. Posts in the government, in the customs, in all salaried offices were given to strangers, who knew nothing of the work they were to do or the conditions of the country to which they were sent, and whose single thought was to fill their purses as speedily as possible and return to enjoy their wealth in Spain. [=The Oppression of the People=] All this was galling to the colonists, who claimed to be loyal Spaniards; and they rebelled in spirit against this swarm of human locusts which descended annually upon them, practicing every species of extortion and fraud in their eagerness to grow rich speedily, and carrying much of the wealth of the country back to the mother land. Add to this the severe restrictions on industry and commerce, the prohibition of trade except with Spain, the exactions of every kind, legal and illegal, to which the people were forced to submit, and their deep-seated dissatisfaction is easy to understand.