In some respects, but only in some, South America, freed from the
Spaniard, resembled the ancient Britain deprived of its Roman rulers and
garrison. It is true that the Spanish army had been forced, struggling,
from the Continent by means of battle and blood, and that the Roman
legions had left the coasts of Britain amid the lamentations of the
natives. One thing, however, is quite certain, that neither race was
prepared to govern itself. Washington was duplicated in the south by
Bolivar and San Martin, but the influence of Bolivar and San Martin died
very shortly after the dramatic events in which they took part.
It would be more correct, perhaps, to say that this influence was
overlooked for the time being and forgotten, since, those periods of
all-absorbing anarchy notwithstanding, the influence of Bolivar and San
Martin has manifested itself strongly from time to time during every
generation which has succeeded.
That the age of petty and local tyrants should have followed so closely
on the skirts of the great national and Continental revolution was
inevitable in the circumstances. Spanish South America was Royalist by
custom and tradition. Whatever the nations might in the first instance
term themselves, their inhabitants were bound by these very traditions
and instincts to find some leader whom they could put in the place of
the once revered, but never seen, monarch.
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