290 SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT. Chap. XVIII. 



tralized form of government, and the disputes respecting 

 boundaries. The power attained during the revolution by 

 the armies, and the selfish ambition, treason, and corruption 

 of public men, aggravated these sources of evil to a melan- 

 choly extent. But other countries, far greater and nobler 

 than these poor struggling republics, have had to pass 

 through as long and as degrading a crisis in their history. 

 Englishmen must remember the thirty years comprising the 

 reigns of the two last Stuarts with quite as much shame as 

 the great-grandchildren of the present Peruvians will expe- 

 rience when they learn the history of their country for the 

 first forty years after its independence. It is recorded that 

 in a British House of Commons there was but one Andrew 

 Marvel. To my personal knowledge there are now several 

 Andrew Marvels in Chile and Peru. These young and inex- 

 perienced countries have had to pass through a fierce ordeal, 

 and, truth to say, they have played their part but indifferently 

 as yet. They indeed require forbearance, but let us not 

 turn from them with disdain and contempt, in the pride of 

 our present grandeur and prosperity. Were treason and 

 corruption and base selfish faction never rife in England's 

 court and parliament ? 



The fatal mistake of several of the old Spanish colonies 

 was in establishing a federal system of government, in 

 imitation of the United States. This was the case in Mexico, 

 Central America, New Granada, and the Argentine Confede- 

 ration. No system can possibly be more entu'ely unsuited 

 to a thinly-peopled mountainous region, without roads, and 

 unprovided with a sufficient number of capable educated men 

 in the distant provinces to undertake the local government. 

 Power necessarily falls into the hands of any cunning 

 adventurer, every little state becomes a focus for revolution, 

 and an endless succession of civil wars are the result. Such, 

 in fact, has been the fate of those republics where federation 



