From The First And Feeble Revival Of Commerce In The Middle Ages, Till The
Discovery Of The Cape Of Good
Hope, the Italian republics, and the
Hanseatic League, nearly monopolized all the trade of Europe; the former,
from their situation,
Naturally confining themselves to the importation and
circulation of the commodities supplied by the East, and by the European
countries in the south of Europe, and the districts of Africa then known
and accessible; while the latter directed their attention and industry to
those articles which the middle and north of Europe produced or
manufactured.
The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope gave a different direction to the
commerce of the East, while at the same time it very greatly extended it;
but as it is obvious that a greater quantity of the commodities supplied by
this part of the world could not be purchased, except by an increase in the
produce and manufactures of the purchasing nations, they also pushed
forward in industry, experience, skill, and capital. The Portuguese and
Spaniards first reaped the fruits of the discovery of the Cape of Good
Hope; subsequently the Dutch; and at the period at which this part of our
sketch of commerce commences, the English were beginning to assume that
hold and superiority in the East, by which they are now so greatly
distinguished. The industry of Europe, especially of the middle and
northern states, was further stimulated by the discovery of America, and,
indirectly, by all those causes which in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries tended to increase information, and to secure the liberty of the
mass of the people. The invention of printing; the reformation; the
destruction of the feudal system, at least in its most objectionable,
degrading, and paralizing features; the contentions between the nobility
and the sovereigns, and between the latter and the people; gave a stimulus
to the human mind, and thus enlarged its capacities, desires, and views, in
such a manner, that the character of the human race assumed a loftier port.
From all these causes commerce benefited, and, as was natural to expect, it
benefited most in those countries where most of these causes operated, and
where they operated most powerfully. In Holland we see a memorable and
gratifying instance of this: a comparatively small population, inhabiting a
narrow district, won and kept from the overwhelming of the ocean, by most
arduous, incessant, and expensive labour, - and the territory thus acquired
and preserved not naturally fertile, and where fertile only calculated to
produce few articles, - a people thus disadvantageously situated, in respect
to territory and soil, and moreover engaged in a most perilous, doubtful,
and protracted contest for their religion and liberty, with by far the most
potent monarch of Europe, - this people, blessed with knowledge and freedom,
forced to become industrious and enterprizing by the very adverse
circumstances in which they were placed, gradually wrested from their
opponents - the discoverers of the treasures of the East and of the new
world, and who were moreover blessed with a fertile soil and a luxurious
climate at home, - their possessions in Asia, and part of their possessions
in America.
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