Chapter V: Book I: ====== (3)

The decline of the Austrian Low Countries was brought on entirely by three causes; the oppression of the government, the Dutch excelling and supplanting them in arts and industry, and their own pride and insolence. At one time, Bruges, at another time, Antwerp, took on them to act as sovereigns, and as if independent, while, at the same time, the people were almost constantly disobedient to their magistrates. They had first become industrious under the influence of

--- {43} It was discovered in 1397, or soon after. -=-

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necessity; but that was gone, and they could not continue in the same course, when in full enjoyment of wealth, and of every thing they wanted.

The Hanseatic Towns, from at first merely defending their trade against the Danes, became their conquerors at sea, and, in the years 1361 and 1369, they took and burnt Copenhagen, the capital, twice. Crowned heads became desirous of their alliance, and no power, at sea, was equal to oppose them; but their insolence to the Dutch, their oppressions of the English, of Spain, and other powers, laid the foundation for their decline in less than half a century afterwards. {44}

As the first three centuries of this extraordinary and unexampled association, were employed in protecting commerce and protecting trade, all those concerned in its success were ambitious of being admitted members, or received as friends: but when they began to assume the pride and dignity of sovereigns, and to meddle in political quarrels, to become irascible and unjust, their numbers diminished; and of those members that remained, the wealth and prosperity gradually began to fall.

The Dutch, by great industry, by a strict attention to their interest, and by keeping down pride, continued to increase in wealth, while the Hans Towns and Flanders were considerably advanced in their decline.

While this was happening on the northern shores of the continent of Europe; to which and to Italy trade had been nearly confined, Spain and Portugal, France and England, began to see the advantages of manufactures and commerce, and to encourage them. If money was wanted to be borrowed, it was either in Italy or Flanders, or in some of the Hans Towns, that it could alone be found; so, that though the monarchs of those days rather despised commerce, yet, as a means merely of procuring what they found so indispensably necessary, they began to think of encouraging it.

Spain had taken possession of the Canary Islands, and Portugal had made conquests on the coast of Africa, and seized the island of

--- {44} In 1411 they were compelled, by Henry IV. of England, to give him satisfaction for some of the injuries done. -=-

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Madeira in the early part of the fifteenth century, and by an attention to naval affairs, and setting a value on possessions beyond seas, laid a foundation for those new discoveries which have totally changed the face of the world.

In Europe then, at the end of the fifteenth century, the nations were nearly in the following state. The Italians, possessed of the whole trade to India, were wealthy but feeble. They had more art, policy, and money, than other nations; but they had of themselves scarcely any effective power, except a little exercised by the Venetians and Genoese at sea.

The Hanse Towns, extending over the northern part of Europe and Flanders, which had become wealthy and powerful by their own industry, and a participation of the trade to India with the Italians, (though at second hand,) were on the decline, through pride and luxury.

Holland alone was advancing fast towards wealth, by industry, and an attention to commerce and economy. Spain and Portugal had turned their attention to new discoveries; and France and England were endeavouring to follow, though at a great distance, those who, in this career, had gone before them.

Of the places that enjoyed wealth, all were declining in power from the abuse of it; and Spain, which alone had possessed much power without wealth, was abusing it, by banishing industry from Flanders, and the Moors from their own country. In one case, there was wealth without power; in the other, there was power without wealth; and, in both, mistaken views and unwise conduct had laid the foundation for decline.

The other nations that had not yet either wealth or power were all seeking with great energy to acquire them; and they were successful in their attempts. Even Spain, which had unwisely banished the Moors, and thereby laid a foundation for its own decline and fall, found that event retarded for a century, by a most unexpected discovery: in consequence of which discovery it fell from a greater height at a later period. {45}

--- {45} It would not be to the purpose to speak at present either of Poland, Sweden, or Russia, or of the German empire, in which many of the Hanse Towns were situated. [end of page #49] The history of the Hanse Towns is very curious, and well worth attention: perhaps, next to that of Rome, it is the best calculated to illustrate the subject of this inquiry; but it is too long to be entered on. -=-

As for the eastern empire; held up by a participation of the commerce of India, and retaining still some of the civilization of the ancient world, it had sustained the irregular, though fierce attacks of the barbarians till the middle of this century; when, having very imprudently made a display of the riches of the city, and the beauty of the women, the envy of the Mahomedan barbarians was raised to a pitch of frenzy, that it would, in any situation, have been difficult to resist, but for which the enervated emperors of the east were totally unequal.

This added one instance more of a poor triumphing over an enervated and rich people. Nothing could exceed the poverty of the Turks, unless it was the ugliness of their women. But the case was not the same here as when the Goths and Vandals, from violence and revenge, attacked Rome merely to plunder and destroy. The Turks were, comparatively, from a southern climate themselves; though poor, they had been living amongst the wreck of ancient greatness, and they conquered with an intention to occupy and enjoy.

