wMt''" ■■ Ex Libris C. K. OGDEN %* The Publishers avail themselves of permission to print the following letter from a gentleman whose authority is as unquestionable in Historical Literature as in the Educa- tional World. 8i Linden Gardens, London, W., August ^th, 1887. My Dear Sir, — When about thirteen years ago yoic in- formed me that you were going to publish a series of works on Cominerce, its history and principles, I expressed to you my hearty good wishes for success in an tender taking for which I considered you pre-eminently qualified. The sentiments thus ^ expressed allow me now to repeat. Since then, great changh have taken place — changes brought about in a great measure, I believe, by your own publications. The establishment of tech- nical and industrial schools and colleges, which have recently been founded iu all our great industrial centres, require now more than ever such guides as your books furnish. I therefore rejoice to learn that you are about to publish a new, improved, and enlarged edition of your great work. Teachers, 710 less than young men intended for commercial or industrial life, cannot but be very materially helped in their pursuits by the use of your books ; and I sincerely trust that Efigland may maintain that position in commerce and industry which seemed at one time to be threatened by our fieglect of such scientific study. With heartiest wishes for the success of this fresh issue of your works, I remain, yours very sincerely, L. SCHMITZ, LL.D., F.R.S.E,, Late Rector of the Royal High School of Edinburgh, and Examiner in Classics in the University of London. To Dr. John Yeats. Just Published, Four Volumes, crown 8vo, cloth, price 24s., or each Volume separately, price 6s. Manuals of Commerce, TECHNICAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND COMMERCIAL. ILLUSTRATED WITH MAPS, STATISTICAL CHARTS AND TABLES. BY JOHN YEATS, LL.D., F.G.S., F.S.S., &c. Vol. I. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE RAW MATE- RIALS OF COMMERCE. Illustrated by Synoptical Tables and a Folio Chart ; a Copious List of Commercial Products and their Synonyms in the Principal European and Oriental Languages ; Glossary, Index, and large Map. Vol. II. THE TECHNICAL HISTORY OF COMMERCE; or, THE Progress of the Useful Arts. With Industrial Map and Tables of Alloys. Vol. in. THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COM- MERCE. With Statistical Supplements, Maps and Chart of Produce. Vol. IV, RECENT AND EXISTING COMMERCE. With Statistical Supplement, Maps showing Trade-Areas, and Tabulated List of Places important in Business or Trade. LONDON : GEORGE PHILIP & SON, 32 FLEET STREET. LIVERPOOL: CAXTON BUILDINGS, AND 45 TO 5I SOUTH CASTLE STREET. 1887. On a few of the Difficulties that retard the progress of Higher Commercial Instructio7t, and prevent the study of Commerce as a Science in England, adapted from a letter to the "Journal of the Society of Arts," by Dr. Yeats. London. July I, 1887. I. What chiefly prevents the wider study of Commerce in E?igland f II. Why is it promoted abroad as fart of public School-instruction f III. What can be learned of Commerce out of a Counting-house f IV. Are Continental Trade-schools connected with the old Guilds or the Government ? V. Is there anything new or special in their preparation for business f W. Is Commerce rightly considered a science f VII. What does the science of Commerce comprise ? VIII. Should it be systematically taught everywhere ? IX. Might not Indjistj-ial Universities interfere with business enterprise f X. Are there any English Text-books for the study of Commerce f Indifferen'ce is the greatest difficulty; and misappre- hension of our true position causes it. Many say : " Why should commerce be generally or even widely studied, ivhen it concerns the mercantile part of the comiminiiy only?" The mercantile part is the larger and more important one, and the principles of exchange affect every member of the community. Agriculture will not suffice for a growing 200C086 ( 2 ) population like ours ; the best resource now is the deck of a merchantman, or a desk on 'Change. Seven hundred individuals leave our country every day, literally to " seek their fortunes ; " and how are they pre- pared for the task ? Even after their departure, eleven hun- dred others, strangers, need providing for. Of the two great factors of wealth, — materials and intelligence, — the latter only can be multiplied and made common property ; happily it is the more valuable. On this head Mr. Robert Mallet said after the International Exhibition of 1862 : — "In the absence of the sovereign gifts of natural wealth, — prosperity, comfort and power may, by seeking and employing artifi- cially-made channels of industry, be largely developed. Thus it was with the Dutch, once prayed for in English liturgies as ' the poor and distressed States of Holland,' with a bleak and damp climate, and a sterile soil presenting nothing but a flooded bed of sand and silt, — who achieved in the teeth of every disadvantage, the highest mercantile prosperity, a paramount maritime prowess, and became the founders of great and distant colonies." Insular Prejudice prompts many others to say: "Be- cause our iieig/ibours choose to go to school to learn business, need we do the same ? " Why do they do it ? In comparing ourselves with others, we must remember that a century ago, the introduction of steam-power gave to England a preponderating advantage. Our possession of beds of coal and of iron ore promised to secure that : but the rest of the world thought it desirable and possible to find in the more genial diffusion of mental power a countervailing agency to our increased material force. Con- tinental philanthropists and patriots urged that " the mind of a nation is more valuable than its soil." Statesmen welcomed the idea with enthusiasm. Humboldt and kin- dred spirits were appointed ministers of public instruction. Chosen bands, — nay battalions, of teachers were enrolled, ( 3 ) and disciplined to do the state the noblest service. It was never supposed that the general ability and the good will of an operative could be multiplied or intensified like the leverage and the steam-power of an engine, — the contrary was felt ; and a science of education arose, as a result of the study of the human being to be educated, no less than of the departments of human knowledge, — yet, out of that study came many divisions and subdivisions of instruction both in universities and in polytechnic institutions. ^'^But what," — it is continued, " can be learned of conuncrce in schools, or anywhere out of a counting-house ? " The reply is clear. A counting-house is a place in which commercial knowledge must be used rather than sought. Abroad, a youth at school studies the sources of supply for the goods he must hereafter deal in. There he is made acquainted with the laws and conditions of soil and climate, and afterwards brought into contact with specimens of pro- duce in Trade-Museums, from different Trade-Areas ; these he is required to examine and describe methodically. He is habituated to scientific nomenclature, — which is suggestive not merely of the natural relationship among things, but of their chemical composition and valuable properties. He learns the "Natural" in contradistinction to the " National" Divisions of Commerce, — the resources of countries, rather than the names of their Ruling Powers. He studies the progress of the Useful Arts everywhere ; the Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce in all ages. From the outset, he is accustomed to a kind and degree of intellectual disciphne that must beneficially affect him. Inquiry is further made, " Whether Contifiental Trade- schools are in a?iy way connected zvith the old Guilds, or zvith the Government ? " Not necessarily with either ! Influ- ential merchants and manufacturers, foreseeing the effects of the dissolution of the Guilds, and of the adoption of ( 4 ) "free industry," with its irresponsible action among capita- lists as well as its uncontrollable combinations among opera- tives, bethought them of higher culture as the best means of promoting a good understanding among all parties. "Let us establish," said they, "by the side of the universities, Polytechnic Schools and Technological Institutes. Let us, by means of Art Galleries, Drawing-Schools, Apprentice- ship-Schools,Continuation-Schools, Trade-Schools, and Trade Museums, bring the means of living more into harmony with the great ends and aims of life. Let us train head, heart, and hand together. To the study of the Word let us add the Works of God." No opposition was raised, and there was virtually no attempt made to retain the monopoly of the ancient Guilds, or to resuscitate a single League ; yet the discipline that had marked them all, their love of excellence, and their alle- giance were reverently preserved.* It was felt that in most departments of industry, except agriculture, "there was periodically a want of some renovating and regulating power." Government aid was invoked only for inspection and approbation. Here and there Schools of Commerce were warmly encouraged by dispensations from military service in favour of exemplary students.! Next, it has been asked, " Whether there is any novelty or speciality in the Continental preparation for business V^ Nothing, known to me ! The canons of instruction in * For details of the transition, see Zschokke's Labour stands on Golden Feet, caps. xix. and xx. G. Philip & Son. For practical measures, see Das Gewerbewesen im Konigreiche Bayern, diesseits des Rheins, MUnchen, 1859. Or, Ein gewerbliches Fragenbuch, by Dr. Karl Karmarsch, 1S77. See also Technical Training, by T. Twining, Twickenham. Education, Scientific, and Technical, by Professor Robert Galloway. London : Trlibner & Co. t Rothschild's Taschenbuch filr Kanfleute, p. 4. ( 5 ) Commerce, I incline to think, comprise something Hke the following, for ground-work : — It has been observed that certain modes of procedure in business recur from generation to generation. These are the unwritten laws — the prescriptive usages of Trade, — to be learned, and understood. In all transactions, mercantile or otherwise, there is a safe course and an unsafe one, a right course and a wrong one. It is important to adopt the former and avoid the latter. Good fortune or the reverse cannot be a matter of indif- ference ; but in business we must trust nothing to luck or chance. For each legitimate calling there must be due prepara- tion, and for permanence, organisation ; to ensure excellence on the one hand, and to remedy the effects of illegitimate trading on the other. Every calling in life relates to the mind or the body. Commerce is concerned chiefly with material necessities ; and commercial men are rather men of action than theorists. All theories and speculations need practical tests. " As the downward curve of a rocket or the fall of spray in a fountain, is caused by gravitation, so all flights of fancy or mere sur- mises, must be subdued by what Bacon calls the wisdom of business." Where that wisdom of business prevails, commercial pursuits are assuredly not soul-debasing, or injurious in any sense, to any body. There should be no conflict or con- tempt between merchants and men of learning : for in their highest development they approach each other, like the opposite sides of a pyramid, and culminate in the character of the Statesman, the Consul, or the President of a Chamber of Commerce. I have very often been asked : " JV/iy is Comtnerce called a Science V Why do the Fre7ich write "■ les Sciefices du Commerce " ? ( 6 ) Commerce is a compound word, from "commutatio mercium," meaning, "the exchange of merchandise," — which must be all drawn from one of the three Kingdoms of Nature. It may be " raw produce," as drugs, gems, mine- rals, wild-fowl, fish, &c., or, — manufactured commodities. Exchange itself, is necessitated by the structure of the globe. " NoJi omnis fert omnia tellusT It is a characteristic of humanity, and underlies civilisation : " Man alone bal- ances, yet deepens our mutual dependence by the arts of exchange." Science has been defined : Knowledge of natural laws derived from a knowledge of facts. Theologically ex- pressed, science is simply Man's knowledge of God's ways ; which are unalterable, yet mercifully discernible. Thus while we may smile at the expression "Science of Com- merce," it nevertheless begins and ends in a study of Nature, and no competent judge doubts the soundness of principles so based. Nor, can any sane man see our supremacy in manufacture and trade challenged in all markets, and our goods as well as our aspirants for mercan- tile employment at home, beaten by Dutchmen and Ger- mans, without admitting that there must be something of value in the kind of training that accomplishes such things. What does the " Science of Commerce " comprise in its entirety ? It comprises an acquaintance with Commercial History and Geography ; Social and Political Economy ; Mercantile Occupations; Goods, in all varieties; Currencies, Weights and Measures ; Bullion and Exchanges ; Transit and Transport ; Insurance and Securities of all sorts ; Consular Duties ; Chambers of Commerce, &c. A good commercial man must be an adept in — Corre- spondence in several languages. General Commercial Law, Accounts, Usages in different countries. International