Prior To The Year 1797, The Commerce Was Much Injured By Numerous
Restraints On Importation.
During the short wars between this country and
Britain, it suffered considerably.
At present it cannot rank high as a
commercial kingdom. Denmark and the Duchies, as they are called, export
wheat, rye, oats, barley, rape seed, horses, cattle, fish, wooden domestic
articles, &c.; and import chiefly woollen goods, silks, cottons, hardware,
cutlery, paper, salt, coals, iron, hemp, flax, wines, tobacco, sugar, and
other colonial produce.
Sweden in general is a country, the wealth, and consequently the objects of
commerce of which, are principally derived from its mines and woods. Its
principal ports are Stockholm and Gothenburgh. The political event in the
history of this country which gave the most favourable impulse to its
commerce in modern times, is the alteration in its constitution after the
death of Charles XII.; by this the liberties of the people were encreased,
and a general stimulus towards national industry was given: agriculture was
improved, the produce of the mines doubled, and the fishery protected. More
lately, the revolution in 1772, and the loss of Finland, have been
prejudicial to Sweden. The principal exports are, iron, copper,
pine-timber, pitch, tar, potash, fish, &c.; the principal imports are,
corn, tobacco, salt, wines, oils, wool, hemp, soap, cotton, silk and
woollen goods, hardware, sugar, and other colonial produce.
The most important commercial port on the southern shore of the Baltic is
Dantzic, which belongs to Prussia. This town retained a large portion of
the commerce of the Baltic after the fall of the Hanseatic League, and with
Lubec, Hamburgh, and Bremen, preserved a commercial ascendency in the
Baltic. It suffered, however, considerably by the Prussians acquiring
possession of the banks of the Vistula, until it was incorporated with the
kingdom in 1793. Dantzic exports nearly the whole of the produce of the
fertile country of Poland, consisting of corn, hides, horse-hair, honey,
wax, oak, and other timber; the imports consist principally of manufactured
goods and colonial produce. Swedish Pomerania, and Mecklenburgh, neither of
which possess any ports of consequence, draw the greater part of their
exports from the soil, as salted and smoked meat, hides, wool, butter,
cheese, corn, and fruit; the imports, like those of Dantzic, are
principally manufactured goods and colonial produce.
The immense extent of Russia does not afford such a variety, or large
supply of articles of commerce, as might be expected: this is owing to the
ungenial and unproductive nature of a very large portion of its soil, to
the barbarous and enslaved state of its inhabitants, and to the
comparatively few ports, which it possesses, and the extreme distance from
the ocean or navigable rivers of its central parts. We have already
mentioned the rise of Petersburgh, and its rapid increase in population and
commerce. The subsequent sovereigns of Russia have, in this as in all other
respects, followed the objects and plans of its founder; though they have
been more enlightened and successful in their plans of conquest than in
those of commerce.
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