Thus was extinguished the last remains of ancient grandeur, in the middle of the fifteenth century. About fifty years before, many new sources of wealth were discovered, and the old ones were entirely converted into a channel that was new also. Thus, those who had, from the earliest ages, been in possession of wealth were preparing the way for enriching poor nations, that, from their geographical situation and other circumstances, never could otherwise have participated in it. [end of page #50]

CHAP. VI.

_Digression concerning the Commerce with India.--This the only one that raised ancient Nations to Wealth.--Its continual Variations.-- The Envy it excited, and Revolutions it produced_.

Before there are any authentic records, Syria and Egypt were populous; and the monarchs that ruled in those extensive countries had established their governments upon the plan that has more or less been adopted by all countries. There were different ranks of people. The same offices did not fall indifferently upon all. Wealth was unequally divided; and, of course, a foundation was laid for that commerce which consists in supplying the affluent with articles of taste and luxury, which are only produced in some countries; whereas, articles of necessity are produced in every country that is inhabited.

Commerce appears at first to have been entirely confined to the productions of the eastern and middle parts of Asia, which have, from the earliest periods, been sought after with great avidity by the people of other countries.

All that is most grateful to the taste, the eye, or the smell, is found in peculiar excellence in India. It is not to be wondered at then, if such objects of the desires of men were an abundant source of riches to those nations who had the means of obtaining them.

Egypt and Syria lay immediately in the road for this commerce. They were rivals, and many contests and vicissitudes were the consequence: for no commerce has ever created so much envy and jealousy. None has ever raised those who carried it on so high, or, on forsaking them, left them so low, as that which has been carried on with India.

Though at a very early period Egypt had a share of this lucrative commerce, yet the greatest part was carried on through Syria and Arabia, between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea; that part now called the Levant, where Tyre and Sidon once stood. [end of page #51]

We shall examine briefly the changes of this commerce; the only one almost existing, in early times, or at least which gave rise to nearly all that did exist. {46}

As the common necessaries of life are found in greater or less abundance in every country, and as the population is in some degree regulated by their quantity, they made no objects of trade, except in the cases of famine. The precious metals, spices, jewels, and aromatics, rare in their production, universally desirable and easily transported, were long the chief objects of commerce; and the changes which this commerce has undergone and produced, amongst those who possessed it, greatly elucidate the subject of this inquiry.

The distance from Babylon to the Persian gulf, down the Euphrates, to where Bussora now stands, was not great, and across the country to Tyre there was little interruption; the Assyrian empire extending to the sea-coast, and its monarchs being too powerful to have any thing to fear.

There was, however, at a very early period, another channel, by which the Tyrians obtained the productions of the East, namely, by sailing up the Red Sea, or Arabian Gulf, and across Arabia Petrea to Rhinocolura. {47}

The Egyptians, at that time, obtained the same sorts of merchandize, by sailing likewise up the Red Sea, and landing at the western extremity; from whence they were distributed through Lower Egypt.

Commerce was carried on in this manner, and was nearly all engrossed by Tyre, when Alexander the Great, bred up under his father, who had been educated at Athens, and travelled through Greece,

--- {46} To carry on trade, capital is necessary; that is to say, there must be some means of getting an article before it can be carried away and sold. Spices, precious stones, and the other produce of the East, cost little or almost nothing amongst those who had more than they could use; and, as they produced an immense profit to merchants, they laid a foundation for those capitals that afterwards were employed in other sorts of business.

{47} Rhinocolura was merely a sort of sea port for embarking the merchandizes that had been brought across the desert from the Red Sea, It was situated at the south-east extremity or corner of the Mediterranean Sea, and till Alexandria was built was the nearest port to the Red Sea. -=-

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turned his arms against those countries in which there was the most to be got by conquest, and from whom there was the least danger of defeat.

Before this took place, the pride and insolence of the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon had displayed itself on more than one occasion. After having been on friendly terms with the Jews, under David and Solomon, they became their enemies, and excited the King of Babylon to take Jerusalem; by that means destroying a neighbouring and dangerous rival. The wealth of these two cities had afterwards induced the Babylonians to attack them also. Sidon was taken and destroyed; and that part of the city of Tyre fell, which was upon the main land; but the Tyre that was the place of real trade, escaped the rage of the Assyrian monarchs.

Alexander seems to have determined on destroying Tyre, in order to found Alexandria, which he placed indeed in a better situation for the eastern trade. His romantic expedition to India had in view the getting possession of the countries which had produced those gems and aromatics that were so much sought after in the other parts of the world.

Had Alexander lived, perhaps he would not have found it in his interest to depress Syria; but the division of his conquests amongst his generals gave to Egypt and Syria two different masters. They were rivals, and then every advantage that nature gave to Alexandria was improved to the highest pitch under the Ptolemys.