Obli- gations and Means of Communication. ( 7 ) Why should Commerce be systematically taught everywhere ? Because without Commerce industry must be intermittent ; crops would not be raised unless a market could be found for them ; our farms and our plantations might all be aban- doned. Again, of two spots equally favoured by Nature, if one be cultivated and the other not, which redounds most to the credit of human nature and to the glory of God ? What else than culture can lead to the full appreciation of the "Earth-Gifts" of Divine Providence, and qualify us to appropriate them everywhere ? How else is " the field to become a fruitful garden, and the wilderness to blossom as the rose"? In 1878, I ventured to say: — "By higher commercial education I do not mean that which leads a youth to look merely for a higher rate of interest on capital, or of profit in business, but, that which trains him to appreciate fully the objects, advafitages, and pleasures of a commercial calling. Such an education would fit him to compete with all comers ; to be prepared to keep faith with everybody ; to value justly whatever is valuable \ but not to expect uniformity of weight, measure, custom, or opinion throughout the world." The question has sometimes been asked, Might not the training of an industrial " university " be prejudicial to business-energy and enterprise ? I answer. No ! it would promote both ! Most likely it would rouse the latent ambition of a youth ; it would go far to preserve that integrity of soul w'hich scorns a mean action, which maintains credit intact all over the globe, which upholds international morality, law, and liberty. Further — extended and more elevated culture in commercial colleges would promote greater energy and enterprise. It would, as nothing else could, make young men acquainted with the different regions of the globe ; it would show the prospects of trade, where industry is rising, ( 8 ) where falling, and why. By educating young men together it would raise them, as it were, from the level of solitary anglers to that of systematic fishermen ; it would lead them from dreaming of baits and hooks only, to the study of supply and demand together with all the sciences of commerce. In manufacture we have advanced from simple tools to combinations of them in machinery ; and so in commerce, we have passed from the scope of individual aptitudes to the range of co-operative intelligence. JOHN YEATS. Chepstow, yi^K^, 1887. P.S. — In reply to query No. X., I shall be especially gratified if any of my works prove useful to the students who avail themselves of the Com- mercial Examinations of our Society, and thus promote the aims of our late President, the illustrious Prince Consort, as well as those of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, his successor, and the founder of the Imperial Institute. Ill, THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE IN ALL AGES. MARITIME & ANCIENT (WRAVAN ROUTES from 1500 B.C. to 500 A.D. ^ PRINCIPAL CARAVAN & OTHER ROUTES OT MODERN COMMERCE. rrrfjuiral, Intustrial, anti ^Tratir 6tiuration. THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE IX ALL ACxES. .4.V HISTORICAL XARRATIVE OF THE IXDUSTRY AXD IXTERCOURSE OF CIVILISED XATIOXS. BY JOHN YEATS, LL.D., FELLOW OF THE GEOLOGICAL AXD THE STATISTICAL SOCIETIES, AND TWEL\-E \-EARS EXAMINER IN COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPITl' AND HISTORY TO THE SOCIETY OF ARTS, LONDON. ASSISTED BY SEVERAL SCIEXTIFIC GENTLEMEX. WITH CHARTS OF CARAl'AX ROUTES, AXD APPEXDIX. " Una fides, poodus, mensura, moneta sit una, Et statns iUaesns totius orbis erit. " " One faith, one weight, one measure, and one coin. Would all the world in harmony conjoin." BUDEUUS. Ztfim ©Ujrion, Rftiisrt anti mucl> dtlarccB. LONDON: GEORGE PHILIP .v- SON, s^ FLEET STREET; LIVERPOOL: C.VXTON EUILDIXGS, SOUTH JOHX STREET, AND 45 TO 51 SOUTH CASTLE STREET. || 1S87. [All rights reserzvii.] TO LEONHARD SCHMITZ, Ph.D., LL.D., F.R.S.E., &c., WHOSE LIFE-WORK ILLUSTRATES THE TRUE VOCATION OF A SCHOLAR AND A TEACHER, AND THE EVENING OF WHOSE LIFE IS CHEERED BY THE RESPECT AND AFFECTION OF PUPILS WORTHY OF HIM, Zb\8 JSook Is Dc&icateJ), IN REMEMBRANCE OF OUR LONG FRIENDSHIP JOHN YEATS, LL.D., F.G.S., F.S.S., &c. "The picture presented by modern history ought to convince those who seem tardy in apprehending the instruction which it is fitted to convey. Let it not be feared that the predilection for industrial progress, and for those branches of natural science most immediately connected with it, which characterise the age in which we live, has any necessary tendency to check intellectual exertion in the fair fields of classical antiquity, history, and philosophy ; or to deprive of the life-giving breath of imagination the arts and the literature which embellish life. Where all the blossoms of civilisa- tion unfold themselves with vigour under the shelter of wise laws and free institutions, there is no danger of the development of the human mind in any one direction proving prejudicial to it in others. Each offers to the nation precious fruits, — those which furnish necessary subsistence and com- fort, and are the foundation of material wealth, — and those fruits of creative fancy which, far more enduring than that wealth, transmit the glory of the nation to the remotest posterity." — Humboldt's Cosmos. in. GREAT BRIT.UN, ITS COLONIES A DEPENDEXCIES. 3 r\ r PREFACE. Were the sixty - five or more territories composing the British Empire to be all joined together, and then equally divided as a gigantic chess-board, the United Kingdom would hardly occupy in it the space of a single square. Yet from such a corner or centre, we Englishmen are expected to maintain some degree of authority, and exercise some amount of beneficial influence, over the rest of the people, or else we lose control. The loss of supremacy on our part would be serious to all concerned, hence we in- voluntarily ask, " How was the ascendency gained, and how can it best be preserved?" The answer in both cases must be, "Principally by commerce." A brief history of the growth and vicissitudes of commerce, therefore, seems scarcely to need a preface, though it may well require an apology for its inevitable incompleteness. But another question may be put : " What can the study of such a sub- ject avail any one, except a mercantile man ? " Let us see. Commercial knowledge resolves itself into the right ap- prehension of facts or phenomena of many kinds, of their sequences or tendencies, and of their results. These have been observed in all ages, and they are well known to be governed by fixed principles. There is in every commer- cial transaction of any magnitude a chain of causation in which link joins link, and each will bear testing though III. a Vlll PREFACE. they circle the globe. Does not this demand mental disci- pline? Science boasts of being both retrospective and prophetic. It can reanimate the dry bones of the past and interpret the dawnings of the future. But have we not something analogous in commerce ? Does the merchant not calculate, and carry out his plans, from full conviction that present events are acting as antecedent causes ? With the fossil vegetation, that is, the coal of primeval forests, does the trader not re-diffuse tropical warmth, or forge and twist telegraph wires, and drive dynamos to herald the approach of his steamships or his locomotives, laden, it may be, with stores from the sunniest climes ? If there be room for science in the excavation of ores, surely there is no less in transporting them to smelting-houses or even to markets, thousands of miles off. Forestry is a compara- tively new science here, but it ranks already with agricul- ture. Is there more skill required in the planting of a tree, or the felling of it, than in the selection of timber and bark for use, and their conveyance across oceans ? Further; were merchants not to co-operate with farmers, and remove produce from the lonely fields to the crowded towns, however distant, would the most abundant harvests be remunerative ? Never. What could not be consumed on the spot would simply encumber the ground ; and the case must be the same on our rice, sugar, coffee, or cotton plantations abroad. The principle uriderlying commerce is reciprocal service, All men and women exchange either services or good offices, and to this extent all are commercially, no less than morally united. Without interchange, division of labour could not continue, and the arts of civilised life would be lost. Landowners, lawyers, ministers, physicians, and uni- versity professors presuppose and proceed upon it. The practice pervades the whole of the human family. Nq PREFACE. IX mortal has yet been found destitute of a notion of what is fair or unfair, in dealing with his fellows, and on this notion it is that all trafific takes place. It usually is, and always should be, " Give and take, for the good of both," Of course, standards of judgment vary, but the sentiment of what is just or unjust is universal, and perfectly reliable. The " growth " of commerce is life-like and not merely figurative. Has not trade an organisation? Does it not involve distribution as much as production ? Commodi- ties and values circulate ; and every contributor to them must receive a share, or debility sets in, from the centre to the extremities. Trade will not take root until the soil is ready for it, nor will it thrive under constraint. It is not extended by " annexations," or usefully affected by " enact- ments;" for people cannot long be persuaded to buy what they do not need, or to sell what is not likely to be paid for. Its growth begins in felt wants, and proceeds chiefly from increasing knowledge of the provisions of nature for human requirements, combined with application of all available re- sources to meet them. It is best promoted by progress in the Arts, and by moral progress ; that is, by men learning to confide in each other all over the globe. It does more than disperse the rich earth-gifts of Divine Providence. It disseminates human inventions and discoveries. It renders Arkwright and Watt, Stephenson and Wedgewood, citizens of the world. It removes distrust and dispels prejudices, substituting for these industrial interests, and a sense of ever-growing international security. As to the vicissitudes of commerce : they are roughly in- dicated in the Historical Chart that accompanies the maps. One state after another has obtained the lead and lost it. Of the six that belonged to antiquity, only three are of any significance now; of the nine originating in the Middle Ages, only three, again, remain. Will our turn come? X PREFACE. Let me conclude with the following remarks by an eminent writer, William Playfair of Edinburgh, on the importance of a study of the growth and vicissitudes of commerce in all ages : — "Wherefore should there be two opinions concerning the utility of an inquiry into those mighty events that have removed wealth and commerce from the Euphrates and the Nile to the Thames and the Texel ? Does not the sun rise, and do not the seasons return to the plains of Egypt and the deserts of Syria, the same as they did three thousand years ago ? Is not inanimate nature the same now that it was then ? Are the principles of vegetation altered ? Or have the subordinate animals refused to obey the will of man to assist him in his labour, or to serve him for his food ? No ; nature is not less bountiful, and man has more knowledge and more power than at any former period ; but it is not the man of Syria or of Egypt that has more know- ledge or more power. There he has suffered his race to decay^ and, along with himself, his works have degenerated. When those countries were peopled with men who were wise, prudent, industrious, and brave, their fields were fertile and their cities magnificent, and wherever mankind have carried the same vigour, the same virtues, and the same character, nature has been found bountiful and obedient." J.Y. Chepstow. CONTENTS OF THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE IN ALL AGES. PART I. Anciefit Commerce. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. PAGE Primitive Sources of Food ..«.,.. i (a) The Chase, Distinctive Features of the Life of the Hunter i (&) The Pastoral or Nomadic Mode of Life, Distinctive Fea- tures of Pastoral Tribes ....... 2 (fi) Rise of Agriculture, Distinctive Features of Agricultural Tribes, Necessity for a Di\'ision of Labour and Inter- change, Barter, Origin of Castes, Early Form of Govern- ment, Employment of Bronze and Iron for Tools, Precious Metals as a Medium of Exchange, Coinage, Commerce a Bond of Union between Distant Countries, Spread of Luxuries, Causes of Diffusion of Commerce, Influence of Travel and Emigration on Commerce .... 2 CHAPTER II. general consideration of commerce. Definition of Commerce 6 Aspects of Commerce 6 [a) Connected with Social Conditions 6 (&) Modes of Conducting Commerce ..... 6 (c) Constituents of Commerce ....... 6 {d) Chronological Development of Commerce ... 6 (a) Conditions — Exchange amongst Savage Tribes ; Agricui tural Communities, Rise of Mercantile Class ... 6 xli CONTENTS. I 4 OB (b) Modes — Land Traffic . 7 Earliest Trade Overland, Caravan Trade of Egypt and Bactria, Extent of Trade coincident with Geographical Limits of Camel .......... 