d between the colonies themselves, and
the movements of all merchandise were made to converge at a single
point. This scheme was assisted by the organization of the galleon
fleets, which, guarded by warships, united themselves into a single
convoy once or twice a year. Portobello (with Panama on the other
side of the narrow isthmus) was the sole commercial harbour of
South America. Merchandise introduced here was sent across the
isthmus and down the Pacific coast, and eventually penetrated
inland as far as Potosi. To this place the colonists of the south
and of the Atlantic coast were obliged to come in order to effect
their negotiations, and to supply themselves with necessities at a
cost of from 500 to 600 per cent. above the original price. These
absurd regulations, violating natural laws and the rules of good
government, as well as the colonial monopoly, could only have
emanated from the madness of an absolute power supported by the
inertia of an enslaved people.... When Spain, enlightened by
experience, wished to alter her disastrous system of exploitation,
and actually did so with sufficient intelligence and generosity, it
was already too late. She had lost her place as a motherland, and
with it America as a colony. No bond, whether of force, affection,
or of any other interest, linked the disinherited sons to the
parent country. The separation was already a fact, and the
independence of the South American colonies merely a question of
time and opportunity."

What would have happened had the position of Spain herself in Europe
remained unimpaired is idle to conjecture, but it is practically
certain, with the new light which was now beginning to flood the new
Continent, that the struggle for independence would have been postponed
for a few years only.

The first herald of the great struggle for liberty which was to ensue
was Francisco Miranda. The character of Miranda resembled not a little
that of Bolivar. Both men were of exalted and enthusiastic temperaments;
both were skilled in the arts of oratory and the management of men, and
both possessed a visionary side. For each the situation in the New World
formed an ample and, indeed, justifiable field.

Long before the first outbreak of hostilities in America Miranda had
played the part of stormy petrel in other continents. Born in Venezuela,
he had