The river Nile, much more navigable than the Euphrates, was also better adapted for this trade, because, in coming from India, it was necessary to ascend the latter, while the other was descended. Besides this, the flat country of the Delta was cut into canals, which greatly facilitated this channel of commerce. {48}

This was the first great revolution in eastern commerce. It was brought on first by the envy of Alexander and the pride of the in-

--- {48} It does not appear what returns were made to the Indians for their produce, therefore it must have been money. The trade then consisted in bringing from thence goods, comparatively weighty, and returning, as it were, empty. The current of the rivers being in different directions was then an object of importance. -=-

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habitants of Tyre, and gave a very great superiority to Egypt, which was increased by the canals dug in that country, and the discovery of the regular monsoon, (a periodical wind,) which, at a certain time of the year, carried navigators straight from the mouth of the Red Sea to the Malabar coast. {49}

Under these disadvantages, flowing from superior prerogatives of Egypt, the commerce of Syria fell off almost to nothing, till, by another of those changes to which this commerce seems peculiarly liable, the Roman empire, which had swallowed up the whole of the civilized world, was itself divided into two, and one of the capitals fixed at Constantinople.

The channel through Syria obtained then a preference for all the eastern part of the empire; and owing to some change, either in the politics or religion of the Persians, when conquered by the Parthians, they became willing to permit them the navigation of the Euphrates, which had long been shut up.

This continued to be the state of matters, particularly after the fall of the western empire, when barbarians got possession of all that part of Europe that used to be supplied with East India produce by the way of Alexandria. It continued till the middle of the seventh century of the Christian aera, when the Mahometan religion was established from the westernmost part of Africa to the confines of the Chinese empire; and as the followers of that religion were unfriendly to commerce, and none could be carried on with India that did not pass through their country, it was nearly annihilated, and was almost wholly confined to the caravans of pilgrims, who, going to visit Jerusalem and Mecca, under the cloak of religious zeal, exchanged the various articles of traffic which they had collected in their different countries and on their journey.

--- {49} This passage, from the straits of Babelmandel to the point of the peninsula of India, saved a very long and dangerous navigation by the coast. It is almost due east, and with the advantage of being much shorter, and having a fair wind, was next to the discovery of the passage of the Cape of Good Hope, the greatest discovery for shortening the route to India. This was discovered during the time that Egypt was a Roman province. -=-

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Such were the vicissitudes, changes, and variations of this commerce in early periods, and during the middle ages; and, when we come to treat of the same within the last two centuries, we shall find it equally liable to alteration.

Of all the spots on the face of the earth that have undergone revolution and ruin, they that are now the most completely sunk below their natural level, are those which were formerly the highest above it.

We have left uninterrupted the detail of the commercial greatness of those places, in order not to break the narrative; but as cities cannot be great without connection, it is necessary to notice, that Marseilles in France, and Carthagena, and some other places on the coast of Spain, were those, by which eastern luxuries came into Europe from Alexandria and Tyre. The Carthaginians, a Tyrian colony, had the produce from Tyre, and from Rhinocolura, and supplied Spain and the western portion of Africa; but when Alexandria arose, Carthage began to fall. Alexandria, situated near to it on the same coast, was a rival, not a friend, as Tyre had been, and the first Punic war, in which the pride of that republic had involved it with Rome, following soon after, hastened its decline. {50}

The nations of Greece, which had risen to power and wealth, owed these more to their superiority in mind, in learning, and the fine arts, than to any attention they ever paid to commerce; they had begun by being the most barbarous of all the people in that part of the globe, and got their first knowledge from the Egyptians, whom they long considered as their superiors in science, as the Romans afterwards did the Greeks; but when the barbarians broke down the western empire, learning as well as commerce was very soon extinguished.

It was the share of Indian commerce, settled at Constantinople, that tended more than any other circumstance to preserve that empire so long. To that, and to the barbarians having other occupation, rather

--- {50} Marseilles was founded soon after the city of Rome, but it was a government of itself, and made no part of ancient Gaul. The Gauls were warlike barbarians. The inhabitants of Marseilles were polished, like the inhabitants of other towns that enjoyed commercial wealth. They were always allies, and steady friends to the Romans, whom they never abandoned. -=-

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than to any intrinsic strength of its own, did the eastern empire owe its long preservation.

A new channel for this varying commerce of the East, was opened, as civilization extended to the north of Europe, and this chiefly on account of the very small supply that was obtained through the Mahomedan countries.

Goods were transported by land from Hindostan and China, to Esterhabad, situated on the south-east corner of the Caspian Sea; from whence they were carried in vessels to the north-east corner of the same sea, and from thence by the Wolga and the Don; two rivers which rise in Russia, and, after nearly meeting together, fall into the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea. By ascending the Wolga a short distance, and descending the Don, with only a few miles of land- carriage, the produce of India arrived at the Black Sea, and Constantinople became the emporium of the Indian trade. This was a great stroke to Venice and Genoa, {51} which rivalled each other in bringing the Asiatic commodities, for the supply of Europe, through the old channels. This jealousy of each other, and of Constantinople, was at its height when the crusades carried most of the princes and nobles of Europe to Venice and Constantinople. The Venetians, merely a mercantile people, with little territory or power, neither gave nor received umbrage from those warlike chiefs; but it was not so with Constantinople, the seat of a great empire; so that the crusaders and Venetians united against that power, and the eastern emperors were compelled to divide their city into four parts: the sovereignty of one part fell to the lot of the Venetians, who, for more than half a century, had by this means a decided superiority over both its rivals, and engrossed nearly the whole commerce of the East. The Genoese and Greek emperors now found

