14 INTRODUCTION. 



old monarchy, ecclesiastical, military, and civil, was at once trans- 

 ferred to them. The rights of Mayorasgo, which is, in fact, a strict 

 entail, by keeping immense tracts of uncultivated land in the hands 

 of individuals, checked population by preventing that division of 

 property so favourable to cultivation, and consequently to the 

 increase of hands. * And, finally, every act of government ema- 

 nated directly from the council at Madrid, and every officer of 

 consequence, was a Spaniard sent from Europe, so that there was 

 no occasion which could call out the talents, or exercise the powers 

 of the natives of the country. 



But the political institutions of the British colonies were more 

 favourable to the improvement of the states, and the cultivation of 

 the land, than any other. Many of the original settlers were men 

 who were carried there by the desire of liberty of conscience, who 

 took with them that sturdy and independent spirit which resists 

 interference, as oppression ; and who, forming their own provincial 

 councils, legislated and governed for themselves, and transmitted 

 that privilege to their children. The land too was by no means so 

 engrossed. Alienation was made easy, and as each person obtaining 

 a new grant was obliged to cultivate a certain proportion of his 

 land, population increased as rapidly as the means of subsistence ; 

 and the governors being mostly chosen from among the colonists 

 themselves, there was always a proportion of men so educated as 

 to be capable of that important task. 



Hence the states of North America, firm and united in purpose, 

 and prepared by the best education (for there is an education of 

 states as well as men), rose at once from the state of a disunited 

 colony, after an expensive war, to the dignity of a great nation, while 

 years must, perhaps, elapse before the harassed provinces of Spanish 



* I am aware that the subdivision of property may be carried to a mischievous length, 

 as is now, or will shortly be, the case in France by the operation of the Agrarian law. 

 But in Chile the enormous estates are mischievous, because it is impossible that any one 

 proprietor in the present state of the country, or perhaps in any state, should attempt the 

 improvement of a twentieth part of his land. 



