24 The Winning of the West 



is now the Argentine Confederation, all these and 

 the lands lying between them had been conquered 

 and colonized by the Spaniards before there was a 

 single settlement in the New World, and while the 

 fleets of the Catholic king still held for him the 

 lordship of the ocean. Then the cumbrous Spanish 

 vessels succumbed to the attacks of the swift war- 

 ships of Holland and England, and the sun of the 

 Spanish world-dominion set as quickly as it had 

 risen. Spam at once came to a standstill; it was 

 only here and there that she even extended her rule 

 over a few neighboring Indian tribes, while she was 

 utterly unable to take the offensive against the 

 French, Dutch, and English. But it is a singular 

 thing that these vigorous and powerful new-comers, 

 who had so quickly put a stop to her further growth, 

 yet wrested from her very little of what was already 

 hers. They plundered a great many Spanish cities 

 and captured a great many Spanish galleons, but 

 they made no great lasting conquests of Spanish 

 territory. Their mutual jealousies, and the fear 

 each felt of the others, were among the main causes 

 of this state of things ; and hence it came about that 

 after the opening of the seventeenth century the 

 wars they waged against one another were of far 

 more ultimate consequence than the wars they 

 waged against the former mistress of the Western 

 world. England in the end drove both France and 

 Holland from the field ; but it was under the banner 

 of the American Republic, not under that of the 

 British Monarchy, that the English-speaking people 