-- {51} In the chart which I have given, Venice and Genoa are put together, as if one, though they were rivals, and the prosperity of the one injured the other; but as nearly situated the same, and neither being considered as a nation, but merely as an abode of commerce, I did not think it necessary to distinguish them in the general history more than the variations that take place between the different cities of the same country. If, however, I should do the chart on a large scale, I should certainly separate them, and shew their rises and falls minutely. -=-

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it their interest to unite against Venice, and the Genoese, by supporting their ally with money, expelled the Venetians from Constantinople. The imperial family was reinstated, and the Genoese had the suburbs of Pera as a reward for their assistance. This quarter of the city the Genoese fortified, and the Venetians were compelled to return to their old channels by Egypt and Syria. {52}

During those contests, Florence arose, and became a rival both to Venice and Genoa; and some degree of civilization, or, at least, a taste for the luxuries and produce of the East was brought into the north of Europe by those who returned from the crusades. The consumption of Asiatic produce in the North, occasioned depots to be established, and Bruges and Antwerp became to the north, what Venice and Genoa were to the south of Europe. The Hans Towns rose to wealth and opulence just about that period; but the effects of wealth acquired by commerce in the north were found to be different from what they had been in southern climates. Italy was going to decay, while three of its cities were increasing in splendour; but, in the north, the riches acquired by the cities set industry at work: manufactures were improved, and affluence and the comforts of life became more generally diffused than they had ever before been, or than they are in the southern countries even at the present day.

While Constantinople was thus rivalling the cities of Italy, a new revolution took place there, which overturned the Greek empire, and established that of the Ottomans.

When Mahomet II. mounted the throne, the Genoese were expelled from Pera, {53} and Venice regained the preponderance in eastern

--- {52} The depot of India commerce being in the Crimea, which is near the mouth of the Wolga, is a strong reason for believing the trade was carried on through the Caspian Sea; but it has been asserted, that the chief route was directly by land from the Tigris to the Black Sea. This seems a very good way; but, in that case, why cross the Black Sea to go to the Crimea? Any one who looks at the map will be able to judge that as being very unlikely. Doctor Robertson, however, has taken no notice of this difficulty. Two things are certain: that the depot was in the Crimea, and that merchants never go out of their road without having some cause for doing it. The reader must then determine for himself.

{53} Before the Genoese were expelled, their insolence and avarice had time to display themselves in their full extent; about the year thirteen hundred and forty, says an eye-witness, [end of page #57] (Nicepho[r/i]as [illeg.] Gregoras,) they dreamed that they had acquired the dominion of the sea, and claimed an exclusive right to the trade of the Euxine, prohibiting the Greeks to sail to the Chersonesus, or any part beyond the mouth of the Danube, without a licence from them. The Venetians were not excepted, and the arrogance of the Genoese went so far as to form a scheme for imposing a toll on every vessel passing through the Bosphorous. -=-

commerce, which she maintained, till the discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope, which opened a new channel, more certain, much less expensive, and not so liable to interruption from the revolutions that nations are liable to. It is deserving of observation, that whatever alterations took place in the channel through which the India trade was carried on, whatever were the vicissitudes or the difficulties, the trade itself never was suspended; so great was the propensity of those who were affluent in the West, to enjoy the productions of the East. {54}

The vicissitudes of this eastern commerce were thus very great in former times. The wealth and arrogance which the possession of it produced, and the envy it excited, may, in general, be ascribed as the cause; indeed it is not certain whether the envy of the Genoese, at the success of the Venetians, did not make them, in an underhand manner, favour those attempts to find out a new channel which might destroy the prosperity of a haughty and successful rival. {55}

Whether it was so or not, it is certain that the discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope was not accidental; but that the Portuguese were induced to listen to the proposal of trading to India by that route, under the certainty of rivalling the greatest commercial city of the world, if she should succeed.

Though no new channel can now be expected, and the present one is every day becoming more easy and frequented, yet the capricious shiftings of the India trade were not ended by this new discovery.

Instead of the contest being, as formerly, between cities situated on

--- {54} The prices of Asiatic produce were exorbitant. Silk was sold for its weight in gold; and a Roman emperor refused his empress the luxury, or rather the splendour, of a silk gown.

{55} Amongst the passions that get hold of rivals in commerce, that of envy is so great, when avarice is defeated, that, to humble a successful rival, they will meet ruin themselves, without fear, and even with satisfaction. -=-

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the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, those maritime powers who navigated the main ocean became the contending parties.

There are only two ways by which wealth is accumulated and brought into few hands; the one by compulsion and levying taxes, the other by producing or procuring objects of desire; for a small quantity of which, people give up a great portion of their labour.

Sovereigns have amassed wealth and possessed revenue by the first means, and the use they have put it to has been magnificence in building, or in great or useful works, for war, or for pleasure.

