Little by little these financial contracts lost all semblance of serious business. In the impossibility of obtaining really solid guarantees the bankers imposed preposterous conditions, and issue at a discount became the rule with the new conventions. A series of interventions in Buenos-Ayres, Mexico, San Domingo, and Venezuela, diplomatic conflicts, and claims for indemnity resulted from this precarious procedure. Moreover, thanks to the protection accorded by their respective countries, foreigners acquired a privileged position. The Americans were subjected to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts, before which they could demand the payment of their claims on the State; foreigners enjoyed exceptional treatment. A statute was enacted in their favour, and their governments supported them in the {380} recovery of unjustifiable claims. Sir Charles Wyke, English minister to Mexico, wrote to the Foreign Office in 1862: "Nineteen out of twenty foreigners who reside in this unfortunate country have some claim against the government in one way or another. Many of these claims are really based on the denial of real justice, while others have been fabricated throughout, as a good speculation, which would enable the claimant to obtain money for some imaginary wrong; for example, three days' imprisonment which was intentionally provoked with the object of formulating a claim which might be pushed to an exorbitant figure."[1] In face of the string of debts which arose from the loans themselves, or from claims for damages suffered during the civil wars, the governments could only succumb. The immorality of the fiscal agents and the greed of the foreigner will explain these continual bankruptcies, which constitute the financial history of America. The descendants of the prodigal Spanish conquerors, who knew nothing of labour or thrift, have incessantly resorted to fresh loans in order to fill the gaps in their budgets. Politicians knew of only one solution of the economic disorder--to borrow, so that little by little the Latin-American countries became actually the financial colonies of Europe. Economic dependence has a necessary corollary--political servitude. French intervention in Mexico was originally caused by the mass of unsatisfied financial claims; foreigners, the creditors of the State, were in favour of intervention. England and France, who began by seeking to ensure the recovery of certain debts, finally forced a monarch upon the debitor nation. The United States entertained the ambition of becoming the sole creditor of the American peoples: this remarkable privilege would {381} have assured them of an incontestable hegemony over the whole continent.