Surely no expedition, ancient or modern, save that perhaps which Columbus led towards the undiscovered continent of his dreams, was ever fraught with greater significance to the world at large.

We are still too close to the event to be able to measure its true import.

Its real meaning was that the American continent with all its huge resources, its potential value in the ages to come, had entered upon the sphere of world politics, and ultimately would hold in its hands the sceptre of world dominion.

Even the British thought that we had come (p.

029) merely to assist the Mother Country in her difficulties.