ce humbled, England menaced, settlements made
in Asia and Northern Africa--Spain in America become possessed of a vast
continent and of more than one archipelago of splendid islands. Yet
before a century was over the sovereign majesty of Spain underwent a
huge declension, the territory under her sway was contracted, the
fabulous wealth of the mines of the New World had been wasted,
agriculture and industry were ruined, her commerce passed into the hands
of her rivals.

Let me digress one further moment. We have a very sensible habit in the
island whence I come, when our country misses fire, to say as little as
we can, and sink the thing in patriotic oblivion. It is rather startling
to recall that less than a century ago England twice sent a military
force to seize what is now Argentina. Pride of race and hostile creed
vehemently resisting, proved too much for us. The two expeditions ended
in failure, and nothing remains for the historian of to-day but to
wonder what a difference it might have made to the temperate region of
South America if the fortune of war had gone the other way, if the
region of the Plata had become British, and a large British immigration
had followed. Do not think me guilty of the heinous crime of forgetting
the Monroe Doctrine. That momentous declaration was not made for a good
many years after our Gen. Whitelocke was repulsed at Buenos Ayres, tho
Mr. Sumner and other people have always held that it was Canning who
really first started the Monroe Doctrine, when he invited the United
States to join him against European intervention in South American
affairs.

The day is at hand, we are told, when four-fifths of the human race will
trace their pedigree to English forefathers, as four-fifths of the white
people in the United States trace their pedigree to-day. By the end of
this century, they say, such nations as France and Germany, assuming
that they stand apart from fresh consolidations, will only be able to
claim the same relative position in the political world as Holland and
Switzerland. These musings of the moon do not take us far. The important
thing, as we all know, is not the exact fraction of the human race that
will speak English. The important thing is that those who speak English,
whether in old lands or new, shall strive in lofty, generous and
never-ceasing emulation with peoples of other tongues and other stock
for the political, social, and intellectual primacy among mankind. In
th