7 River Traffic — The Nile, Ancient Suez Canal, the Rivers of India and China, the Rivers of Southern atd Eastern Europe 8 Coasting Trade— Division of Traffic, Extension of Voyages, Organized System of Departures ; Arabian, Indian, and Mediterranean Seas the Earliest Scenes, Ocean Traffic im- possible to the Ancients 8 (c) Constituents — Commodities in all Ages and all Parts of the World, Vicissitudes of Tastes, of Supply, and Demand .....•.••• 9 {d) Commercial Periods — Their Limits lO Ancient Period — Phoenician, Carthaginian, Greek, Roman Commerce ......... lo Mediaeval Period — Byzantine, Arab, Venetian Commerce ; the Hanseatic League . 1 1 Modem Period — Age of Discovery, Age of Dutch Commerce, Age of English Commercial Supremacy . . . . 1 1 Recent Commercial Period — Periods of French Revolution, Protection, Free Trade 1 1 CHAPTER III. PHCENICIA. Part I. Primitive Land Trade. Advantageous Geographical Position of Phoenicia Phoenician Cities and Colonies Fall of Sidon and Tjtc, Sites now occupied by petty Villages 14 14 Vitality of Phoenician Trade, Intercourse with Jews Traffic between Phoenicia and Palestine .... Solomon's Measures to promote Trade, Red Sea Ports Palmyra ......... Baalbek, Jewish Inclination for Inland Trade Jews as Middlemen between Egypt and Phoenicia Direct Phoenician Trade with Egypt .... Jewish Prosperity under Solomon ..... Phoenician Trade with Syria, Cappadocia, Circassia PhtJenician Dyes, Glass-ware, Trinkets .... Art of Writing , IS IS 15 16 16 17 17 17 CONTENTS. xiil FAGB Part 11. Maritime or Coasting Trade. Effect of Sea-transport in widening Area of Commerce, Early Date and Wide Extent of Phoenician Trade . .18 Egypt opened 18 Circumnavigation of Africa . . . . . . • 19 Phoenicians in the ^gean, the Atlantic ; Slave Trade, Greek Rivalry, Carthage and other Colonies . . . .19 "Wealth of Spain, Extension of Trade beyond the Pillars of Hercules .......... 20 Phoenicians both Merchants and Carriers . . . .21 Various Causes leading to Establishment of Colonies, Com- mercial Interests and Religious Sentiments unite Mother- country and Colonies 21 CHAPTER IV. ASSYRIA — BABYLONIA. Geographical Meaning of these Terms . , • . . 22 Civilisation first in the River Plains ..... 22 Data insufficient for Earliest Commercial History . . .22 Inferential History of Nineveh .,.,.. 22 The Euphrates and Tigris ....... 23 Natural Disadvantages of Babylonia, Magnitude and Opu- lence of Babylon ........ 24 System of Irrigation, Bricks used in building Babylon . . 24 Fertile Soil, Dates and Grain chief Productions . . -24 Position on Caravan Route ....... 25 Manufactures: Sindones, Tapestries, Carpets, Engraving, Carving .......... 21 Early Navigation of Euphrates, Sea-Trade left in Phoenician hands, Phoenician Colonies on Persian Gnlf, Details of Trade 26 The Chaldeans, Power of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar ; Conquest by Cyrus, by Alexander , , , . - 27 CHAPTER V, CARTHAGE. Carthage, Sources of History, Foundation ascribed to Dido, Meaning of Name 29 Great Increase of Power, Extent of Territory . . . .29 Military System, Absence of Intestine Strife, Productions, Manufactures 30 Xiv CONTENTS. PAGB Carthaginian Commerce confined to Interchange, no Carrjing Trade 10 Policy to Establish Trading Stations, not Colonies ; Trade with West Part of Mediterranean, Trade Products, Spanish Mines 31 Jealousy of Competition . . . . . . -31 Cerne, Silent Barter, Slave Trade, Grain Trade of Numidia, Caravan Trade across Sahara and with Egypt and Ethiopia .......... 32 Bills of Exchange, Bottomry, no Money Proper . . '33 Oligarchical Government, SufTetes, Revenue, Military and Naval Resources ........ 34 ReUgion, Severe Criminal Code ...... 34 Aristotle's Praise of Constitution, Filial Loyalty to T}Te, Loss of Literature 35 Punic Wars, Destruction of City, Later History . . .36 CHAPTER VI. EGYPT BEFORE ALEXANDER THE GREAT — EGYPT UNDER AND AFTER ALEXANDER THE GREAT — ETHIOPIA. Part I. Egypt before Alexander. Antiquity of Egyptian Civilisation, Dependence on Nile . 37 System of Castes, Manufacturing Skill, Character of People 38 Food for the most part Vegetable, Soil supplied by Nile, Minerals, Animals ........ 39 Caravan Trade, Jealous Exclusion of Maritime Commerce . 39 Psammetichus throws open the Country, employs Greek Mercenaries, Migration of Warrior Caste, further Facili- ties of Trade afforded by Amasis . . . . .40 Persian Conquest, Carnbyses, Tribute imposed, Duration of Persian Rule, Commerce and Industry under Persians . 40 Large Population, Era of Mighty Labours . . . .41 ■"'art II. Egypt under and after Alexander the Great. Foundation of Alexandria, Description of City and Harbour . 42 The Ptolemies, Lighthouse of Pharos, Extension of Harbour 42 Commerce encouraged by the Ptolemies, Canal from Nile to Red Sea, Busy Industry, Encouragement of Learning by Ptolemy III., Eratosthenes, Maritime Power of Ptolemy IV., of Cleopatra 43 Duration and Extent of Prosperity, Arab Conquest . . 44 Transfer of Carthaginian Trade, Coptos the Starting-point for Caravi'ns, Wide Range of Alexandrian Trade . . 44 COXTENTS. XV PAGB Attention to Art and Science, Library destroyed by Arabs, Decline of Power 45 Part III. Ethiopia. Ethiopia, Extent of Country "45 Meroe, its Civilisation, Ancient Power of Ethiopia, Doubt whether Eg}'pt owed Civilisation to Ethiopia, or vice versa; Ammonium ....... 45 Traditionary Canal from Meroe to Red Sea, Caravan Com- munication 46 Nile little Na^agable, Irrigation, Productions . . , .46 Ethiopian Races 47 CHAPTER VII. GREECE. Greece, Geographical Description, Distinctive Characteristics 48 Connection with Phoenicians 48 Leading Commercial States, Colonies in Asia Minor, The Euxine, Africa, Sicily, Italy ; Common Name for all Sections of Race ........ 49 Early Greek Pirates ; Rise of Civilisation, the Arts, Philosophy 50 Athens, Description, Countries traded with. Constituents of Trade, Athenian ^Magnificence and Wealth . . -So Corinth, Admirable Position, Manufactures, Architecture, Capture by Romans . . . . . . .51 Byzantium, Unrivalled Situation, Details of Trade , . 52 Crete, Cyprus 53 Rhodes, the Colossus, Maritime Law . . . , -53 Miletus, Extensive Commerce, destroyed by Alexander . . 54 Syracuse, Colonisation, Splendour, Sieges . . . .54 Benefits conferred by Greeks traceable to Athens chiefly, Liebig on the Sources of Wealth, Trade, and Power of Greece .......... 55 Invention of Coinage, Trade Licenses, Laws Relative to Debt, Consuls .....,., 56 Alexander's Policy . . t » • . , . 56 III. XVI CONTENTS CHAPTER VITT. ROME. FAtiB Part I. Rome. Roman Policy, Effect on Europe of Fall of Western Empire Degradation of Labour, Rome a Centre whither Commodi- ties were brought, Limited Home Industries, Immense Private Wealth, Inordinate Luxury, Examples . .58 Luxury under the Empire, List of Dainties, Examples of Extravagance and Wealth 60 Pohcy of Rome to Improve Material Condition of Con- quered Countries, Roman Roads, Posts for Public Despatches ......... 62 Origination of Banking System, Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople ........ 63 The Downfall of the Western Empire an Epoch in History . 63 Part II. Etruria. Etruria, Scanty History . 64 Various Names of People, Uncertain Origin . . . .64 Early Power, Subjugation by Rome . . . . .64 Fertility, Natural Productions, Maritime Power, War with Sicilian Greeks, Increased Luxury, Influence on Rome, Religion 64 Etruscan Metal Work, Pottery, SkiU in the Fine Arts . . 65 CHAPTER IX. SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT COMMERCE. Course of Commerce « . 66 Egj'pt, Situation, Land Traffic ...... 66 Phoenician Histor}', Carthage t)6 Rome, Decay, Transfer of Trade to the East , , , .67 Economic Limits of Ancient Commerce . . , -67 Temples and Trade, Church Festivals and Fairs . . .68 Origin of Modern Banking and Money-changing . . .68 Enterprise and Wealth, followed by Luxuiy and License . 69 No destructive Tendency Inherent in Commerce . . .69 Carthaginian Lust of Power, Punic Wars . . . .69 Patriotism and Mercenary Aids, War opers new Trade Routes 70 Revival of old Trade Route through Egypt . . . . ?• CONTENTS. XVU PART II. Mediaval Commerce. CHAPTER I. BYZANTIUM. Part I. Commercial Relations of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire. FAGE Constantinople, Early History ...... 73 Advantages of Site, Gibbon's Description of the City . . 73 Overthrow of Roman Empire, Rise of Feudal System . . 74 Influence of Constantinople on Revival of Learning . . 74 Introduction of Silliworm from China . . . . -74 Routes of Byzantine Trade, Constituents of Trade . . 74 Laws Restricting Food and Dress ...... 75 The Avars, Limits of Occupation, Extermination . . • 75 The Bulgarians, Conquest by Greeks ; the Ungrians, Flourish- ing Condition of Hungary, Constituents of Western Trade 76 Bj'zantine Commerce transferred to Italians . . . -77 Part II. Later Maritime Trade. Causes of Decay of Byzantine Trade, Justinian's Policy . 77 Relations between Venice and Constantinople . . -77 Genoese and other ItaUans supplant Venetians, Domestic Contentions, Crusaders invited to Constantinople . . 78 Interference of Church in Trade Affairs, Trade with Bokhara 79 Triumph of Genoese, Indian Trade of Venice through Eg}'pt and S}Tia ......... 79 Rise of German Towns ........ 80 Greek Trade with Russia, Unwise Policy, Transfer of Trade to Mouth of Dnieper . 80 Wealth of Constantinople, Decline of Trade as People lapsed into Inactivity 81 CHAPTER II. SARACEN COMMERCE. Part I. The Arabs. Arabian National Existence due to iMohammed . , ,83 XV Ul CONTENTS. PACB Early Arab Trade, Extensive Mediaeval Trade . , .82 Bagdad, Pilgrimages, Wise Policy, Influence of Arab Con- quest on Trade 83 High State of Civilisation, Acquaintance with Ancient Litera- ture, Attention to Scientific Pursuits, Conquests brought Prosperity 83 Contrast between Arab and Ancient Commercial Policy, Agriculture, Manufactures, Productions, Coffee-houses, Stimulus given to Trade 84 Chief Trading Districts, Damascus, Armenia, Teheran, Ispahan 86 Trade with Russia, with the Niger, with China, with India . 86 Fart II. The Arabs in Spain. Conquest of Spain, Policy pursued by Arabs, repulsed from France, Permanent Check in Pyrenees, Spain a Separate Kingdom, Vast ]\Ioorish Revenues 87 Splendours of the Alhambra, Mosque at Cordova, Palace of Zehra, Industry and Population of Cordova, Esteem in which Labour was held, Renewed Productiveness of Mines, other Branches of Industry, Causes of Decay . 88 Prosperity of Granada . • 90 Part III. Africa. Barbary, Position, Extent of Arab Rule, Establishment of an Independent State, Kairwan, its Magnificence, other Thriving Towns ........ 90 Mauritania, how peopled. Manufactures of Fez, Productions, Details of Commerce ....... 90 Contrast between Mauritania now and anciently, Present Capabihties 91 Effect of Arab Rule on Egypt 92 Part rv. Sicily. Sicily, Effects of Arab Conquest, Productions, Humane Spirit of Commercial Laws 93 Comparatively small ISIaritime Trade ; Trade with Africa, India, China ; Imperfect Mariner's Compass . . •93 CHAPTER III. COMMERCE OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. Part I. Venice. Venetia, Expulsion of Inhabitants by Attila, Rise of Venice, Contrast with Former Habitation, Resources . . .95 CONTENTS. xix Venice Earlier than Genoa and Pisa, Foim of Government, Extent of Power, Establishment in Constantinople . . 96 Contests with Genoa, Details of Venetian Trade . . .96 Form of Government, Line of Policy, Population, Descrip- tion of City, Earliest Guaranteed Bank . . . .97 Venetian Fleet, Marriage with the Sea, Organisation of Trade Routes, Protection against Pirates, Inland Traffic, Sta- tistics from State Paper, Trade thrown open, Conse- quent Extension, Manufactures . . . . .98 Venetian Adventurers, Impolitic Restrictive Legislation, Con- sequent Loss of Northern Trade . . . . .100 Downfall Due to the Discovery of Cape Route to India . 102 Part II. Genoa, and other Italian Towns. Genoa, Early History, Conquests, Trade with Russia and the 103 103 103 104 105 105 I Ob Crimea ....... Manufactures, Inland Trade .... Wars with Pisa and Venice, succumbs to Venice Bank of St. George Form of Government, Subjection to Milan PiSA, Sketch of Early Histor)% Architecture . War with Genoa, Reverses, Subsequent History Florence, Purchase of Freedom, the Medici, Greater and Lesser Guilds, Growth of Trade ..... 107 The Medici as Patrons of Art, Characteristics of Florentine Taste, Manufactures, Contrast between Venice and Florence .......... 108 Amalfi, Position, Extent of Trade, Historic Incidents . 109 Ancona, Position, Constituents of Trade . . . .110 Other Italian States, Numerous Repubhcs, Roger Guiscard, 111 Repute of Early Bankers . • , .110 CHAPTER IV. PORTUGAL. Varied Fortunes from Time of Carthaginians to that of the Moors, Expulsion of jMoors . . . . . .112 Early Commerce with England 112 Maritime Enterprise -US Prince Henry the Navigator 113 Bull of Pope Eugenius IV 113 Limit of Explorations 113 Voyage of Bartholomew Diaz n^ CONTENTS. PAGB Cape of Good Hope doubled 115 Vasco de Gama, Sea Route to India, Dismay of the Arabs . 