But,
while thus libels upon and reproaches to the main body, they
nevertheless belong to it, share its essential character, and foretell
its inevitable course. Like driftwood swept forward on the crest of a
torrent, they betoken the approaching flood. So with the celebrated
freebooters of the Spanish Main. Of the same general type,--though
varying greatly in individual characteristics, in breadth of view, and
even in elevation of purpose,--their piratical careers not only
evidenced the local wealth of the scene of their exploits, but
attested the commercial and strategic importance of the position upon
which in fact that wealth depended. The carcass was there, and the
eagles as well as the vultures, the far-sighted as well as the mere
carrion birds of prey, were gathering round it. "The spoil of
Granada," said one of these mercenary chieftains, two centuries ago,
"I count as naught beside the knowledge of the great Lake Nicaragua,
and of the route between the Northern and Southern seas which depends
upon it."

As time passed, the struggle for the mastery inevitably resulted, by a
kind of natural selection, in the growing predominance of the people
of the British Islands, in whom commercial enterprise and political
instinct were blended so happily. The very lawlessness of the period
favored the extension of their power and influence; for it removed
from the free play of a nation's innate faculties the fetters which
are imposed by our present elaborate framework of precedents,
constitutions, and international law. Admirably adapted as these are
to the conservation and regular working of a political system, they
are, nevertheless, however wise, essentially artificial, and hence are
ill adapted to a transition state,--to a period in which order is
evolving out of chaos, where the result is durable exactly in
proportion to the freedom with which the natural forces are allowed to
act, and to reach their own equilibrium without extraneous
interference. Nor are such periods confined to the early days of mere
lawlessness. They recur whenever a crisis is reached in the career of
a nation; when old traditions, accepted maxims, or written
constitutions have been outgrown, in whole or in part; when the time
has come for a people to recognize that the limits imposed upon its
expansion, by the political wisdom of its forefathers, have ceased to
be applicable to its own changed conditions and those of the world.
The question then rai