One Objection To A Direct Trade Between France And The Baltic Affords A Curious And Instructive Proof Of The Imperfect State Of Navigation At This Time, That Is, At The Beginning Of The Eighteenth Century.

The deputy from Marseilles urged that the voyage from Dantzic, or even from Copenhagen to Marseilles, was too long

For a ship to go and come with certainty in one season, considering the ice and the long nights; and that therefore, there is no avoiding the use of entrepots for the trade of Marseilles. Mr. Anderson, in his History of Commerce, very justly observes, "that the dread of a long voyage from the north to the south parts of Europe, contributed, in a great measure, to make Antwerp, in former times, the general magazine of Europe."

The decline of the commerce of the Italian states, in consequence of the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, has been already mentioned; their efforts however to preserve it were vigorous, and we can trace, even in the middle of the sixteenth century, some Indian commerce passing through Venice. Indeed in the year 1518, Guicciardini informs us that there arrived at Antwerp, five Venetian ships laden with the spices and drugs of the East: and 1565, when the English Russia Company sent their agents into Persia, they found that the Venetians carried on a considerable trade there; they seem to have travelled from Aleppo, and to have brought with them woollen cloths, &c. which they exchanged for raw silks, spices, drugs, &c. The agents remarked, that much Venetian cloth was worn in Persia:

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