By
Their Enterprize The Indian Trade Was Almost Entirely In Their Possession;
And They Distributed The Merchandize Of The East Among The Nations Of The
North Of Europe, Through Bruges And The Hanseatic League, And Traded Even
Directly In Their Own Vessels To England.
In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the annual value of the goods
exported from Venice amounted to ten millions of ducats; and the profits on
the home and outward voyages, were about four millions.
Their shipping
consisted of 3000 vessels, of from 10 to 200 amphoras burden, carrying
17,000 sailors; 300 ships with 8000 seamen; and 45 gallies of various
sizes, manned by 11,000 seamen. In the dock-yard, 16,000 carpenters were
usually employed. Their trade to Syria and Egypt seems to have been
conducted entirely, or chiefly, by ready money; for 500,000 ducats were
sent into those countries annually: 100,000 ducats were sent to England.
From the Florentines they received annually 16,000 pieces of cloth: these
they exported to different ports of the Mediterranean; they also received
from the Florentines 7000 ducats weekly, which seems to have been the
balance between the cloth they sold to the Venetians, and the French and
Catalan wool, crimson grain, silk, gold and silver thread, wax, sugar,
violins, &c., which they bought at Venice. Their commerce, especially the
oriental branch of it, increased; and by the conquest of Constantinople by
the Turks, the consequence of which was the expulsion of the Genoese, they
were enabled, almost without a rival, to supply the encreasing demand of
Europe for the productions of the East.
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