Both, unfortunately, concurred in exciting the imagination of the ignorant by pictures of a state of things, that could have no foundation in nature, or truth.
Viewed through the medium of delusive hope, Spanish America presented nothing but prospects of unalloyed advantage. Great, and instantaneous, success was to attend every enterprise there, without the employment of those means, upon which the experience of the world has, hitherto, proved success to depend. Time, industry, perseverance, a knowledge of the scene upon which operations were to commence — of the men by whom they were to be conducted, — of the language and peculiarities of the country, in which they were to be carried on; all these were stated to be considerations of minor importance; capital alone was represented as wanting; and facts, important in themselves, were so warped and distorted, in order to favour this theory, that when its fallacy was demonstrated, the facts fell to the ground with the superstructure which had been raised upon them.
Unexampled credulity amongst the disappointed, was succeeded by obstinate unbelief. Transatlantic States, and adventures, were involved in one indiscriminate condemnation; and, even at the present day, enterprises of the greatest public utility are stigmatised as bubbles, because, during a period of unbridled spe-