The wealth obtained by the other means, of which the trade to the East seems to have been the chief, produced a different effect. In Italy it occasioned the invention of bills of exchange, and gave encouragement to the fine arts, and to some manufactures. In the north of Europe it infused a general spirit for trade and manufactures; for the luxuries of the East only served to teach the people of the north the necessity of acquiring comfort by manufacturing the produce of their own country.

To improve the arts of weaving, to make woollen and linen cloths of a finer texture, was very natural, after having seen the silks and muslins that came from India; particularly to people living in a cold climate, where a more substantial covering was wanted, and where the materials were in abundance.

It was, accordingly, in Flanders, and the adjacent country, that the modern spirit of manufactures rose up, nourished by the wealth which the ancient commerce of India had produced.

In the early ages, when the Tyrians had this trade, they amassed great wealth, though they had not any large countries to supply; for, probably, neither Egypt nor the eastern part of Syria would receive the produce by so circuitous a road. But, during the first ages, sacrifices to the gods and the funeral ceremonies consumed vast quantities of aromatics of every sort, as well as the enjoyments of the living. The two former causes of request for aromatics have long been at an end, owing to the changes in religion. They are now neither burned on the altar nor at the grave; and custom and taste, which are to a certain [end of page #59] degree variable and arbitrary, have lessened the consumption of some, and others have been supplied by the progress that we have ourselves made in manufactures. {56}

While this diminution of consumption took place, the western world was advancing in civilization, and the progress of wealth became vastly more extended; so that if the consumers of eastern luxuries were less profuse in the use of them, they were, at the same time, greatly increased in number.

The taste for tea, alone, which was introduced not much above a century ago, has alone, overbalanced all the others, and it is still augmenting in Europe; besides the discovery of a new quarter of the world rapidly increasing in population, into which the custom of drinking tea, as in Britain, has been introduced also.

The reasonable price at which an article can be afforded, always augments the consumption: and though we have no criterion to go by in judging of the prices in former times, yet it is certain they must have been very great. At the time when silk was sold for its weight in gold, that metal was compared with common labour of six times the value that it is now; silk was, then, at least three hundred times as dear as it is now; indeed, even that extravagant price scarcely accounts for the parsimony of the Roman emperor, who refused his wife a robe of that rich material. {57}

Though new discoveries have robbed Egypt and Syria for ever of the commerce of the East; and though the loss of trade was the proximate cause of the degradation, yet both countries had long been desolate and

--- {56} Wrought silks, muslins, and porcelains. Cotton stuffs are now no longer bought as formerly, so that, except in porcelain, the raw material is the only object of commerce. The silk worm was introduced into Italy during the time that the intercourse with the East was very difficult, and therefore had not the increase of wealth, and a taste for new articles extended the demand and brought a new one, the trade would at last have been nearly done away.

{57} The carriage is 24 L. a ton backwards and forwards, or out and home, which is only equal to what is paid in England by land for 500 miles. Indeed, none but articles of a very great value and high price could pay for the carriage by any of the channels hitherto discovered but that of the Cape. -=-

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degraded before this change happened; for though the commerce came through their countries, the riches it produced centred in Italy. Syria had long become a desert, and the ruined palaces were become the habitations of scorpions, reptiles, and beasts of prey, long before those discoveries which seemed to have sealed their doom. That discovery only completed what had long been begun, and rendered permanent and irrevocable what might otherwise have been altered. {58}

At the rate at which this trade now goes on to increase, all the gold and silver mines in the West, will soon be insufficient to afford enough of the precious metals to pay for produce from that country: for few European manufactures are taken in return. This is laying a foundation for a great revolution, either in manners or in nations at some future day.

It is extraordinary that, from the earliest ages, the inhabitants of India have been receiving gold and silver from all other countries, and yet, that those metals are not so abundant there as with European nations. As our demand for the produce of the mines increases in order to send remittances in specie to that country, the mines themselves diminish in their produce, so that whatever change this may bring on, can be at no very great distance. {59}

--- {58} What Dr. Robertson says of Palmyra may be applied nearly to all the cities in Asia and Africa that shared in this commerce. "Palmyra, after the conquest by Aurelian never revived." At present, a few miserable huts of beggarly Arabs are scattered in the courts of its stately temples, or deform its elegant porticoes, and exhibit a humiliating contrast to its ancient magnificence.

{59} If the taste of the Anglo Americans for tea continues, allowing one pound to each person in the year, which is very little, one hundred millions of pounds weight will be annually wanted in less than half a century. -=-

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CHAP. VII.

_Of the Causes that brought on the Decline of the Nations that had flourished in the middle Ages, and of Portugal, Spain, Holland, and the Hans Towns_.

The trade with India, which had been almost the only one, and always an occasion for envy and contest, was sought for by the Spaniards and the Portuguese; who, as we have seen, were the first amongst modern nations that seemed to aspire at naval discovery.

The manner in which Spain discovered America; and Portugal, the passage by the Cape of Good Hope, both nearly at the same period, and at the beginning of the sixteenth century, is too well known to require the smallest detail.