115 Cabral, Accidental Discovery of Brazil 115 First Intercourse with India 116 CHAPTER V. SPAIN — BARCELONA. Physical Advantages for Commerce . . . . .117 Spanish Indolence 117 Barcelona, Position, Early History, Rivalry with Genoa, Privileges enjoyed by Catalans, Skilful Mariners, Pos- sessions in Greece 1 18 Description of City, Commercial rather than Manufacturing 119 Productions of Catalonia, Details of Trade, Commercial Im- provements made by Barcelona, Private Banks, Marine Insm^ance, Maritime Code . . . . . .119 Spanish Discoveries, Early Intercourse with America, Testi- monies to the Existence of a Western World, Early Life of Columbus, Refusal of Portugal to supply him with Ships, receives Three Ships from Spain, Discovery of New World 120 CHAPTER VI. COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY OF FRANCE. French Mediaeval Commercial History, Individual Towns , 125 Marseilles, Foundation, Details of Trade .... 125 Aigues-Mortes, Derivation of Name, Nature of Trade . .126 Towns of Languedoc 126 Cloth Trade of Northern France, Troyes, Remigius Market . 126 Towns engaged in Cloth Trade 127 Other Trade Constituents, Causes of Decay . . . .127 Rochelle, Wine Trade 1 28 Bordeaux, Character of Trade, Goods to be imported in French Vessels . . . . , . . .128 CHAPTER VII. ENGLAND. England, Absence of Indications of Future Eminence . . 130 CONTENTS. XXI PAGB Condition of Countn% Productions, Treaty with Cliarlemagne, Fairs, English Wool 130 Dutch Weavers, Growing Importance of Wool Trade, Her- ring Fisher}', Bristol Slave-Trade, Early Trade of London 131 Improvements effected by Romans, Creation of Navy by Alfred, State of the Seas in Middle Ages, Stmggles of English Merchants, Charter of Henry IV. . . .131 Causes of Backward Condition, Change of Rulers . . 132 Villeinage, Feudalism, Forest Laws, Bad Seasons, Unculti- vated and Disturbed State of Country .... 133 Influence of Monasteries, fostered Husbandry and Manufac- tures ; Fusion of Races 133 Protective Laws ; Policy of Edward L, of Edward III. ; Em- ployment of Coal as Fuel, Llanufactures . . '134 Rise of Mercantile Navy ; Merchant-Princes, De la Poles and others 134 Changes in INIanners, Wars of the Roses, Condition of Trade at Accession of Tudors 136 Scotland, Fisheries, Constituents of Trade . . . .136 Ireland, Ports, Details of Trade . . . . , • '37 CHAPTER VIII. NETHERLANDS. Part I. North Netherlands. Holland, Com Supplies for Caesar's Legions, Marshy Soil, Mixed Race 138 "Wrestle for Existence," Frisian Manufactures, Extent of Frisian Territory, Warlike Character . , . .138 Stavoren, Ancient Greatness, Frisian Adventures . . . 139 Checks to Trade, Rivalry between Provinces, Tolls . • 139 Trade with Venice, with the Baltic 140 Dordrecht, Position, Details of Trade and Manufactures . 140 Zierikzee, Hoom, Historic as well as Commercial Interest . 140 Quarrels with Charles the Bold . . . . . .141 Haarlem, Textile Manufactures, " Bread and Cheese " In- surgents .......... 141 Leyden, Liberal Policy towards Strangers, Consequent Opu- lence 142 Delft, Cloth, Brewing, Potteries 142 Enkhuizen, Ship-building and Herring Fishery . . . 142 Deventer, Member of Hanseatic League, Details of Trade . 142 xxii CONTENTS. PAGB Kampen, Former Importance 143 Middelburg, Ancient Charter, Wool Trade with England . 143 Nimeguen, Cloth Manufactm-e ...... 143 Rotterdam, Important Commercial and Manufacturing Town 144 Utrecht, Early Existence, Trade of Tenth Centuiy, Manu- factures 144 Amsterdam, Rise, Member of Hanse League, assigned District of Schonen, "War with Osterlings, Extension of Trade, Energy, Industry, and "Wealth . . . -144 Fisheries earliest Foundation of "Wealth , , . .145 Secret of salting Herrings 146 Fishing-grounds I47 Part 11. South Netherlands. Eras of Flemish Commerce, (i) Frisian Weavers settled in Ghent, (2) Communication with the East, (3) The Bur- gundian Princes 147 Disadvantage, Sliort Coast-Line, Mouths of Rivers in Hands of Dutch, Superior Fertility, More Extensive Manu- factures 148 Details of Trade, Length of "Voyages, Population, Free and Humane Policy, Opulence of Inhabitants . . . 148 Manufactures, Port of Sluys, Political Contests . . . 149 Ghent, Early Importance, Turbulent Population, Neighbour- ing Towns ......... 149 Antwerp, Favourable Position, Extensive Commerce and Manufactures, " Market of the World," Customs Dues . 150 CHAPTER IX. COMMERCIAL KINGDOMS OF NORTHERN EUROPE. Sweden, Chief Scandinavian Kingdom, Trade around Lalie Malar; Wisby, its Maritime Law; Wealth and Commer- cial Activity declined witli Hanseatic League, Dutch Trading Settlement in Schonen . * . . . 151 Norway ; Bergen, Treaty with England, a Station of the Hansa 152 Denmark, Favourable Position, Early Trade ; Roeskilde, early capital ; The Roeskilde Warriors and the Wends ; other Towns 153 Russia, Barbarous State, Resources . . . . -153 Political History, Ruric, The Vildngs, Novgorod, Moscow, Kiev, Kazan, The Boyards i^^ coy TENTS. XXIU CHAPTEE X. PAGB Part I. Germany. German Commerce, Limits, Influence of Christianity, Policy of Cliarlemagne, Nature of Trade determined by Posi- tion, Want of Sea- coast, Vineta, Dragovit, Old Lubeck, Bardewick ......... 156 Mineral Resources, Jews and Monks take part in Trade, Danger from Freebooters, Precautionary Measures, Leagues amongst Traders . . . . . '157 Rhine League, headed by Cologne 158 Swabian League, Towns included ; Extensive and Opulent Trade 158 Hanseatic League, Meaning of Name, Rapid Increase, Form of Government, Classification of Towns . . . . 159 Wendish Quarter, Lubeck the Capital 160 Saxon Quarter, Brunswick the Capital . . . . .161 Westphalian Quarter, Cologne the Capital . . . .161 Prussian Quarter, Dantzic the Capital l6l Variations in Constituent Towns 161 Part II. Hanseatic League. Old Prussia, Conquest of Letts, Colonisation, Maiienburg and other Towns ........ 161 Esthonia and Livonia conquered by Knights of the Sword, Details of Trade with Russia, Entry of Novgorod into League 162 Hanse Trade with Sweden, Privileges conceded to Traders, Reconquest of Schonen, Constituents of Swedish Trade 163 Trade with Norway, Bergen one of the Hanse Factories, Quarrels with Inhabitants 163 Hostile Attitude of Denmark, Wars with Valdemar III. . 164 Many Dutch Towns become Members of League, Influence of the Netherland Towns in the Hanse Trade . . .165 Community of Hanse Traders established in London . .165 Little Trade with France, Impohtic Dues . . . .166 Trade with Spain chiefly indirect 166 Military Organization, the Wapen-Shaw, the Vitaliers . . 166 Separate Mints, Credit System, Bills of Exchange . . 167 Advantages derived from League, Maritime Codes of Wisby and Oleron . , , 1C7 XXIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. SUMMARY OF HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE. PAGE Ethnical Migrations l68 Feudal System, Serfdom l68 Influence of the Church on Industry and Learning . . . i68 Otho of Bamberg, Introduction of Vine in Northern Districts 169 Eastern Roman Empire 169 Charlemagne . . . . . . . . . .170 Mohammedanism and Arab Commerce ..... 170 Crusades, Benefits arising therefrom . . . . .170 Comparison between Resources of Europe and Asia . .171 Italian Republics, Activity of Mediterranean Cities, New Constituents of Trade, Stimulus to Manufactures, Im- provements in Navigation . . . . . .171 Northern Commerce, Hanseatic Trade League . . . 172 Dying out of Fanaticism ; Influence on Feudalism, Industry, and Commerce ........ 173 Taking of Constantinople by the Turks 174 Commercial Legislation, Coinage, Credit, Bills of Exchange, Banking Interest, Usury ....... 175 Invention of Gunpowder, Mariner's Compass, Printing, Paper 175 Emancipation of Mind, Reformation ..... 176 Portuguese Enterprise, Cape of Good Hope, Sea-route to India 177 Columbus, America 177 Contrast of Mediaeval and Ancient Commerce . . .178 PART III. Modern Commerce. CHAPTER L PORTUGAL. Sketch of Portuguese Power in India, Lisbon the European Emporium, Distribution in Europe of Indian Commodi-- ties 179 Indian Viceroys, Almeida and Albuquerque, Monopoly of Trade, Greatest Extension of Power and Trade . .180 CONTENTS. XXV FAGB Intercourse with China and Japan, Decline of Power in India i8l Union of Portugal with Spain and Recovery of Independence l8l Dutch Rivalry and Impolicy of the Portuguese Government , 182 Loss and Recovery of Brazil, Commercial Importance of Brazil 183 De Pombal and his Policy, Extension of Wine and Fruit Trade, Temporary Improvement and Ultimate Decay . 184 CHAPTER II. SPAIN. Spain, Amerigo Vespucci, Further discoveries, Balbao, Cabral ... 186 The Natives of America . . .... 187 The Pope's Bull, Magellan's Voyage round the World . . 187 Spaniards and Terra Firma, Merciless Policy towards Natives, Origin of Slave Trade . . . . . . .187 Cortez and the Conquest of Mexico, Pizarro and the Conquest of Peru, Silver Mines of Mexico and Peru . . . 1S8 Form of Government in Spanish Possessions, Doubtful Utility of these Possessions to Spain, Selfish Policy . . . 189 Mode of Carrying on the American Trade, Scherer on the Repartimientos . . . . . . . .190 Share of Holland and Flanders in Trade . . . .192 Policy of Charles V., Philip II., the Inquisition, Alva and the Netherlands, Struggle of the Dutch for Independence 192 Spanish Armada, Siege of Antwerp, Impoverishment of Spain, Attacks on her Commerce by Dutch and English, Expulsion of Moors . . . . . . -193 Declining Prosperity, Pernicious Legislation, the Mesta . 195 The Bourbon Princes, Stimulus given to Trade, Advancing Liberality in Legislation, Revival of Manufactures and Agriculture 197 Decline of Dutch Trade, the Assiento Treaty, Charles III., his Policy, Wars with England ..... 19S Partial Revival of Spanish Trade 200 CHAPTER III. THE NETHERLANDS. Part I. Antwerp. Contrast between North and South Netherlands ; Antwerp, its Trade Policy, Population, Influx of Immigrants, Manu- XXVI CONTENTS. PAGE factures, Trade Statistics ; Manufactures of Adjacent Towns, Summary of Trade 202 Part II. Amsterdam. Union of the Seven Provinces, Change in Dutch Industry, Extent of Trade, Increase of Population, Contraband Trade with Spain, Free-trade Policy pursued by Am- sterdam, Extent of Dutch Fleet, Dutch Trade with Spain prohibited, Maritime Adventures, Cornelius Houtman and the Indian Trade, Van Neck's Expedition to India, Hudson's Voyage, Origin of New York, Success of Dutch Indian Trade, Wise Line of Policy, Acknowledgment of Dutch Independence, Contrast with Spain . . . 206 Part III. Fisheries. Herring Fishery, Early History, Localities frequented, The Art of Curing, Extent of Fishery in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Dutch debarred from Fishing in English Waters, Controversy between Selden and Grotius, War with England, Attention paid to the Fisheries by other Nations, Decline of Dutch Fisheries, Whale Fishery, Basque harpooners. Early History of the Pursuit, Retreat of the Whales northward, Statistics of the Trade . .2X1 Part IV. Carrying Trade, Carrying Trade of the Dutch, Extent of the Shipbuilding Industry, Inland Conveyance, Height of Dutch Pros- perity, Policy of Cromwell and Colbert ; The Navigation Act, its Faults ; Pernicious Consequences, Causes of Dutch Decline, Circumstances which retarded and checked the Decline, Summary of Dutch Trade, Scheldt closed to Navigation . . . . . . '215 Stock-jobbing, Sketch of Rise of this Pursuit, Large Loans made by the Dutch ; Tulipomania, a Species of Specu- lative Gambling ........ 219 Part V. Decline of Commercial Supremacy. War of the Spanish Succession, Advance of England, the Methuen Treaty, English supersede Dutch in Trade with Northern Europe, England and France take part in Indian Trade, why Holland could not levy Pleavy Dues, Destructive Effects of American and French Revolu- tionary Wars 221 South Netherlands. — Treaty of Utrecht gives South Nether- lands to Austria, Ostend an Important Port, Important CONTENTS. XXVll PAGE and Extensive Manufacturing, Agricultural, and Com- mercial Industries 224 CHAPTER IV. Early French Industry and Z'r^a'i?. — Influence of Italians, Encouragement given to Trade, Introduction of the Silk- worm and the Mulberry, Progress during Sixteenth Century, Checks to Prosperity 226 Agriculture. — State of France at Accession of Henry IV., Reforms of Henry IV. and his Minister Sully, Special Attention to Agricultural Improvements, Murder of Henry ...... ... 228 Manufactures, — Colbert, Scotch Descent, Successor to Maza- rin, Financial Measures, Legal Reforms, Inaccurate Views respecting the Balance of Trade, Encouragement given to Manufactures, Unwise Restrictions, Benefits derived from Colbert's Policy, Evils which followed Colbert's Death, Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Emigration of French Artisans, Progress in French Flanders .......... 231 Commerce. — Mercantile Navy due to Colbert, Great French Trading Companies, their Trade and Possessions . . 236 COLONIAL HISTORY. General Ill-success of French Colonisation, Causes, Early Settlements in North America, Cartier's Voyage, New- foundland, L'Acadie, Contests with England, Seven Years' War, Conquest of Canada, Newfoundland Fishe- ries, Cape Breton, History, Important Fisheries . . 238 Hayti, only partly French, its Products ; Martinique, Exten- sive Plantations ; Guadaloupe, its Trade . . . 243 French African Settlements, Trade Stations of East India Company, Contests with Holland and England, Gambia Settlements, Madagascar, Bourbon, Mauritius . . 244 India, History of Early Settlements, Dutch Rivalry, Hostilities between French and English, Clive's Successes, Final French Failure . , 246 XXVUl CONTENTS. COMMERCIAL SUMMARY. Destruction of Fishing Industry, Increased West India Trade, Levant Trade arose with Decline of Holland, Fineness of French Woollens, Exclusion of English Manufactures, Retrogression of Husbandry ...... 