endencies
into transient wakefulness and energy, until the great day of Boyaca
dawned, and New Granada and Venezuela, as Spanish colonies, ceased to
be. Fit or unfit as they might have been for self-government at the
time, these peoples set out to make histories as independent States, and
the Spanish colonial era, having lasted over two and a half centuries,
came to an end.

CHAPTER XV

THE LAST DAYS OF EMPIRE

We have now arrived at the most critical of all the periods which
Spanish South America has undergone in the course of its history, the
decade or so which preceded the actual outbreak of the revolutionary
wars. In order to arrive at a just appreciation of the situation it is
necessary to realize that, although the policy of Spain had consistently
demonstrated itself as discouraging towards learning and progress in
every direction, to such an extent had the population of the colonies
grown that this task of repression of the intelligence of a Continent
had now become Herculean and altogether beyond the powers of the
moderately energetic Spanish officials.

Despite every precaution, the colonists had succeeded in educating
themselves up to a certain point; moreover, a number of them, flinging
restrictions to the wind, had now begun to travel abroad, and had
visited European centres. These sons of the New World had adapted
themselves admirably to the conditions of Europe. They had been received
by notable personages in England and France, who had been struck with
the intelligence and ideals of the South Americans. These latter, for
their part, had benefited from an exchange of views and from
conversations concerning many subjects which were necessarily new to
them. With an intercourse of this kind once in full swing it was
inevitable that the regulations of Spain should automatically become
obsolete and, in the eyes of the Americans, ridiculous.

In South America itself, nevertheless, the social gap between the
Spaniard and the colonial continued entirely unbridged, and the contempt
of the European officials for the South American born was as openly
expressed in as gratuitous a fashion as ever. Indeed, as the
opportunities for education broadened for the colonists, it would seem
that their Spanish alleged brethren affected to despise them still more
deeply--no doubt as a hint that no mere learning could alter the solid
fact that their birth had occurred without the frontiers of European
Spain.

The