For one thing, their expectations that the
colonials would join them were not realized. The inherent loyalty of the
South American to the motherland forbade any such move at the time.
Nevertheless, it is freely acknowledged that this English expedition
played no small part in the ultimate liberation of South America, since
it was owing to the invasion that the South Americans, deserted by their
Viceroy, had only themselves on whom to rely for the expulsion of the
expeditionary army. From the force of no initiative of their own, they
had been left to their own resources, and had found that their strength
did not fail them. Amid the doubts and hesitations of later days the
knowledge of this played an important part.
CHAPTER XIV
THE NORTHERN COLONIES
It is, to a certain extent, difficult for one familiar with the South
America of to-day to realize the New Granada of the Spanish colonial
period. From Guiana westward along the northern coast was an extensive
and, for the most part, unexploited stretch of territory, devoid of such
arbitrary boundaries as characterize it to-day, and limited only on the
north and west by the sea, and on the south by the Portuguese colony of
Brazil and the great Spanish territory of Peru.
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