Others had traveled abroad and came home to whisper to their countrymen what they had seen and heard in lands more progressive than Spain and Portugal.

The commercial relations, both licit and illicit, which Great Britain had maintained with several of the colonies had served to diffuse among them some notions of what went on in the busy world outside.
By gaining its independence, the United States had set a practical example of what might be done elsewhere in America.

Translated into French, the Declaration of Independence was read and commented upon by enthusiasts who dreamed of the possibility of applying its principles in their own lands.

More powerful still were the ideas liberated by the French Revolution and Napoleon.

Borne across the ocean, the doctrines of "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality" stirred the ardent-minded to thoughts of action, though the Spanish and Portuguese Americans who schemed and plotted were the merest handful.