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Rh they gave to the conquered colonies the signal for the great and final struggle by making common cause with them.

In 1817 the Argentine revolution drew up a plan for the emancipation of the continent, took the offensive, crossed the Andes, and liberated Chile; in union with Chile obtained command of the Pacific, liberated Peru and carried her arms to the equator in aid of the revolution of Columbia. This vigorous impulse was felt in the extreme north of this southern continent, which in its turn defeated and expelled the champions of the old system, went through a similar evolution, and crossed the Andes to the point where the two forces united. The Highlands of Peru became the scene of the final struggle. Then the Spanish American colonies were free by their own strength, and from the chaos sprang up a new world.

During the progress of these events, the United States of the North, the pioneers of the Republican era, recognised the independence of the new republics (1822), as "an expression of the simple truth," and declared—

"The peoples of South America have a right to break the chains which bind them to their mother country, to assume the rank of nations among the sovereign nations of the world, and to establish institutions in accordance with natural laws dictated by God himself."

As a consequence of this recognition the United States, in the year 1823, promulgated the famous Monroe Doctrine which, in opposition to the Bull of Alexander VI., established a new principle of international law under the formula—"America for the Americans."

Free England, who at first looked favourably upon the revolution, began, in 1818, to lean towards Spain and the Holy Alliance, advocating an arrangement on the basis of the "commercial freedom" of the colonies. The diplomatists of Washington interfered in favour of their complete emancipation, and Lafayette, in support of this idea, declared to the Government of France:—