Norway to Labrador, via Iceland, there is nowhere a gap between lands of a thousand miles. Yet the discoveries of unknown islands by the Norsemen went unheeded, and it was reserved for Columbus, in 1492, an Italian in the service of Spain, to be the first scientific discoverer and explorer of the New World. Almost immediately he was followed by John Cabot in 1497, sailing in behalf of England.

Thus, more than four centuries ago, was laid the original foundation stone of the Monroe Doctrine. Before any European had as yet laid eyes on the mainlands, a rivalry appeared between the Latin and the Teutonic race-stocks for the control of the two continents which shortly came to be called America. That contest began an age-long struggle between Latin Spain and Teutonic England, for lands to colonize in the New World, and for supremacy over the adjacent seas. By the Revolution of 1775 the British influence fell to the former English colonists who formed the United States of America. The Latin influence was upheld by the former Spanish and Portuguese colonists, and for the first time the two groups set out to live in harmony.

The relations between these groups was much affected by the fact that the European colonizing nations came upon their portions of the New World almost by accident. The Spaniards happened to strike the West Indies, and thence passed to the nearest shores of the two continents. They never made significant settlements north of a line drawn through St. Augustine, Pensacola, Nagodoches, Santa Fé, and San Francisco. In South America, except for the comparatively small settlements on the La Plata, they took up only a narrow belt of territory extending along the northern and western coasts. The French in pursuit of furs settled on and near the St. Lawrence River and Gulf. The English unwillingly accepted the broad and fertile belt lying between the colonies of the two Latin powers. Their permanent colonies were planted a century after the Spanish beginning; and it was fifty years longer before Spain would accept the fact that the English had made a permanent foothold in America.

The Spaniards had not even the foresight to occupy the mouth of the Mississippi, and allowed the French to preëmpt the whole valley of that magnificent river. On the Pacific, also, the Spaniards never thoroughly explored or occupied the

coast north of Lower California until the middle eighteenth century. The result was that when the Spanish Empire broke up, immense fragments just west of the United States were really a no-man's land and early fell into the Latin-American system. As for the French, they were crowded out by the British in 1763. All other European colonies on the Atlantic Coast of North America were merged in the British. Off the continent there was a small area which for a century and a half was the battle ground between the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin. This was the West Indies. First Jamaica, later other West India islands, and even a belt of territory on the coast of Honduras, were seized from the Spaniards. The French also crowded in and occupied first half and then the whole of the island of Santo Domingo, and many smaller islands. The conquest of Jamaica (1655) marks the beginning of the decline of the Spanish-American empire; a decline which eventually made possible the independence of the Latin-American states who are now our neighbors. Into the Caribbean area, where the influence of the United States has in our day largely penetrated, the English began to get a foothold as early as Cromwell's rule.

SPANISH COLONIAL EMPIRE

Down to the American Revolutionary War the Spanish Empire in America included more than half the area of the two continents and outlying islands. The sovereign bore titles which testified to the passing magnificence of the Empire:

"DON CARLOS, by the grace of God, King of Castile, of Aragon, of the two Sicilies, of Jerusalem, of Navarre, of Granada, of Toledo, of Valencia, of Galicia, of Majorca, of Seville, of Sardinia, of Cordova, of Corsica, of Murcia, of Jaen, of the Algaves, of Algeciras, of Gibraltar, of the Canary Islands, of the East and West Indies, Islands and Terra Firma, of the Ocean sea, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, Brabant, and Milan, Count of Apsburgh, of Flanders, Tirol, and Barcelona, Lord of Biscay and of Molina," etc.

On the face of things Spain had great advantages over the English colonies, such as a hundred years of start, tropical and sub-tropical climates, magnificent islands and harbors, control of the narrow crossings from the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific,

and the sole European influence on the Pacific Coast of North America. Down to the American Revolution the preponderant influence in the Americas was still Spanish, and there was no proof then either that Spain would decay or that England would expand.

Against these advantages the English could count on several aids to growth and influence. The first was the conquest of the French potential empire in the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi valleys, crystallized by the Treaty of Paris (1763). Though Spain then received the whole west bank of the Mississippi River and a strip across the mouth of the river, the English were in possession of the most available block of land in North America, fertile, various, well-watered, provided with splendid harbors, and good water routes on the interior rivers and lakes, reaching for a few years south to the Gulf. To this advantage must be added the unbroken refusal of the English to unite with the native Indians in a mixed race of citizens, a practice which had been going on for centuries in all parts of Latin America. The result was that the English continued to be an European race, while the Spanish-Americans were and are an American-European race.

