Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/127

103 SURRENDER OF THE CAPITAL. lOcJ XV. assimilating with their Christian neighbours, but chapter almost their natural enemies ; while their local position was a matter of just concern, as interposed between the great divisions of the Spanish mon- archy, and opening an obvious avenue to invasion from Africa. By the new conquest, moreover, the Spaniards gained a large extent of country, possess- ing the highest capacities for production, in its natural fruitfulness of soil, temperature of climate, and in the state of cultivation to which it had been brought by its ancient occupants ; while its shores were lined with commodious havens, that afforded every facility for commerce. The scattered frag- ments of the ancient Visigothic empire were now again, with the exception of the little state of Navarre, combined into one great monarchy, as originally destined by nature ; and Christian Spain gradually rose by means of her new acquisitions from a subordinate situation, to the level of a first- rate European power. The moral influence of the Moorish war, its in- i',f„™°j"*^ '"■ fluence on the Spanish character, was highly im- portant. The inhabitants of the great divisions of the country, as in most countries during the feudal ages, had been brought too frequently into collision with each other to allow the existence of a pervad- ing national feeling. This was particularly the case in Spain, where independent states insensibly grew out of the detached fragments of territory recovered at different times from the Moorish mon- archy. The war of Granada subjected all the vari- ous sections of the country to one common action. fluence.