249 Du Quesnay's Efforts to Improve Agriculture, Turgot's Financial Measures, State of the Country . . . 250 Law's Mississippi Scheme, Proposal to take off National Liabilities, Mania for the Scrip, Attempts to force a Paper Currency on account of Scarcity of Coin, Deprecia- tion of the Value of Notes, Collapse of the Scheme, Comparison with South-Sea Scheme .... 253 CHAPTER V. ENGLAND. Causes which retarded the Growth of English Commerce, Origin of the English Navy. Raleigh on Recent Im- provements, Quotations showing the State of England under the Tudors, Improvement by End of Elizabeth's Reign, Early Trade in Hands of Foreigners, Revulsion of Feeling, The Hanse Privileges taken away . ■ -11 Suppression of Monasteries, Influence on Agriculture and other Branches of Industry, Expeditions of Discovery, Trade opened with Russia, Servile labour sanctioned, Elizabeth's Policy favourable to Commerce, Removal of Monopolies ......... 260 Further Voyages of Discovery, Frobisher, Davis, Drake, The Spanish Armada, Establishment of East India Company, Increase of Trade, Progress of Ship-building, Improve- ments in Agriculture, want of Capital, Sir Thomas Gresham, Osborne 262 Check given to English Prosperity under the Stuarts, Crom- well and the Navigation Act, its Policy and Conse- quences, Introduction of the Banking System, Letter- carrying undertaken by the Government .... 266 Scci.'anJ, — General Backward State of the Country . . 269 Jre^aiu:. — Industrial and Commercial Details . . .^71 Colonial History. English Colonisation begins with the Re^gn cf Elizabeth, CONTENTS. XXIX PAGE Newfoundland, Virginia, Guiana, Colonies established during the Reign of James I., the Pilgrim Fathers, Conquest of Jamaica, Dutch expelled from New York, Colonisation under Charles II., Policy pursued by Wil- liam III. towards Colonies, the Colonists disregard the Navigation Act, English West Indian Colonies, Injudi- cious Policy towards Colonists ..... 272 Africa. — African Settlements, Senegal Company, List of British Possessions in Africa -277 East India Company. Early History, Rivalries between various European Nations, Growing Prosperity of East India Company, Sir Josiah Child, Rivalry of New Company, High-handed Treat- ment of Interlopers, Amalgamation of the Companies, the Company becomes a political Power, Clive, Warren Hastings, Trade ........ 278 Industrial and Commercial Progress. Improved Trade in Scotland and Ireland, Improved Manufac- tures, Immigration of French Refugees, Progress of English Dominion and Trade, Details of Foreign Trade, Protective Measures, War of American Independence, Influence on Commerce, Introduction of Steam-power, the Cotton Manufacture, Agriculture, Financial Policy of the Reign of William III., the National Debt, the Revenue, the Bank of England, its History and Func- tions ; the South-Sea-Bubble, Speculation of all Kinds rife. Collapse of the Scheme 282 CHAPTER VI. RUSSIA. Its Extensive Commerce, Recent Growth, Novgorod, a Mem- ber of the Hanse, Trade of Archangel, Dutch com- merce with Russia, Ivan the Terrible, Michael Romanoff, Peter the Great, his journey to Holland and England, Foundation of St. Petersburg, his Acquisitions, his Com- mercial Policy, General Results, Catherine's Policy similar. Physical Disadvantages of Russia for Commerce, Aggrandising Policy of Catherine II., Encouragement given to Commerce and Manufactures .... 292 Poland. — Productions — Trade in Dutch Hands . . . 296 XXX CONTENTS. PACK Courland and its Colonies. — Early History, the Kettler Dynasty, Attempted Incorporation with Poland, Annexa- tion to Russia, Adventurous Spirit of Courland Mariners, Duke James, Gambia Settlements, Tobago, Livonia and Esthonia, Lithuania added to Russia .... 296 CHAPTER VIL Part I. Norway and Sweden. Trade in Foreign Hands, Separation of Sweden from Den- mark, Nature of Norwegian Commerce, Gustavus Vasa, Charles IX., Wars of Gustavus Adolphus, Rise of Swedish Maritime Power, Increase of Trade, Policy of Charles XL, Fatal Policy of Charles XII., Extensive Trade of Sweden in the Latter Part of Eighteenth Century 298 Part 11. Denmark. Physical Character of the Country, Productions, Inhabitants, Possessions, Variations in Commercial History, Efforts of Christian IV., of Frederic III., of Christian V., Carrying Trade, Effect of French Revolutionary War . 301 Danish Colonies. — West India Company, Guinea Settlements, East India Company, Tranquebar .... 305 CHAPTER VIIL GERMANY. German Commerce closely dependent upon the Hanse, Bremen and Hamburg, the Merchant- Adventurers, Carrying Trade, Partial Decline of Trade, Elberfeld, Improvments in Saxon Industry, German Manufactures, Period of Luxury consequent upon Spanish Discoveries, Disastrous Effect of Thirty Years' War, Unfavourable State of Trade, Subsidies, Edict of Nantes . . . 307 Improvements after the middle of the Eighteenth Century, Immigrations of Skilled Artisans into Prussia, Policy of Frederic II 310 Saxony, Trading Districts, Fairs, Seven Years' War and its Devastations, Brunswick, Trade and Productions, Augs- burg, Frankfort -on -the -Main, Cologne, Nuremburg, CONTENTS. XXXI PAGB Bohemia, Hamburg, Increasing Prosperity, Extent of Trade, Bremen, Lubeck, Dantzic, Grain Trade, other Baltic Ports 312 Austrian Commerce, Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Productions and Manufactures, German Commerce at the Outbreak of the French Revolution, Effects of the French Revolution . 317 CHAPTER IX. SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY OV MODERN COMMERCE. General Comparison of Modern and Mediaeval Periods, Rise of " National " Commerce, Cause of Decline of Venice and Hanse League, Capture of Constantinople by the Turks, Superseding of the Hanse by the Dutch . 318 Ascendancy of Spain and Portugal, Treatment of American Indians, Negro Slave Trade, Dutch War of Independence, Origin of British Colonies ; Influx of Precious Metals, its Effects; Increase of Commercial Facilities in Europe . 321 Wars of the Eighteenth Century, Changes in the Map of Europe, English Ascendancy, American and French Revolutions, West Indian Smugglers, Spread of Colo- nisation, Productiveness of the West Indies, Canada, British India, Maritime Adventure of the Eighteenth Century, Inventions, Progress of Industry and Wealth . 323 PART IV. Recent Coimnerce. CHAPTER I. PORTUGAL AND THE PORTUGUESE EMPIRE FROM 179O-1885. Special Causes of Portuguese Temporary Prosperity . . 327 Conquest by Napoleon, Aid rendered by England . . . 327 Depressed Condition of Agriculture, Manufactures, and Trade after 1S15 328 Independence of Brazil ........ 328 Protectionist Legislation and its Effects 329 III. c U CONTENTS. PAGE Details of Trade 329 Unprosperous Condition of Portuguese Colonies . . . 330 Flight of the Portuguese Royal Family 330 Brazilian Products and Seaports, Increased Trade and Trade- constituents, Dependence upon Europe for Manufactured Goods, Details of Foreign Trade 331 Disadvantages of Brazil, Slavery, Unwise Economic Regula- tions, Abuse of the Credit System, Present Emperor . 333 CHAPTER II. SPAIN AND SPANISH COLONIES FROM 1790-1885. Part taken by Spain in the Wars of the French Revolution, The Napoleonic Invasion, Revolt of her American Colo- nies, Depressed State of the Country generally . . 334 Recent Reforms and Revolutions, Commercial State of the Country, Details of Productions and Trade . . . 335 The Chief Spanish Ports, with Details of their Trade, the Wine Trade 336 Spanish Colonies. — Ctiba — Wealth and Prosperity of the Island, Productions and Trade-constituents . . . 337 Porto Rico, its Productions 338 Former Colonies on the Mainland. — Abundance of the Precious Metals. ........ 339 The Argentine Reptiblic. — Nature of Trade, Increase of Agri- culture, Manufactures, and Trade . . . . • 339 Uruguay. — Productions resemble those of La Plata, Progress made commercially . ....... 341 Chili. — Earliest to gain Independence, and most prosperous. Details of Productions and Trade, General Prosperity . 341 Peril. — Backward State, its Productions, Extent of Trade . 342 Bolivia. — General Resemblance to Peru in Condition and Products, Mineral Wealth, Rude Manufactures . . 344 Paraguay. — Restrictive Policy of Dr. Francia, Details of Pre- ductions and Trade, Conquest by Brazil and the Argen- tine Republic 345 New Granada. — Revolutionary Disorders, Varied Products, I CONTENTS. XXXUl PAGE Imperfect Means of Communcation, Insalubrity, Trade Statistics. 346 Central America. — Project of a Canal through Panama, Details of Trade 348 Mexico. — Checks to Prosperity by Civil Commotions and Un- settled State of Country, Statistics of Mexican Trade . 348 Texas. — Severance from Mexico and Annexation to United States, Growth of Cotton, General Improvements . . 349 CHAPTER III. the netherlands from i79o to 1 885. Holland and Belgium United. Influence of the French Revolution on Holland, Loss of Credit, Temporary Renewal of Prosperity at Peace of Amiens . . . . . . . . . •351 Dutch Independence regained, Antagonistic Interests of the North and South Netherlands, Unsuccessful attempts to Conciliate the Belgians, Partial Improvements in Trade of Flanders ......... 352 Loss of Dutch Carrying Trade and her Indian Trade . . 353 The Dutch Commercial Association ..... 354 Severance of the Union between Holland and Belgium . . 354 Sound Course of Policy pursued by William I. . . . 355 Holland after the Separation. Dutch Plantation Culture ....... 355 Dutch Colonial Policy, State of Java, Reforms carried out by Van den Bosch, Opening of a Trade with China, Bata- vian Products, Exports, and Imports .... 356 Influence of the Java Trade on Dutch Industry . . . 356 Contrast between the State of Holland before and after Van den Bosch's Reforms ....... Monopoly of East India Trade by Netherlands Trading Com- pany, Value of the Trade to Holland .... Dissensions respecting the Policy pursued towards Java, Strict Protectionist Spirit exhibited Commerical Treaties concluded by Holland, Advance of Free Trade Principles, Effects on Dutch Trade Condition of Agriculture, Commerce, and Manufactures, General Condition of the Country 357 359 360 362 362 XXXIV CONTENTS. BELGIUM, PAGE Unlike Natural and Political Conditions of Holland and Bel- gium, Effects of the Separation on Antwerp, on Belgium generally 364 Policy of the King and Government, Extension of Belgian Trade 365 Belgian Manufactures — Linen, Cotton, Woollens, Metal Working .......... 366 Attempts to establish Colonies, Statistics of Belgian Trade Abolition of Scheldt Dues, the Chief Towns . . . 367 CHAPTER IV. SWITZERLAND FROM 179O-18S5. Distinctive Swiss Industries, Watchmaking, Introduction of French Manufactures by the Huguenots .... 370 Necessity for Free Trade to Switzerland, Effects of the French Revolution on Swiss Trade . . . . . '371 Condition of the Country after the Peace of 1815, Effects of a Growing Freedom of Trade ...... 371 Present Condition of Swiss Trade and Manufactures, Exports and Imports 372 CHAPTER V. ITALY FROM 179O-1885. MODERN DECADENCE AND RECENT REVIVAL. Decline of the Italian Cities 375 Influence of Modern Unity on Trade, Statistics of Trade . 375 Genoa. — Decline not so great as that of Venice, Present Prosperous Condition, Details of Genoese Trade . . 376 Venice. — Great Decline in Prosperity, Subjection to Austria, Rivalry of Trieste, Effects of Union with the Kingdom of Italy 377 Leghorn. — Constituents of Trade . . . . . • 37^ States of the Church. — Their Backward Condition . . . 379 Naples and Sicily. — Influence of the Overthrow of Despotism on their Prosperity, the Sulphur Trade, Exports and Imports 379 CONTENTS, XXXV PAGE State of Italian Agriculture, the Silk Industry, the Iron Trade, Tourists 3S1 CHAPTER VI. FRANCE BEFORE 1S15. Part I. Continental System.— Berlin and Milan Decrees. — Orders in Council. The Eden Treaty, Causes of its Abrogation .... 382 Scarcity of Coin, Issue of Assignats, Effects on Metallic Cur- rency and on Prices ....... 3S2 The " Law of Suspect " and its Influence, Unwise Regulations of the National Convention 383 Napoleon's Decrees of Berlin and Milan, British Retaliatory Orders in Council, Effect upon European Trade . . 385 Napoleon's Evasion of his own Policy, Impossibility of a Country being Self-sustaining and yet Progressive . , 386 Effect upon Russia, Austria, and Germany .... 38S Total Loss of Foreign Trade, Persistence of the Emperor, Industries propped up by Protective Duties . . . 388 Beet-root Sugar 389 Benefits from Napoleon's Industrial Legislation, Conseils de Prud'hommes, Trade Marks, Commercial Code . '391 Comparsion between Sully, Colbert, and Napoleon . .391 After-Effects of Continental System 392 Part II. France from 1815-18S5. Condition of French Trade after Restoration of Bourbons . 393 Growing Prosperity of France after 1825 .... 394 State of Agriculture, Restrictive Legislation, Alteration in Tenure of Land at Revolution, Backward State of Hus- bandry, Improvements under Napoleon III. , . . 395 Industrial Exhibitions, Influence on Commerce and Industry . 396 The Wine Trade, Exclusion of French Wines from England and elsewhere . 397 French Manufactures, Fluctuations in Trade, Improvements under the Empire ........ 