Meanwhile Chili had won its liberty in 1817 as a result of the victory of Maypu, above mentioned, and Buenos Ayres had similarly fought for and gained independence. In North America a similar struggle for liberty had gone on, and with like result, Central America and Mexico winning their freedom after years of struggle and scenes of devastation and cruelty such as those above mentioned. At the opening of the nineteenth century Spain held a dominion of continental dimensions in America. At the close of the first quarter of the century, as a result of her mediæval methods of administration, she had lost all her possessions on the western continent except the two islands of Cuba and Porto Rico. Yet, learning nothing from her losses, she pursued the same methods in these fragments of her dominions, and before the close of the century these also were torn from her hands. Cruelty and oppression had borne their legitimate fruits, and Spain, solely through her own fault, had lost the final relics of her magnificent colonial empire. [Illustration: WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. JOHN BRIGHT. BENJAMIN DISRAELI. WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM. GREAT ENGLISH STATESMEN] [Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA. ALBERT EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES. BRITAIN'S SOVEREIGN AND HEIR APPARENT TO THE THRONE] CHAPTER VIII. Great Britain as a World Empire. On the western edge of the continent of Europe lies the island of Great Britain, in the remote past a part of the continent, but long ages ago cut off by the British Channel. Divorced from the mainland, left like a waif in the western sea, peopled by men with their own interests and aims, it might naturally be expected to have enough to attend to at home and to take no part in continental affairs. [=The Adventurous Disposition of the British People=] Such was the case originally. The island lay apart, almost unknown, and was, in a sense, "discovered" by the Roman conquerors. But new people came to it, the Anglo-Saxons, and subsequently the Normans, both of them scions of that stirring race of Vikings who made the seas their own centuries ago and descended in conquering inroads on all the shores of Europe, while their daring keels cut the waters of far-off Greenland and touched upon the American coast. This people--stirring, aggressive, fearless--made a new destiny for Great Britain. Their island shores were too narrow to hold them, and they set out on bold ventures in all seas. Their situation was a happy one for a nation of daring navigators and aggressive warriors. Europe lay to the east, the world to the west. As a result the British islands have played a leading part alike in the affairs of Europe and of the world. [=Hostility of England to France=]