ABSTRACT
CANNING, with that imaginative insight which was so peculiarly his, had recognised the vast possibilities of Latin America in his first Ministry of half a generation back. He had induced the Portuguese Regent to retire from his native country to Brazil; he had proclaimed Talavera as a victory for us because it had opened to us the commerce and the harbours of Spanish America. He had known that Castlereagh had forced all Powers to disavow aggressive designs on these Colonies at Aixla-Chapelle in 1818_ He feared now that these designs were revIvmg. The French project of planting Bourbon princes on the thrones of Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile had long been known to everybody. And Castlereagh, in 1820, had addressed vigorous protests to France when he found she had secretly negotiated with Spain and with the Argentine Republic to establish the Bourbon Prince of Lucca as the ruler of Buenos Aires. It does not seem probable that, in this instance at least, force was actually contemplated by France. Canning saw that the question might be different in 1823, when she had already invaded the Old Spain, and he had evidence which, he thought, justified suspicion of French designs on the New. In any case, Canning had to win diplomatic prestige over Spanish America as a set-off to his diplomatic defeat in Europe.