397 Manufactures in Metals, the Iron Trade 39S Great Importance of the Silk Trade, the Jacquard Loom, Statistics of the Trade ....... 399 The Woollen Manufacture, Increasing Importance, Value of the Trade 400 XXXVl CONTENTS. PACE The Linen Manufacture, Extensive Cultivation of Flax and Hemp, Localities of the Trade, its Annual Value . . 401 The Cotton Manufacture, Modern Growth, Localities engaged. Statistics showing Increase and Extent of the Trade . 403 Porcelain and Glass Manufactures, Sevres China not so flourishing as the Textile Manufactures, Glass Trade of Paris 405 Paper-making, Superiority of French, Value of Trade . . 405 Paris, its Varied and Extensive Industries, Rivalry with England .......... 406 Lyons. — The Silk Trade. Havre. — Important as an Atlantic Port. Marseilles. — Extensive Mediterranean and Eastern Trade. Nantes. — Importance both commercially and industrially. Bordeaux. — The great Seat of the Wine Trade ; the Channel Ports 407 The Foreign Trade of France, Old Spirit of Animosity between France and England, the Cobden Treaty, its Commercial Influence 408 Nature and Extent of French Trade with England, with Germany, with the United States, with other European Countries ; French Mediterranean and Colonial Trade . 408 Summary of the Influence of the Cobden Treaty . . . 409 CHAPTER VIL THE UNITED KINGDOM FROM 179O-18S5. Part I. Commercial Policy. — Ship-Building. Sketch of British Commerce at the Commencement of the Present Century, Influence of the War on British Trade, Extension of Colonial and Foreign Possessions, Com- mercial Changes consequent upon the Peace of 181 5 -413 Present Advancement of the United Kingdom, Impulse given by Improvements in IMachinery, Means of Communica- tion, Character of British Commerical Legislation . . 414 Other Commercial States of Europe 417 Part II. Discoveries of Gold. Recent Gold Discoveries, Statistics of Gold Produce, Effects on Commerce and Industry ...... 417 Review of Commercial Position, Causes of Advancement -419 CONTE.YTS. XXXvii PAGE Part III. Agriculture since 1789.— Corn Laws.— Poor Laws. — Cotton Trade. — Colonial Trade. Condition of British Agriculture, its distinctive Features . 420 Duties upon Corn, their pernicious Effects, Agitation for Repeal of Corn Laws, their Repeal (1846) . . . 422 History of the Poor-Lavv System, originated in 1601, Work- houses Erected 1723, Unwise Legislation in time of George IIL, the heavy Burdens on Ratepayers, the Poor-Law Amendment Act, Influence of Pauperism and War on English Industries and Character, the Factory System, Factory Acts, Emigration 422 CHAPTER VIIL INDIA AND AUSTRALIA FROM 179O-1S85. Iitdian Trade. — Nature of its Early Importance to England, the Growth of Cotton, Nature of English Exports, the Indigo Trade, the Opium Trade, Minor Trade Products, Monopoly possessed by East India Company, Progress of India since the Change in its Mode of Government, British Settlements in East India, the Singapore and Rangoon Trade, Trade with China and Japan . . 427 Australian Trade. — Importance of the Trade in wool, the Cotton Culture of Queensland, Statistics of Anglo- Austra- lian Trade. The Chief Trading Towns — Melbourne, Details of Trade ; Sydney, Its Manufactures and Trade ; Adelaide, Value and Nraure of Trade ; Albany, Brisbane, Statistics of its Trade. Hobart Town — The Chief Tas- manian Place of Trade, Value of Trade, the Whale Fishery. New Zealand — Chief Ports, Nature of Trade, Progress of its Commerce ...... 433 CHAPTER IX. RUSSIA FROM 1790-1S85. Vicissitudes of Trade during Wars of French Revolution, Monopoly by England, Chief Ports 437 Influence of the Continental System on Russian Trade, Growth of Trade with England, Protection of Native Industries, the Russian Manufactures and their Chief Seats ; Cotton, VIU • CONTEl^TS. PAGE Woollen, Linen, Metals ; Minor Industries, Value of the Manufactures, Details of Improvements, Shipbuilding, &c. 438 Details of Statistics of the Trade between Russia and England 441 Table of the Value of Imports and Exports per head of the Population in the chief European States .... 441 Essential Characteristics of Russian Products, the Grain Trade, its Extent and Value, the Tallow Trade, Iron and Copper, Forest Products . . . . . . -441 Russian Naval Policy, Extent of the Russian Mercantile Navy, Trade in Hands of Foreigners, Extent of St. Petersburg Trade 442 Trade with other Countries, Balance of Trade in favour of Russia, Check given by Crimean War, Railroads . . 443 Overland Trade, Tea Trade, Annual Fairs .... 444 State of Asiatic Russia, Improved Condition of West Siberia, the Territory on the Amoor ...... 444 South Russia, its Fertility ; Slow Progress ; the Polish Pro- vinces, Partition of Poland, Frequent Insurrections, Present Improved Condition of Polish Agriculture, Com- merce and Manufacture 445 CHAPTER X. SCANDINAVIA FROM 179O-1885. Trade of Scandinavia at End of eighteenth century, Acquisi- tion of Swedish Provinces by Russia .... 447 Severance of Norway from Denmark, the Causes which led to it and the Circumstances which Accompanied it, the Norwegian Constitution ....... 447 Increased Prosperity of Norway in last Thirty Years, Site of Norwegian Towns, Constituents of Norwegian Trade . 449 Political Interest in the Nature of the Union between Sweden and Norway, Contrast between the two Nations . . 449 Effect of Severance of Norway and Denmark upon Trade . 450 The Manufactures chiefly of a Domestic Nature, Shipbuilding, Importance of Iron and Timber Trade, Effect of Repeal of the English Navigation Laws, Success attendant on the Abandonment of Protectionist Principles . . . 450 Agriculture in a backward State, Sale of the Estates of the Nobility, Peasent Proprietors, State Aid . . . .451 Constituents of Scandinavian Trade 45X CONTENTS. XXXIX CHAPTER XI. DENMARK FROM I79O-I885. PAGE Calamitous Result to Danish Commerce of French Revolu- tion, Slow Recovery of Trade, More rapid recent Re- covery .......... 452 Loss of Schleswig-Holstein ....... 452 Statistics of Trade before the Loss of German Duchies, Re- cent Trade ......... 452 West India Colonies, East India Trade ..... 453 Agriculture the Chief National Occupation, Manufactures few and rude, Protective Laws . , . . . -453 Commerce of the German Duchies compared, Gliickstadt, Sound Dues, their Commutation 454 CHAPTER Xir. AUSTRIA FROM I79O-1885. Disastrous Effects of the War upon Austria, Increased Pros- perity after 1815, Attention paid to Agriculture, Protec- tion of Native Manufactures ...... 455 In.:reased Prosperity subsequent to 1830, Abstention from the ZoUverein, Treaty of Commerce with England • . 455 Commercial Losses 1 835-1 840, Decline in Trade of Trieste, Condition of Venice ....... 457 Details of Austrian Manufactures, Linen the Oldest, Per- nicious Effect of Berlin Decree ; Cotton Manufacture, its Extent ; Woollen Manufacture, Centred in Moravia and Bohemia, Mostly for Domestic Consumption ; Silk Manu- facture, pursued in Italian Provinces ; Leather Manufac- ture, carried on in Plungary and Vienna ; Superiority of Bohemian Glass, Viennese Industries, Working in Metals, Salt Works, Extensive Mines in Galicia, Statistics of Produce 458 Prosperity consequent upon wiser Legislation, Details and Statistics of the Foreign Trade 461 Results of the Exclusion of Austria from the ZoUverein, Value of the Austro-British Trade 462 Important Towns, Vienna, Pesth, Cracow, Lemberg, Prague, Trieste, the Dalmatian Ports 462 Xl CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIII. GERMANY FROM I79O-18S5 PAGH Balance of Trade against Germany, Outflow of Specie counteracted by British Subsidies for War Expenses . 464 Prosperity of German Cities 1790-1800, Calamities from French Wars, Introduction of Foreign Manufactures after Napoleon's Downfall, Crippling of German Trade, Pro- tective Enactments by Prussia and other German States, Effects upon Home and Foreign Trade, State of Agri- culture .......... 464 Separation of Holland and Belgium influences German Trade, Contraband Trade ........ 468 Rhenish West India Company 469 The Zollverein, its Constitution and Influence upon Com- merce, Recent Development of German Trade . . 470 Hamburg and Bremen 470 The Com Trade with England, its Fluctuation, Decline in the Wool Trade and the Trade in Linen Yarn . . 476 Decline in the German Trade with Russia, Condition of the Trade with Scandinavia and Denmark, Extent and Con- stituents of the Trade with Holland, German Trade with the Spanish Peninsula checked by Restrictive Laws, the Trade with Italy and the Levant, Treaty of Commerce between Belgium and the Zollverein .... 478 Influence of Recent Political Events upon German Trade, of the Reviving Spirit of German Nationality, of Improved Means of Communication, Rivaliy between Holland and the North German Ports ....... 479 Improvements in Manufacturing Processes, Expansions of various Industries ........ 480 Admirable System of Education, Formation of the North Germanic Confederation 482 Important Towns — Berlin, Value of its Trade ; Aix-la- Chapelle, Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Hamburg, Kiel, the Baltic Ports, Memel, Konigsberg, Dantzig, Stettin . . 482 CONTENTS. Xli CHAPTER XIV. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FROM I79O-I8S5 PAGE Influence of the Rise of the new Power, the Wisdom of the Policy by which the States were guided, the first Con- gress, Recognition of Independence .... 485 Rapid Progress in Population and Wealth, Growth of a Foreign Trade, Incongruous Interests and consequent Ill-feeling between Northern and Southern States . . 486 Causes which contributed to the Growth of Manufactures, Mechanical Inventions ....... 487 Manufactures, their Progress and Condition .... 487 The Fisheries, Cod, Whale ; Rise of a Mercantile Marine, Growth of the Sugar Trade, Rivalry with England . . 488 Fluctuations of American Trade during the Napoleonic Wars, War with England in 1812, its Effect upon Trade . . 4S9 Mechanical Inventions, Steamships ..... 490 Treaty of Ghent, Extension of Trade after the General Euro- pean Peace . . . 491 Capital employed in Improving Means of Communication, Improvements in Sheep-farming, Extension of the Cul- ture of Flax and Hemp, Silkworm Rearing, Improved Mining 492 Imposition of heavier Dues on British Manufacture, Discon- tent in the South, Causes which produced it, Present Tariff 493 Cotton Culture, its vast Extent, Effect produced by the Civil War, the Cotton Manufacture, Localities and Statistics . 493 Woollen Manufacture, the American Factory System, the Minor Industries, Importance of Shipbuildmg Trade, Extensive Employment of Steamships .... 493 CHAPTER XV. CALIFORNIAN GOLD DISCOVERIES. Early Attempts at Colonisation, Drake's Prediction that the Country contained Gold, Connection with Mexico, Annex- ation to United States 497 Accidental Discovery of Gold, Influx of Immigrants . . 498 Xlii CONTENTS. PAGE Rise of San Francisco, Rapid Increase of Population, Annual Value of the Gold obtained 498 Other Minerals found abundantly, Agriculture now in a pros- perous Condition ........ 499 Mineral Wealth of Nevada and all the Region west of Rocky Mountains 499 CHAPTER XVI. AFRICA FROM 1790-1885. Egypt. — Policy of Mohammed Ali, Spread of Cotton Culture, the Nile and Suez Canals, other Steps taken by Mo- hammed Ali, Nature and Extent of Egyptian Trade, Development of Alexandria, Struggle with Turkey, Terms of Peace, the Overland Route to India, Cairo, Suez , 500 Barbary States. — Their notorious Piracy. Tripoli. — Details of its Trade. Tunis. — Capture by Blake, Details of Trade. Morocco. — Agriculture, Barbs, Leather Manu- facture, Trade with Great Britain, Caravan Trade . . 503 Algeria. — French Conquest, its Results on the Country, Abd- el-Kader, the Kabyles, Progress under the Empire, Trade and Productions ....... 505 Soudan. — Geographical Position, Character of the Country and People, Important Towns and Trading Marts, Nature of the Soudan Trade ....... 506 West Coast Settlejuents. — Palm Oil, Statistics . . . 509 Cape Colony, ^t'c. — Adjacent Dutch Republics, Population, Nature of Trade, Cultivation of Cotton in Natal, Manu- factures, Extent of British Trade ..... 509 Mozambique. — Trifling Commercial Intercourse, Zanzibar, Political Position, Nature of Products and Trade . .510 CHAPTER XVII. EUROPEAN AND ASIATIC TURKEY, ETC., FROM I79O-1S85. Effects of Turkish Conquest on Eastern Trade, Intercourse between France and Turkey, English Levant Company . 512 Turkish Trade during the Wars of the French Revolution . 513 Small Utility of the Danube for Commercial Purposes, caused by Physical and Political Circumstances . . . . 513 CONTENTS. Xliii PAGE Steam Traffic on the Danube, Removal of Physical and Political Obstacles 514 Condition of Turkish Trade, Manufactures, and Agriculture . 515 Advantageous Commercial Position of Constantinople, De- scription given by Gibbon, by a recent Writer, Details of the Trade of Constantinople ...... 516 Other Trading Towns, Adrianople, Salonica .... 518 Ancient Commercial Importance of Ottoman Asia, striking Modern Contrasts, Insignificant Agriculture and Manu- facture . . . . . . . . . • 518 The Chief Trading Towns, with Details of their Trade . . 520 Arabia. — Its political Connection with Turkey, Loss of Transit Trade, Nature of Productions, Pilgrimages . . . 