CHAPTEE II. 



Further reasons of Failure by the Spaniards — Sources of Historical 

 Information — Spain attempts to keep her discoveries a secret — 

 The Buccaneers — Peculiarities of the Buccaneers. 



There are, undoubtedly, other reasons than such as 

 are hinted at in the last chapter for the slow ad- 

 vancement, or retrogression, and the present condition 

 of the Spanish settlements in both North and South 

 America. The Spanish united with an indisposi- 

 tion to till the soil, and a sort of Don Quixote chiv- 

 alry, which is of very little value in practical affairs, 

 a constitutional and hereditary lack of enterprise, 

 which will render them, according to some of the 

 wise prophets of our time, as much the subjects of 

 the Saxons as the old Iberians were of the Romans. 

 They are, unhappily for themselves, without the pro- 

 gressive element, and this, when the world is rush- 

 ing forward at its present pace, is to be without the 

 first principle of national respectability, or even of 

 national existence. How easily the Isthmus of Pan- 

 ama may be made rich and populous, I trust will 

 soon be seen, from the new influences that are ope- 

 rating there. The present changes in its condition 

 are scarcely less important than the most radical and 

 striking from the days of Balbao. 