Europeans, with the superior degree of knowledge they possessed, and particularly that of the use of fire-arms: incited also by the love of gold; and careless of keeping their word with the unsuspecting natives, soon triumphed wherever they went, and the consequence was, that both nations brought home immense riches. The trade of Venice, Alexandria, and Aleppo, was all transferred to Lisbon, {60} and never was so small a country so suddenly enriched; and it may be added, more quickly deprived afterwards of the chief source of its wealth.

The Dutch had triumphed over the power of Spain, on their own soil, and they soon rivalled that of Portugal in the East. It was a very different thing to combat the natives, and to fight with the Dutch, who very soon deprived Portugal of the rich means of wealth she had discovered in India.

The prosperity of Portugal, arising from its possession =sic= in the East, continued at its height exactly a century. Its decline is accounted for by the following causes.

--- {60} Lisbon had its depot for the north of Europe, at Antwerp, and the value of the consignments have been estimated at a million of crowns, annually; but this is, probably, an exaggeration. -=-

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Its domineering principles, too great an extent of conquests, which were widely scattered, and the haughtiness of the Portuguese, both towards the natives and Europeans; the envy and rivalship which brought the Dutch into the same countries; a great want of attention and energy; and, lastly, giving a preference to the trade to the Brazils. The Brazils had been first discovered by the Portuguese, afterwards seized upon by the Dutch, whom they, however, expelled about the middle of the sixteenth century; that is, about fifty years after its first discovery, and an equal period of time previous to the decline of their trade in India.

The possession of the whole of this lucrative trade, that had enriched so many great nations, and that by so easy a channel, and without almost any contest, for nearly a whole century, had so enriched the small kingdom of Portugal, that after being too eager, and grasping at too much, it was almost ready to resign the whole without a struggle, had it not been for some reasons of another sort. {61} So immense was the influx of wealth, from the united sources of India and the Brazils, that the former, which has been at every other period the object of ambition of all nations, and is so still, was considered as scarcely worth retaining.

It is almost unnecessary to add, that from that moment Portugal has been on the decline. If ever the cup of prosperity ran over, in large streams, it was then; and when the possession of the trade to India was scarcely thought worth preserving, it is clear that no great efforts could be made to encourage internal industry.

Spain, extensive and powerful before it discovered the Indies, did not so immediately feel the effects of the wealth imported, as the Portuguese had done; but its prosperity was of less duration, though the decline was not quite so rapid.

The Dutch must have known the effects of wealth on a nation, else

--- {61} It was debated in council, at Lisbon, whether it would be worth while to keep India, the wealth from the Brazils was so much more easily obtained. A scruple of conscience, least =sic= the missionaries should be destroyed, turned the scale in favour of retaining the trade of India!! -=-

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they would scarcely have tried to throw off the yoke of Spain, at the very moment when it appeared in its greatest splendour and power. {62}

Insolence and pride, we have too often had occasion to remark, accompany wealth; and Philip was no more proof against its effects, than those potentates who had gone before him.--There was a great resemblance between the project of invading England, with the invincible armada, as it was called, and the attack on Greece by the King of Persia. That monarch must have thought very meanly of England, to suppose that the island could be conquered by 30,000 men, even if they could have made good their landing. Indeed, to try such an experiment on a nation that had supported its claim to valour so well at Agincourt and Cressy, and which was not, in any respect, degenerated, manifests his being blinded by the effects of wealth and greatness.

The consequence was, a gradual decline of the affairs of his kingdom; so that, in little less than a century, England placed a king on the throne of Spain.

Though the effect produced on Spain was not so rapid as on Portugal, it was, in some respects, more irretrievable. The vast numbers of persons who quitted that country, in quest of gold, injured its population, already reduced by the expulsion of the Moors, who were the most industrious of its inhabitants.

The wealth that came to Spain, came in a very unequal distribution, which is a considerable disadvantage, and hastens on that state of things which is the natural forerunner of the decay of a nation. Wealth, arising by commerce, however great its quantity, must be distributed with some degree of equality; but the great adventurers in the gold mines only shared with their sovereign, and the whole of their wealth came in prodigious quantities, pouring in upon the country. {63}

--- {62} Though the Dutch were subject to Spain, yet that had not prevented them from acting in an independent manner in their modes of following trade and commerce.

{63} We see an example of this in our own trade to India. Captains of ships, merchants, and all those who get money by that trade, come home with moderate fortunes; but the governors, and civil and military officers, who have been settled in the country, come home with princely fortunes, and eclipse the old nobility of the country. -=-

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Both Spain and Portugal, finding that wealth came with such ease from India and America, neglected industry. This, indeed, was a very natural consequence; and, when the sources of their riches began to dry up, they found, though too late, that instead of having increased in wealth, they had only been enriching more industrious nations, and ruining themselves. The gold that arrives from the West passes through the hands of its masters with almost the same rapidity as if they were only agents for the English and the Dutch; so chimerical an idea is that of wealth existing without industry.

The Dutch were the only rivals of the Portuguese in the East Indies; for though other nations came afterwards in for a share, yet the transition from wealth to weakness was already made by the Portuguese, before any of them had begun to set seriously to work, in acquiring possessions, or in carrying on trade with that country.

