into one empire from the Pyrenees to the strait of Gibraltar, and
civil wars were at an end. Maritime exploration was the task of
the age, and under the patronage of Isabella, Columbus planted the
flag of Spain in the West Indies. This grand achievement led to
the opening of a splendid continent, teeming with riches, for
Spanish adventure and despoliation. In 1498, Columbus landed on
the continent of South America, and in a few years the entire
western coast was explored by subsequent adventurers. In 1512,
Ponce de Leon discovered Florida, and the following year, Balboa
crossed the Isthmus of Darien, and gazed for the first time upon
the Pacific.

The history of Spain, in connection with its discovery and
settlement of the New World, is one long record of revolting
crime. New England was settled by a people who came to turn the
wilderness into a city, but the Spanish invaders went to the
southern shores to turn the cities of the natives into a
wilderness. In Mexico and Peru they found a civilization the equal
and in many respects the superior of their own. With cross and
sword in hand, in the name of religion, but with the lust for gold
in their hearts, their coming was invariably a signal for every
kind of attack that malignity could devise or avarice invent.
Wherever they went, desolation followed them. They looted the
towns, pillaged the cities, murdered the people; they burned alike
the hovels of the poor, and the palaces of the rich.

The value of the treasure that Spain secured from Mexico and Peru
never can be known accurately; but it is certain that within sixty
years from the time of the landing of Columbus she had advanced to
the position of the richest and most powerful nation in Europe.