march of events, to succeed to her place as the leading nation of Europe. France was to be supplanted a century later by England, which was not known as a great power until the dispersion of the Armada. We have seen that in this historical progress Spain unwittingly helped England by driving the French out from Florida and Carolina; nevertheless the decline of Spain left France the most formidable rival of the English. Sidenote: Portugal. The Portuguese, though impelled by a similar passion for conquest, were more eager for trade than their powerful and often domineering Spanish neighbors. They oppressed their colonies, were greedy in their commercial strivings, maltreated the weak natives of Brazil and the West Indies, lacked administrative ability and the spirit of progress, and suffered from want of a well-balanced colonial system. The Portuguese colonies in America had much the same history as the Spanish, their situation being similar. Brazil was of no great importance until the early years of the nineteenth century, and made herself independent in 1822,--thus following the lead of Mexico, which set up an independent government the previous year. 20. French Policy. Sidenote: France. France had no permanent colonies in America before the seventeenth century. Port Royal was planted in 1604, and Quebec not until four years later. The French were good fighters, enterprising, and while not eager to colonize, were capable of adapting themselves to new conditions; they had the capacity to carry their ideas with them across the seas, and they readily assimilated with the aborigines. While freely intermarrying with the natives, unlike the Spaniards they rather improved the savage stock than were degraded by it. They had the faculty of making the red barbarian a boon companion, and of inducing him to serve them and fight for them; indeed, since their colonizing enterprises were based on the fur-trade, their opposition to the advance of English agricultural possession was, like that of the Indians, fundamental. The French and the savages were therefore united in a common cause against a common foe.