520 Persia. — Its wretched Modern Condition, Goat's Hair and Camel's Hair, Silk Weaving, Maritime Traffic superseded, Caravan, Employment of English Manufactures,' Slight Recent Improvements . . . . . . .521 Turkestan. — Bokhara the centre of a Caravan Trade, Details of Trade 523 Afghanistan. — Traversed by several Trade Routes, British Conquest ......... 524 The Pwijaub. — Great Fertility, Products and Manufactures, Cashmere Shawls ........ 525 Commercial Condition of the above-mentioned States . . 526 CHAPTER XVIII. CHINA FROM I79O-1885 Antiquity of China, Nature of Records 5^8 Present State of the Country, Flourishing Agriculture, Nu- merous Canals, Character of the Agricultural Produce, Vegetable Productions ....... 528 Nature of the Food of the Chinese, Fish Hatching . . 530 Mineral Products, Mining Localities 530 Porcelain Manufacture, Kaolin Clay, Advance of the Art in Europe 531 Silk Manufacture, its Antiquity, Introduction of Silkworms into Europe ; Stationary Condition of the Manufacture . 532 Cotton Manufacture, Earlier than the European Industry, Rude Machinery, Universality of Cotton Articles of Dress 533 Xliv CONTENTS. PAGE Minor Manufactures, Paper-Making, Printing, Indian Ink, Gunpowder 533 General Characteristics of Chinese Industry .... 534 Traces of Early Commerce with Western Nations, Chinese Exclusiveness, Importance of the Internal Trade . . 535 Extent of Chinese Trade, Overland Traffic .... 536 History of Early Intercourse with China, Restrictions upon Trade, Extension of Intercourse, Opium Trade, Quarrels with England, the Free Ports 537 Effects of Opium Eating, Balance of Trade, Anglo-French War with China, Stipulations in the Treaty of Peace . 538 History and Statistics of the Tea Trade, Value of Chinese Trade .......... 540 Effects of Chinese Exclusiveness upon Trade, Symptoms of a Change of Policy, Introduction of Modern Inventions . 542 Chinese Emigrations 543 CHAPTER XIX. Japan, from 1790-18S5. Early European Intercourse, Causes which led to the Exclu- sion of Foreigners, Partial Reservation in Favour of the Dutch, Participation of other Nations in Japanese Trade 544 Treaties with Foi'eign Nations, Lord Elgin's Mission, Visit of Japanese to Europe, Prospects of Freer Intercourse . 545 Statistics of British Trade, Removal of Foreigners to Yoko- hama, Native Prejudice against large Exportations of Japanese Products and Bullion, Ignorance of Economic Laws, Nature of Exports and Imports .... 546 CHAPTER XX. SUMMARY. Existing Commerce from the French Revolution in 17S9 to 1885, Commerce of the Nineteenth Century, Subdivisions and Characteristics of the Period 549 1. Revolution and First Empire, 1789 to 1815 . . . 549 2. Peace, Age of Protective System, 1815 to 1845 . . 549 3. Free Trade, 1845 to 1872 549 CONTENTS. XlV PAGE First Subdivision. — Napoleon's Continental System and its Effects, Continuous War, System of Subsidies . . 549 Second Subdivision. — Reaction of Peace, National Debts . 551 Third Subdivision. — Science and Invention . , . -SSI Relations of Trade — America, India, China, California, Australia ......... 552 Legislation for Labouring Classes, Political and Industrial Freedom ......... 554 Principles Illustrated in Recent History, Restricted and Un- restricted Trade, Social Economy 555 Futility of Acts based on Wrong Principles .... 557 Evidences of Advancement in Reversals of Public Opinion . 558 Tendencies of Civilisation 562 SUPPLEMENT. Tabular Summaries of recent total turnover of various countries for Comparison ......... 563 ;^loo,ooo,ooo assumed as Standard of Comparison . . . 563 Portugal 563 Portuguese Colonies 564 Brazil 564 Spain 565 Spanish Colonies .......... 565 La Plata 566 Uruguay 566 Chili 567 Peru 567 Bolivia . . . . , 568 Paraguay 568 Columbia ...,....,,. 568 Central America .......... 569 Mexico 569 Texas . . . , , 570 Netherlands . . , , 570 „ Colonies . , , 570 Belgium . . . , . , 571 Switzerland ..,.., 572 xlvi CONTENTS. PAGE Italy -572 France 573 Algeria 575 The United Kingdom 575 The West Indies 577 India ........... 577 Ceylon 578 Straits Settlements . 579 Australasia — New South Wales 580 South Australia 580 Victoria 582 Queensland 583 Western Australia 583 Tasmania ......... 584 New Zealand 584 Russia ............ 585 Scandinavia ...... ..... 586 Sweden ............ 587 Denmark ........... 587 Austro-Hungary .......... 588 Germany ........... 589 United States 589 Canada ............ 591 Egypt 591 Tripoli 592 Morocco ........... 592 Liberia ............ 594 West Africa 594 Cape Colony with Natal ........ 594 Transvaal or South African Republic ...... 596 Zanzibar ........... 596 Turkey 596 Persia 597 China 597 Hong Kong 598 Japan 599 Appendix . 600 Index 607 I PART I. ANCIENT COMMERCE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Eefore the arts of cultivating the ground and of domes- ticating animals were acquired, food must have been chiefly the produce of the chase, supplemented by wild fruits and roots, or obtained by fishing. A forest or a cave served the hunter for shelter, and skins of animals for clothing, while feathers and shells gratified his taste for display. His few wants he himself supplied. There was then no common bond to unite men beyond the temporary one of family ties, retained where necessary for mutual defence, after the family had expanded into the clan or tribe. The life of the hunter is one of continual struggle. Con- fined to the area within which his game is to be found, he looks upon his fellows as additional consumers of food to be gained only by toilsome labour. The policy of savage tribes who subsist on the produce of hunting has always been to wage war to the death in order to lessen the number of consumers, and thereby secure a more plentiful supply of food. It was a great upward stride when such tribes undertook the rearing of cattle. Sustenance for these animals was found in the plains, and varied with the seasons, or with the supply of III A 2 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. waler. Shepherds and herdsmen, moving from place to place in quest of grass, could not, however, form large com- munities. Tents easily pitched and easily struck were their habitations, and in these we find the first approach to domestic arrangements. Milk and cheese were the regular food. The amenities of family life began. Patriarchal government arose ; and, where similar conditions remain, still remain. There was little interdependence, or surplus produce. The ;pasioral life is one of comparative indolence. With food and clothing easily procured, there is no strong motive for exertion. The flocks and herds are kept within due bounds, alike by the limits of available pastures, and by the slaughter rendered necessary to meet the demands of human consumption. Tillage was a later development of industry and intelligence. Long experience would be required to foster the growth of fruits, or to utilise the powers of pro- duction latent in the soil. While tribes wandered about in search of pasture or food, all property was necessarily portable ; but when the husbandman began to labour in the fields, the institution of property must have been generally recognised, and man must have felt the right of possession not only in the produce of his labour, but also in the land. Had the harvests been liable to be carried off by others, his labours would have ceased, and the land have lapsed into unproductiveness. With agriculture, therefore, came fixed habitations ; and with the rights of property, the means of protection. The social conditions of husbandry gave birth to communities. Each member of a household contributed to the common stock of food and clothing ; but it would soon be observed that particular members had special aptitude for certain kinds of work. Thus would arise the practice of division of labour, one man confining himself to ploughing and dig- ging, another to building, another to tending cattle, while the making of clothes and the preparing of food would PJ^OGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE. 3 occupy the women. Division of labour necessitated inter- change, the produce of every branch of industry being shared by the whole community. Wealth would accumu- late in the hands of the thrifty, Avhile those who were deficient in knowledge or skill would want even the neces- saries of life. Social inequalities thus originated ; war and its invariable attendant in olden times, slavery, gave rise to castes and the distinctions of rank. The first settled form of government was a mixture of the patriarchal and the plutocratic. The chiefs were the oldest or the wealthiest of their tribes. Laws were made imposing restrictions, to which each member of the society submitted, giving up his right of self-guidance, and taking upon himself the responsibilities of social duty. Material progress was now more rapid. The art of work- ing in metals was acquired. Rude tools and implements of wood, flint, and bone were superseded, after the discovery of the art of amalgamating copper and tin, by others made of bronze. The grand impetus to production, however, was given by the employment of iron, which became and has remained one of the mightiest aids to human industry. The farmer, builder, and clothier, furnished with improved imple- ments, found the productiveness of their labour greatly increased, while the primitive miner, the smelter, and the manufacturer became the pioneers of a new productive power, scarcely second to that of husbandry. Important to human prosperity as barter must have been, in practice it was troublesome, and rendered production intermittent, while perishable or bulky commodities could not always find customers. The introduction, in the form of bullion and for the purpose of exchange, of the precious metals, which had before been only prized for ornaments, multiplied handicrafts and tended to make trade permanent instead of fluctuating. Gold and silver are scarce metals ; they are of small bulk in proportion to their value, they are comparatively indestructible, and the annual increment 4 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. from the mines has under ordinary circumstances little per- ceptible effect upon the previous stores. This unique combination of properties adapts the precious metals so admirably for a medium of exchange, that they were thus employed in very early times, while their use has become universal and has never been abandoned. At first pay- ments in gold and silver were made by weight. The tran- sition to the custom of stamping as a guarantee of weight and fineness, was an easy and natural step, although not taken until a much later period. Such stamped pieces of precious metals, or money, are called coins, and the value of commodities, measured in money, is called price. Besides interchange amongst its own members, a civilised community seeks communication with other communities. A union of interests would lead to an acknowledgment of common principles of rectitude and social administration. Luxuries introduced by exchange fostered a desire for their continuance and increase, and by stimulating the search for new sources of gratification, encouraged a love of enterprise. The first traders were adventurous travellers. Their com- modities were necessarily portable and precious. Their exploits inspired others, who had become wealthy in the practice of peaceful arts, to seek improvement and social intercourse abroad, and chieftains carried with them, or sent by their sons or trusted messengers, propitiatory presents, an Oriental custom even to this day. Explorations extended geographical knowledge, which stimulated the love of gain and of power ; the former showing itself in national inter- course, the latter in the dominion of the most enterprising races. One other agency — that of emigration — at first sight, apparently, detrimental to well-being, , inasmuch as it de- prives a nation of industrial power, has enlarged the bounds of commerce. Mutations of climate, convulsions of nature, religious fanaticism, or war, have at times caused scarcity and danger. An exodus has ensued, new societies have arisen imbued with old traditions, and maintaining COLONISATION. 5 an intercourse with the mother-country. The colonies of Phoenicia and of Greece exemplify such a development.* • " An ancient kingdom in the north, either in Friesland or Scan- dinavia, was once visited by a famine. The people assembled, and the majority decreed that every tenth man with his family should quit the country. Lots were cast, and those on whom they fell departed from their native seats amid the lamentations of their friends and kinsmen ; the mothers in deep dismay leading out their helpless infants. In three bands, under three leaders, came forth six thousand hardy gigantic men, with their wives, children, and most valuable effects. They swore never to forsake each other, and they prayed to God to grant them a land like that of their forefathers, where they might graze their cattle without fear or molestation. God brought them to a vale in the Alps," &c. — A tradition of one of the Alpine Valleys, narrated bv Zschokke. CHAPTER 11. GENERAL CONSIDERATION OF COMMERCE. Commerce, properly so called {commutatio mercium), relates to the interchange of property between individuals or nations. Its history presents various aspects. I. The con- nection of commerce with the social condition of mankind. II. The modes of commerce practised between nations. III. The constituents of commerce. IV. The chronolo- gical development of commerce. I. lis confiection with Social Conditions. — The savage state was essentially aggressive and non-commercial. When every man ministered to his own wants — and there may be parts of the earth where he thus still ministers — he could enjoy little or no social intercourse. The only approach to exchange known to barbarous tribes even now is conducted by superior races, who barter comparatively worthless trinkets, or ardent spirits and gunpowder, for furs and other valuable natural products. In the pastoral condition again, the elements of society were non-progressive, and there was no real trade, although there might have been occasionally a trifling barter. In agricultural life the varying surplus of different regions supplied the respective deficiency of each, and stimulated the industry of all. Nevertheless, the range of commerce could not have been great while slaves were the agricultural labourers and the chief artizans, slave- owners the only men of property, and slave-traders the principal merchants. Eventually, the enlargement of trade required the time and energies of a special class of men, who travelled from place to place, observing where com- modities were to be spared and where they were wanted, MODES OF COMMERCE. 