Commerce, Which Has Derived Such Advantages From The Progress Of
Geographical Knowledge, Has In Some Measure Repaid The Obligation, By
Creating a much greater, more intimate, and more frequent mutual
intercourse among nations; and by doing away with those prejudices
And
antipathies which formerly closed many countries effectually against
Christian and European travellers: and to the zeal and perseverance of
modern travellers, assisted as they are by commercial intercourse, we may
reasonably hope that we shall, before long, be indebted for a knowledge of
the interior of Africa. Those countries still imperfectly known in the
south-east of Asia will, probably, from their vicinity to our possessions
in Hindostan, be explored from that quarter. The encreasing population of
the United States, and the independence of South America, will necessarily
bring us acquainted with such parts of the new world as are still unknown.
But it is difficult to conjecture from what sources, and under what
circumstances, the empires of China and Japan will be rendered more
accessible to European travellers: these countries, and some parts of the
interior of Asia, are cut off from our communication by causes which
probably will not speedily cease to operate. The barriers which still
enclose all other countries are gradually yielding to the causes we have
mentioned; and as, along with greater facilities for penetrating into and
travelling within such countries, travellers now possess greater
capabilities of making use of the opportunities thus enjoyed, we may hope
that nearly the whole world will soon be visited and known, and known, too,
in every thing that relates to inanimate and animate nature.
The progress of commerce during the last hundred years, the period of time
to which we are at present to direct our attention, has been so rapid, its
ramifications are so complicated, and the objects it embraces so various
and numerous, that it will not be possible, within the limits to which we
must confine ourselves, to enter on minute and full details respecting it;
nor would these be consonant to the nature of our work, or generally
interesting and instructive.
During the infancy of commerce, as well as of geographical science, we
deemed it proper to be particular in every thing that indicated their
growth; but the reasons which proved the necessity, or the advantage, of
such a mode of treating these subjects in the former parts of this volume,
no longer exist, but in fact give way to reasons of an opposite
nature - reasons for exhibiting merely a general view of them. Actuated by
these considerations, we have been less minute and particular in what
relates to modern geography, than In what relates to ancient; and we shall
follow the same plan in relation to what remains to be said on the subject
of commerce. So long as any of the causes which tended to advance geography
and commerce acted obscurely and imperfectly - so long as they were in such
a weak state that the continuance of their progress was doubtful, we
entered pretty fully into their history; but after a forward motion was
communicated to them, such as must carry them towards perfection without
the possibility of any great or permanent check, we have thought it proper
to abstain from details, and to confine ourselves to more general views.
Guided by this principle which derives additional weight from the vastness
to which commerce has reached within the last hundred years, we shall now
proceed to a rapid and general sketch of its progress during that period,
and of its present state.
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