in Portugal to uphold the claims of his daughter to the throne
betrayed, or seemed to betray, dynastic ambitions. His inability
to hold Uruguay as a Brazilian province, and his continued
retention of foreign soldiers who had been employed in the
struggle with the Argentine Confederation, for the apparent
purpose of quelling possible insurrections in the future, bred
much discontent. So also did the restraints he laid upon the
press, which had been infected by the liberal movements in
neighboring republics. When he failed to subdue these outbreaks,
his rule became all the more discredited. Thereupon, menaced by a
dangerous uprising at Rio de Janeiro in 1831, he abdicated the
throne in favor of his son, Pedro, then five years of age, and
set sail for Portugal.

Under the influence of Great Britain the small European mother
country had in 1825 recognized the independence of its big
transatlantic dominion; but it was not until 1836 that the Cortes
of Spain authorized the Crown to enter upon negotiations looking
to the same action in regard to the eleven republics which had
sprung out of its colonial domain. Even then many years elapsed
before the mother country acknowledged the independence of them
all.



CHAPTER V. THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS

Independence without liberty and statehood without respect for
law are phrases which sum up the situation in Spanish America
after the failure of Bolivar's "great design." The outcome was a