319 
Chap. XIX.—B. P.] YEARLY REVOLUTIONS. 
the sacred emblem on the hilts of their swords the 
excuse for the excesses committed with the blades. 
The latter strove to acquire the land peacefully, the 
former by unrestrained violence of the most brutal 
type. 
The first English settlers established themselves at 
Eoanoke, Virginia, in 1585, nearly 100 years after 
Columbus landed in San Salvador; and from that 
small beginning they have increased and multiplied to 
about 30,000,000, and now overshadow at least the 
northern portion of the continent, all of which they 
are destined to possess at no very distant period of 
time if they make up their minds that the late civil 
war shall be the last.* 
A mania for civil strife has been the ruin of the 
Spanish American States; but their bitter agony will 
not have been endured in vain if it proves a warning 
to their northern neighbour. True freedom has been 
awfully desecrated in the hands of Spanish Americans ; 
for the last fifty years, not a single year has passed 
without a revolution breaking out in at least one of 
the many republics which sprang into life with inde¬ 
pendence 5 and to that cause alone is attributable the 
alarming decrease of the population, the ignorance of 
the people, the poverty of the country, and the chronic 
state of anarchy, confusion, and bloodshed, which is 
now the normal condition of unhappy Spanish Ame¬ 
rica. 
* The Spanish language is more used in the City of New York 
than in the entire State of California, although it was only twenty- 
three years ago (1846) an integral part of Mexico. 
