Conrad's English readers are also meant to disregard, on another level, the general indictment. Though artfully dressed up with references to the Spanish race, "the rest of Europe" is equally implicated here, and "our character," "our independence," "our institutions," "our laws" gain in the mouth of Decoud an even more universal scope. Certainly the paragraph eloquently sums up the specific tragedies of South America, but the fact that the actors mentioned are all fictional emphasizes its illustrative quality, and we need only recall Holroyd to find "high-sounding sentiments and a supine morality" elsewhere.