Portugal thus fell, merely from the rivalship of a more industrious and less advanced nation, after having embraced more territory than she had power to keep. Spain fell, because she had embraced a wrong object as a source of riches. {64}

The Hans Towns, which owed their prosperity, partly to their own wisdom and perseverance, in the beginning, and partly to the contempt with which sovereigns, in the days of chivalry, viewed commerce, might, with very little penetration, and much less exertion of wisdom than they had displayed, have seen that the spirit of commerce was becoming general, and that moderation and prudence were necessary to preserve them in their proud situation; but the prudence which they possessed at first had given way to pride, and abandoned them; and the first great stroke they received was from Queen Elizabeth. The ruin of so widely-extended a confederacy could not be astonishing, and, indeed, was a natural consequence of the changes in the manners of the times: but it was not so with Flanders. There was nothing to have prevented the Flemish from continuing to enjoy wealth, and follow up industry, except in the rivalship of other nations,

--- {64} So short a time did the wealth remain in the country, that, when the famous armada was fitted out against England, a loan of money was solicited, from Genoa, for the purpose. -=-

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particularly of Holland and England; for, though France was farther advanced, as a manufacturing and wealthy nation, than England, yet it was not in the same line of industry with the people of the Netherlands, whose prosperity was not therefore injured by it in the same degree.

As for the Dutch, they continued to increase in wealth till the end of the seventeenth century, and their decline requires a more particular attention.

In addition to their great industry, the fisheries, and art of curing fish, the Dutch excelled in making machines of various sorts, and became the nation that supplied others with materials, in a state ready prepared for manufacturing: this was a new branch of business, and very lucrative, for, as the machines were kept a secret, the abbreviation of labour was great, and the materials had still the advantage in their sale that a raw material has over manufactured goods; so that the advantages were almost beyond example.

Add to all this, that the Dutch were the first who established the banking system, (copying in part from the Italians,) on a solid plan. The advantages that Holland enjoyed were, indeed, all of its own procuring, but they were numerous and inappretiable, without counting the trade to India, of which it enjoyed a greater share than any other nation, for a considerable period.

No nation has shewn, so completely as the Dutch, how exterior enemies may be repelled, and difficulties overcome, while there is a true attention to the real welfare of the country. The exertions of the Romans, to conquer others, scarcely surpassed those of the Dutch to preserve themselves, when they were in a state of necessity; but, when they became affluent, energy and unanimity left them. The manufacturers became merchants, and the merchants became agents and carriers; so that the solid sources of riches gradually disappeared.

All this time, taxation increased, and though no nation ever allowed its manners to be less corrupted by the possession of wealth, yet there was a sensible change; but the change in the way of thinking was the most pernicious. Discontent with the government, and disagreements amongst themselves, completed their misfortunes, while England was [end of page #66] all the time endeavouring to supplant them in the most beneficial sources of their wealth.

The Dutch, fairly sunk by that rivalship, and natural change of things, which transfers the seat of wealth and commerce from one nation to another. There was no violent revolution, no invasion by an enemy; it was the silent operation of that cause of decline, which has been already mentioned in the Second Chapter, and will be farther and more particularly illustrated and explained.

The Dutch had a superabundance of capital; the interest of money was low; and wealth had begun to leave Holland long before the symptoms of decay became visible; by which means, the trade of other countries was encouraged, and, as always will be the case, capital emigrated, the moment it could find secure employment, and greater profits than were to be obtained at home. The leading causes of the decline of Holland may be distinguished thus:

The taxes were gradually increasing.

Its superiority in manufactures over other countries was continually diminishing; consequently, industry was not so well rewarded, and less active.

The merchants preferred safe agencies for foreigners to trading on their own bottom, thereby lending their credit.

Dutch capital was employed to purchase goods in one country and sell them in another: so that the Dutch became carriers for others, instead of manufacturing and carrying for themselves.

The trade to India, and the banking business, were both taken up by other nations; so that Holland then lost her superiority in these branches.

Thus circumstanced, Holland was gradually sinking, when political troubles, the end of which it is not easy to foresee, put her at the feet of France: an event that would not have happened in the manner it did, when the true spirit of patriotism reigned, that distinguished her in her more prosperous days. From this, at least, there is one distinct lesson to be learnt, that however it may be natural for nations to lose a superiority, owing to arts, inventions, or foreign trade, yet, if the minds of the people and their manners remain pure, they will not be degraded, by falling a prey to an enemy. When Holland was not rich [end of page #67] it resisted Spain in all her glory, during a very hard, arduous, and continued struggle; but then the people were united as one man: there were no traitors to raise a voice for Spain against their country. When Holland was wealthy, it did not even attempt to resist France when invaded; but then Holland was divided, and there were in every city men, who wished more for the plunder than the prosperity of their country.

