Purpose carried some of their goods from Aleppo to
Bagdat, and thence down the Tigris to Ormus and to Goa, they found that the
Venetians had factories in all these places, and carried on an extensive
and lucrative trade. It is difficult to perceive how Indian commodities
brought by land to Europe, could compete with those which the Portuguese
brought by sea. The larger capital, more numerous connexions, greater
credit, and skill of the Venetians, must however have been much in their
favour in this competition.
We have noticed that, even so late as the beginning of the eighteenth
century, a voyage from Marseilles to the Baltic and back again, was thought
by French navigators an impracticable undertaking in the course of one
year; and yet a century earlier, viz. in 1699, Venice sent at least one
ship annually for Archangel: the first instance we believe of a direct
commercial intercourse between the northern and southern extreme seas of
Europe.
We must turn to the northern nations of Europe, Sweden, Denmark and Russia,
and glean what few important materials we can respecting their commerce
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We have already seen that
the commerce of the Scandinavian nations of the middle ages was by no means
despicable, though it was chiefly confined to Britain and Iceland, and
among themselves:
