INTRODUCTION. 95 



The foreign commerce of South America, exclusive of 

 the Brazil, is estimated by Torres, at one hundred mil- 

 lions of dollars; and as in every prosperous indepen- 

 dent country, this forms but a small proportion of the 

 whole, ihe internal trade will in time surpass that of 

 any country on the globe. 



The view of Spanish America which I have given 

 in this introduction^ may serve in some measure, in 

 solving the question that so naturally presents itself, 

 how Spain has been enabled to establish and main- 

 tain this wonderful empire, and why the South Amer- 

 icans have been apparently so tardy and unsuccessful 

 in the accomplishment of their liberties? 



Something is to be attributed to the situation of the 

 first settlers and conquerors, who stood in need of the 

 countenance of some European nation; because they 

 themselves held millions of men in a state of subjec- 

 tion. They had not ceased to be Spaniards; though 

 removed from Spain, they carried with them Spanish 

 opinions, customs, and prejudices. They willingly 

 submitted to a yoke, which their descendants have 

 found so galling; and who in the course of time, hav- 

 ing forgotten the parent state, in many respects be- 

 came identified in feeling with the aborigines of Amer- 

 ica. They were bound down and enchained, by the 

 system which Spain had been enabled to establish. 

 The dominion of Spain therefore rested partly on the 

 high notions of loyalty transmitted by the first con- 

 querors, but still more by the influence of a priest- 

 hood under the immediate control of the sovereign. 

 Partly also, to the apathy prevailing in the mass of 

 the population; to the ease and indolence of the inha- 

 bitants of the new world, to which their situation in^ 