In viewing the fall of those nations that sunk before the discovery of America, the eastern empire was the last that attracted attention. It had been reduced by the Turks, with a vigour and energy that promised a renovation, which, however, it did not effect. The Turks brought with them the Mahometan religion, which has debased the manners and degraded the minds of every people. Constantinople, by this change, lost the remains of ancient learning and of commerce, which even the weakness of the emperors, and the repeated wars, had not been able entirely to destroy. The Greeks were reduced to a state of subordination and slavery, but the Turks were not civilized. They adopted what was luxurious and effeminate of Grecian manners, yet still retained their former ignorance and ferocity. Amongst modern nations, the Turkish government is, in form, a monster, and its existence an enigma; yet it extended its sway over all that was most valuable or most splendid in the ancient world. Greece, Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, the three Arabias, and countries then but little known, are subject to a brutish people, who do not even condescend to mix with the inhabitants of the country, but who rule over them in a manner the most humiliating and disgraceful. {65}

The Turkish government has never been powerful. The city of Venice was always its equal at sea; and, as it disdains to adopt the systems of other nations, it is every day becoming weaker, in comparison with them. It has formerly maintained successful struggles against

--- {65} In all other conquests, the conquered and the conquerors have become, at last, one people, when they have settled in the same country, whether Christians or Pagans; but the Turks and Greeks keep as distinct to this day as at the first, and this is probably owing to the nature of the Turkish religion. ---

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Germany, Poland, and Russia; but that time is now over, and it owes its present existence to the jealousy of other powers. It is possessed of a greater quantity of good territory than all the leading nations of Europe, Russia excepted; and it is not the interest of men living in less favoured climates, to endeavour to renovate the country of Alexander, and of the other great nations of antiquity.

The Turkish nation is represented as greatly on the decline, but, soon after its establishment, it had every vice that could well exist in a government, and its greatest weakness now arises more from the alteration produced in other nations for the better, than in itself for the worse. The difficulty of keeping people in ignorance is becoming every day greater; and when the Ottoman throne falls the usual order of things will be reversed. For, as other governments may attribute their destruction to corruption of manners, and to ignorance, the Turkish government looks there for its security; and the day that any reasonable degree of light breaks in amongst its subjects will be its last.

To endeavour tracing the causes of decline in a state that owes its existence to its defects, and is in every respect different from other nations, would be useless in the present Inquiry, it has only been noticed to shew, that, in the infinite variety of things, some may owe their existence to what is in general the cause of destruction. [end of page #69]

CHAP. VII. [=sic=--error in printer's copy, should read VIII.]

_General View and Analysis of the Causes that operated in producing the Decline of all Nations, with a Chart, representing the Rise, Fall, and Migrations of Wealth, in all different Countries, from the Year 1500, before the Birth of Christ, to the End of the Eighteenth Century, --a Period of 3300 Years_.

From the revolutions that have taken place amongst wealthy and powerful nations to the present time, though the origin has been owing to very different causes, and the decline and removal from one place to another has been attended with circumstances not similar; yet the same leading cause for that decline may not only be traced easily and distinctly, but is so evident that it is impossible for it to be overlooked or mistaken.

Local situation, or temporary circumstances, have always afforded the first means of rising to wealth and greatness. The minds of men, in a poor state, seem never to have neglected an opportunity, presented either by the one or the other, and they have generally proved successful, till energy of mind and industry were banished, by the habits of luxury, negligence, and pride, which accompany, or at least soon follow, the acquisition of either.

Where wealth has been acquired first, power has generally been sought for afterwards; and, where power came first, it has always sought the readiest road to wealth, by attacking those who were in possession of it.

The nations and cities on the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, where arts and commerce first began, where agriculture flourished, and population had risen to a high pitch, carried on perpetual struggles to supplant each other; and, in those struggles, the most wealthy generally sunk under; till Alexander, the first great conqueror, with whose history we are tolerably well acquainted, reduced them all to [end of page #70] his yoke; one small and brave people triumphing over the Egyptian and Assyrian empires, where wealth and luxury had already produced their effects.

Though this triumph of poverty over riches was very complete, except in one single instance, it did not occasion any real change, either in the abodes of wealth, or the channels of commerce. Tyre, the richest commercial city till then, was ruined, to make way for the prosperity of Alexandria, which became the most wealthy; drawing great part of the commerce from Carthage on the west, and taking the whole from Rhinocolura on the east: but, in Egypt and Syria, Babylon and Memphis still remained great cities.

The whole of this ancient world was for a moment under one chief, but was soon again divided amongst the generals who succeeded to that great conqueror; and the Egyptian and Persian empires became rivals, as Egypt and Syria had been before. The Grecian nations still remained the chief seats of civilization and the fine arts; and this continued till the Romans, originally a poorer people than the Macedonians, conquered the whole. This was the second great triumph of poverty and energy over wealth and grandeur, and, in this struggle, Greece itself fell.

The effects of wealth were not less formidable to the Romans themselves, than they had been to those nations they had enabled that brave and warlike people to conquer; so that the mistress of the world, in her turn, fell before nations that were rude and barbarous, but uncorrupted by wealth and luxury.

The conquerors of Rome were too rude, and too many in number, to become themselves enervated by wealth, which disappeared under their rapacious grasp, and which they neither had the art nor inclination to preserve.