The policy of the marauders was simple. The treasure which oiled the
machinery of Spanish policy came from the Indies where it was
accumulated; hence there were only two means of obtaining possession of
it:--bold raids on the ill-protected American continent, and the capture
of vessels _en route_.[38] The counter policy of the Spaniards was also
two-fold:--on the one hand, the establishment of commerce by means of
annual fleets protected by a powerful convoy; on the other, the removal
of the centres of population from the coasts to the interior of the
country far from danger of attack.[39] The Spaniards in America,
however, proved to be no match for the bold, intrepid mariners who
disputed their supremacy. The descendants of the _Conquistadores_ had
deteriorated sadly from the type of their forbears. Softened by tropical
heats and a crude, uncultured luxury, they seem to have lost initiative
and power of resistance. The disastrous commercial system of monopoly
and centralization forced them to vegetate; while the policy of
confining political office to native-born Spaniards denied any outlet to
creole talent and energy. Moreover, the productive power and
administrative abilities of the native-born Spaniards themselves were
gradually being paralyzed and reduced to impotence under the crushing
obligation of preserving and defending so unwieldy an empire and of
managing such disproportionate riches, a task for which they had neither
the aptitude nor the means.[40] Privateering in the West Indies may
indeed be regarded as a challenge to the Spaniards of America, sunk in
lethargy and living upon the credit of past glory and achievement, a
challenge to prove their right to retain their dominion and extend their
civilization and culture over half the world.[41]

There were other motives which lay behind these piratical aggressions of
the French and English in Spanish America. The Spaniards, ever since the
days of the Dominican monk and bishop, Las Casas, had been reprobated as
the heartless oppressors and murderers of the native Indians. The
original owners of the soil had been dispossessed and reduced to
slavery. In the West Indies, the great islands, Cuba and Hispaniola,
were rendered desolate for want of inhabitants. Two great empires,
Mexico and Peru, had been subdued by treachery, their kings murdered,
and their people made to suffer a living death in the mines of Potosi
and New Spain. Such was the Protestant Englishman's