Again, the English colonists were accustomed to look after themselves and in many directions to make their decisions; while the initiative in Latin-American government came, in most cases, from over-sea; that is, Spanish America was governed by a country which was declining in wealth, population, and prestige. When it became clear during the eighteenth century that Spain could no longer protect her own European territory, when the English were strong enough to occupy Gibraltar in 1704 the control of Spain over the American colonial empire began to weaken.

EFFECT OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1775-1789)

In the rivalries for empire it hardly entered into the minds of the colonists that they were anything but outlying parts of Europe. They looked on themselves as Dutchmen or Swedes or Frenchmen or Englishmen or Spaniards or Portuguese living on the western continent. A Mexican or a Virginian who went to Europe claimed, and received in general, the status of a Spaniard or an Englishman. Most of the Spanish

colonial governors and many of the English governors came from the home countries; and after amassing dignities and riches, they went home to those countries. The fundamental law and political and social customs of the colonists were the same as for their brethren at home; and to cover the conditions of the new world the home governments made many laws for their colonies. The wars between the colonies were the reflec tions of rivalries between the mother countries in Europe. There was no America in the modern sense, still less any groups of American states.

Hence, the North American Revolution of 1775 did more than overturn the political system of the English colonies; it created a new kind of political unity, an American power, never before known in the history of the world. The English, Spaniards, Portuguese, and Dutch as conquerors in the Orient, found existing states, some of which were transformed into colonies. The United States of America reversed the process; out of communities which had never been anything but bits of Europe set in the western hemisphere, they constructed a new nation. This process and its results were very unwelcome to Europe. Except for incomplete governments of Switzerland and Holland, the United States was the first independent republic which sprang out of European civilization. By this process was introduced into America a new type of political organization for the state thus created was situated wholly in America, was dependent for its economic life upon American energy and capital; and was likely to make its fortune at the expense of the colonies of several European nations. As an example to such colonies the United States of America was dangerous; as a sister community to European outliers in America the new nation was disturbing; as a center of influence upon other American powers that might later arise, the United States was creating the condition out of which the Monroe Doctrine was eventually to come. Spain grudgingly countenanced the American Revolution, but all along dreaded the probable effect upon her own colonies, and was particularly nervous about the vigorous American settlers on the upper waters of the Mississippi River. The Spanish colonies were close to the United States, and it might safely be predicted that in the long run the new republic would absorb Spanish territory. Hence Spain scented danger to the colonies, danger to the Mississippi,

and danger to Florida. These three apprehensions from the first disturbed the friendly relations of Spain and the United States. On the other hand, commercial interest moved the people of the United States to seek closer relations with Spain. In 1795 a commercial treaty was secured which, however, did not apply to the colonies. With the French West Indies, Portuguese Brazil, and the little Russian settlements in the North Pacific, the United States did not at that time concern herself. During the Revolution there was an attempt to annex Canada; but the Canadians showed no desire to exchange their status under Great Britain for membership in the American Union.

During the Revolution the United States was too busy fighting to think of exercising a direct influence over the Spanish colonies, but did take a small part in extra-American affairs. Thus the capture of the port of New Providence in the Bahamas, in 1776, was a warning that the United States might take part in future naval wars in the West Indies. The appearance of John Paul Jones and other commanders in ships of war and privateer in European waters, was a suggestion that an American power might take part in European affairs. Negotiations with the Barbary Powers from 1783 to 1787 gave the United States the first taste of African complications. The opening up of profitable trade with China in 1784 was an evidence of a new interest of the United States in the Pacific Ocean and Eastern Asia.

So in America the foundations were laid for future annexations and commerce. The Russian occupation of tradingposts on the Northwest Coast in this period was the beginning of the eventual annexation of Alaska. The contraband trade with the Spanish colonies, which increased after the Revolutionary War, gave a foretaste of the commerce between the United States and neighboring parts of America. In 1786 the United States began to negotiate with Spain as one American power with another, on that same Mississippi question. The rising stripling was measuring himself against Goliath of America.

EARLY DOCTRINE OF ISOLATION (1780-1789)

With the adoption of the new constitution and the formation of a well-balanced government in 1789, the United States was