[=Progress in Colonization=] At the opening of the nineteenth century Spain and Portugal still held the great dominions they had won. They divided between them the continent of South America, while Spain held a large section of North America, embracing the whole continent south of Canada and west of the Mississippi River, together with the peninsula of Florida. Portugal held, in addition to Brazil, large territories in east and west Africa and minor possessions elsewhere. As regards the remaining active colonizing nations,--Great Britain, France, and Holland,--some striking transformations had taken place. Great Britain, while late to come into the field of colonization, had shown remarkable activity and aggressiveness in this direction, robbing Holland of her settlement on the Atlantic coast of America, and depriving France of her great colonial possessions in the east and the west. [=French Activity in Founding Colonies=] France had shown a remarkable activity in colonization. In the east she gained a strong foothold in India, which promised to expand to imperial dimensions. In the west she had settled Canada, had planted military posts along the great Mississippi River and claimed the vast territory beyond, and was extending into the Ohio Valley, while the British still confined themselves to a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast. The war which broke out between the English and French colonists in 1754 put an end to this grand promise. When it ended France had lost all her possessions in America and India, Great Britain becoming heir to the whole of them with the exception of the territory west of the Mississippi, which was transferred to Spain. As regards Holland, she had become the successor of Portugal in the east, holding immensely valuable islands in the Malayan archipelago. The colonial dominion of Great Britain, however, suffered one great loss before the end of the eighteenth century. It failed to recognize the spirit of Anglo-Saxon colonists, and by its tyranny in America gave rise to an insurrection which ended in the freedom of its American colonies. It still held Canada and many of the West India Islands, but the United States was free, and by the opening of the nineteenth century had fairly begun its remarkable development. Such was the condition of colonial affairs at the beginning of the century with which we are concerned. Spain and Portugal still held the greatest colonial dominions upon the earth, France had lost nearly the whole of her colonies, Holland possessed the rich spice islands of the eastern seas, and Great Britain was just entering upon that activity in colonization which forms one of the striking features of nineteenth century progress. [=Spain's Colonial Decline=]