316 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



States had for many years been preparing a mine to be sprung 



(when the proper time came. It was Canning who signalled 

 the danger from abroad; it was Adams who placed the 

 charge in position and adjusted the fuse, and it was Monroe 

 who applied the match. The statement that the United 

 States would resist the advance of the allies into the new 

 world, as hinted in President Monroe's Message of 1823, 

 together with the knowledge that England's sympathy was 

 pledged to the United States, was quite sufficient to check 

 1 any designs which the Alliance may have devised to stifle 

 the cause of liberalism and constitutional government in the 

 Western Hemisphere. 



IV 



When Canning became Minister of Foreign Affairs he 

 was perplexed in regard to the proper attitude he should 

 take toward the struggling Spanish-American colonies. 

 England's commercial classes inclined toward the indepen- 

 dence of these newly created republics ; but true to her 

 conservative notions, as well as to treaty pledges to Spain, 

 England was unprepared, even in her own interest, to welcome 

 immediately the seceded Spanish colonies into the brother- 

 hood of sovereign states. An unwillingness to leap as far 

 as her strength will permit is a characteristic of British 

 foreign relations, yet in this particular instance, a leap too 

 far might have proved a leap into the dark, as the strength 

 of all combined Europe seemed to favor the reduction of 

 Spanish- America in the cause of absolutism ; such a political 

 error might have isolated Great Britain. Canning was will- 

 ing to go much further in this direction than had been his 

 more temporizing predecessor, Lord Castlereagh. He pro- 

 tested vigorously against the proposed interference of Europe 

 in America. He was willing that the new states should 

 remain Spanish or be free, indeed it is said that he almost 

 preferred them to return under a modified Spanish rule ; 

 but in order to satisfy the requirements of English com- 

 mercial interests, they must, under no circumstances, pass 