7 and who negotiated for the transference. Such men were called merchants, and formed the distinctive feature of commercial life. The result of their labour has been to link distant countries together and to promote international progress ; to equalise the blessings provided by nature ; to diffuse widely the necessaries and comforts of life, at the least expenditure of human toil or suffering. Successful commercial transactions required special powers of foresight and combination, for the merchant had not only to supply the actual wants of a locality, but also to anticipate its probable wants, and thus aid in removing that scarcity to which a large amount of vice, crime, and misery has always been traced. II. Modes of Commerce. — i. Land Traffic. — In its infancy trade was carried on overland. Man did not at first trust to the unknoAvn waters even of rivers, but confined himself to narrow routes between the various states. The dangers which beset a solitary journey led to the practice of travel- ling, at fixed seasons and in companies, whereby mutual protection, as well as the enjoyment of social intercourse, was obtained. The earliest caravan trade of which any records are extant had its centre in Egypt, the geographical position of that country making it a convenient meeting- place for both Occidental and Oriental merchants. The fertile valley of the Nile was the cradle of the social polity, the arts, and the sciences of Phoenicia and of Europe. Of even more remote origin, possibly, was the caravan trade of Bactria, now Bokhara, the country beyond the mountainous border of North-west India, where, as to an emporium, products of the unknown eastern regions of Asia were brought, to be exchanged for the merchandise of the West. Thus the district over which overland traffic extended coin- cided with the geographical range of the camel — an animal whose association with the caravan trade from the earliest times has entitled it to the name of the " ship of the desert." The route of a caravan westward, laden with silks and 8 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. precious stones, ivory, pearls, and spices, was by way of Herat in Afghanistan, and Ecbatana in Persia. Besides these cities, the halting-places were valleys and plains fer- tilised by water, and described by the refreshed and grateful travellers of old as paradises upon earth. In India caravans seem not to have been common, the merchant usually travelling alone; and here the camel was represented by the elephant. 2. River Traffic. — In time traders acquired sufficient confidence to entrust themselves and their wares to the easier transit of rivers, wherever facilities for such means of communication existed. The Nile must have been thus utilised at a very early period. Its course downwards to the sea was well known ; and Meroe, on the confines of Egypt and Ethiopia, one of the most renowned cities of the ancient world, owed its importance to its position on the Nile. The Suez Canal, one of the greatest engineering works of our own day, restores, and partly follows, the line of an older canal, the date of the construction of which cannot now be fixed, but which connected the river with the head of the Red Sea. The river commerce of the Tigris and Euphrates, furnishing an easy mode of reaching India, was of still greater importance than that of the Nile. The Indus and Ganges, as well as the grand river system of China, were in all probability similarly employed, but our information relative to them is scanty. Better known to us, from the Roman and Greek historians, is the use made, at a later period, of the Rhone, the Rhine, the Po, the Danube, the Don, and the Volga, River commerce, thus far, was combined with that carried on by means of the caravans. It received a great impetus when men learnt to venture along the coast, and ultimately upon the bosom of the sea. Important, however, as river trade was in this first period of commercial history, it bears no comparison with that of times like our own, 3. Maritime Coasting Trade. — Maritime commerce was COySTITL'EXTS OF COMMERCE. Q the natural sequence to that along the courses of rivers. Where estuaries and harbours on the sea-coast presented advantages for ships, cities arose, and the conveyance of goods was carried on partly by water and partly by land. This division of traffic led to a corresponding distinction between the persons who were thus engaged. The inter- change of commodities between distant nations was con- ducted by several sets of hands. The original producers, in caravans, or as individual dealers, conveyed their wares overland to the river depot or seaport, where they exchanged them for other commodities brought by the traders of the maritime nations, who, as agents or factors, consigned their freights again, at the end of the voyage, for inland distribu- tion. Rendered bolder by increase of knowledge, mer- chants discovered that they could sail upon ihe Persian Gulf with as much safety as upon the Tigris and Euphrates, and that, by taking advantage of the monsoons, they could reach the coast of India without losing sight of the land. Voyages foreshadowing ocean commerce soon became or- ganised into a system of departures and returns, according to seasons, as perfect as that regulating the caravans. At a later date the Mediterranean was the chief seat of the carry- ing trade. Nevertheless, ocean commerce, as we understand it, was unknowTi and impossible to the ancients. The Mediterranean was to them literally the middle of the earth. The sea beyond was filled by their imagination with vague and impassable terrors. According to one geographer, Ptolemy, our earth was encompassed by ice at about 63° N. lat. and by fire at the Equinoctial. The com- mercial zone lay between the Tropic of Cancer and 40° N. lat., but was afterwards extended to 45° N. and 10° S. lat. III. Constituents of Commerce. — Under this division an interesting comparison is made of the number, quantity, nature, perfection, and climatal or geographical conditions of production of the commodities upon which has been based the commercial intercourse of individuals and com- lO THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. munities in various ages, and in different parts of the world ; from the barest necessaries of primitive life to the manifold requirements of the most refined civilisation. Each age and country had its characteristic resources, and men learnt to supply their wants and gratify their tastes with other productions than those they locally inherited. Luxuries enjoyed at first only by the wealthy, became in time easy to procure, and ranked as necessaries or semi-necessaries of life. The magnitude of the subject may be perceived by a single illustration. In recent times we have added to domestic comforts, amongst other things, tea, coffee, sugar, potatoes, spirits, beer, tobacco, cotton, butter, and fish-oils — commodities of which the polished Greeks and luxurious Romans scarcely knew the existence. IV. Chronological Development of Commerce. — The divisions of commercial histor)'- in the order of time, collateral with the rise, culmination, and decline of the principal political states, may thus be summarised : — i. Ancient Commerce, from the earliest times to a.d. 476 (Fall of Western Roman Empire). 2. Commerce of the Middle Ages, from a.d. 476 to A.D. 1500 (Discovery of America and the Sea route to India). 3. Modem Commerce, from a.d. 1500 to the French Revolution, a.d. 1789. 4. Recent Commerce, from 1789 .to 1872. First Period: Ancient Commerce. — Barter is as old as the beginning of history. The records of the Oriental empires date from a hoar antiquity ; and the first traditional information received of China, India, Persia, Assyria, Phoenicia, and the African states of Ethiopia and Egypt, is of nations pursuing an established or extensive commerce, and enjoying the refinements of a high degree of wealth and civilisation. The Phoenicians were typically the nation of traders. Through their annals we obtain the clearest glimpses, if not the only authentic accounts, of the ancient world, whose narrow horizon was continually being widened by their commercial enterprise. Through the Mediterranean CHRONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCE. \\ commerce we get a partial insight into Etruscan manners and customs, and view also the infancy of the system of colonisation. The Greek-Carthaginian period extended from B.C. 450 to the fall of Rome. The Romans themselves soon began to contemn agriculture, and to neglect industrial and commercial pursuits; their name is consequently not used to designate any epoch in economic history. SecoJid Period : Commerce of the Middle Ages, a.d. 476 — 1500. — This commercial period, from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the discovery of America by Columbus, and of the sea route to India by Vasco de Gama, coincides with the Middle Ages of general history. Its duration was about a thousand years. It was an age of great events. It saw the birth, growth, and collapse of Arab power, the Crusades, the rise of the Italian municipalities, and of the Hanseatic League. Third Period: Modern Commerce^ a.d. 1500 — 1789. — Roughly dividing this period, from the discovery of America to the French Revolution, into three successive centuries, the first century may be designated the Age of Discovery and Colonisation, the second the Age of Dutch Conmiercial Supremacy, and the third the Age of English Commercial Supremacy. Fourth Period : Recent Commerce, from 1790 to 1885. — This last commercial period, from the French Revolu- tion to the present time, or Commerce of the nineteenth century, may be separated into a well-defined tripar- tite arrangement, marked by alternations of commercial policy. I. From 1789 to 1S15, comprising the years of -the French Revolution, and of the First Empire, a period com- mercially distinguished by the Continental System, esta- bhshed by Napoleon's Berlin and Milan decrees, and by the retaliatory blockade of Europe by England. 2. From the peace of 181 5 to 1846 — the age of protected industries, and. of the British Com Laws ; during which period every European state was inspired with the spirit of resistance to 12 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. the preponderating productive power and commercial pre- eminence of the United Kingdom ; a spirit embodied by the Zollverein, or Confederated Customs Union of Germany. 3. The period from 1846 down to 1885, signalised by the aboUtion of the British Corn and Navigation Laws, by the removal from our Statute Book of all protective restrictions upon manufactures and commerce, by the inauguration of free-trade both as a principle and a practice, by the unexampled accumulation of British wealth, and by the gradual adoption in other countries of free-trade prin- ciples. CHAPTER III. PHCENICIA. PART L— PRIMITIVE LAND TRADE. Phcenicia, in whose annals the path of ancient commerce first becomes distinct, took part in overland, river, and maritime trade. Its position in the Levant gave it the command of the Mediterranean. This sea was the scene of its earliest enterprises, and from its shores were obtained those commodities which it interchanged with the great commercial states of Asia. Traffic was an instinct with its adventurous people, and took its rise in pre-historic days. For many generations they sought the profits of commerce from every state belonging to the three continents washed by the Great Sea. The Phoenicians were already a nation before the Israelites entered the Promised Land. In the early Hebrew history Phoenicia was included in the general designation of Canaan. From its proximity to the Jewish nation, the history of the two states became closely con- nected, and a graphic account of Phoenician prosperity is to be found in the twenty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel. Phoenicia was not properly speaking a kingdom, but a confederation of independent cities, of which Sidon (" Great Zidon") was probably the metropolis, until Tyre, the " eldest daughter of Sidon," situated twenty miles south of that city, outgrew her parent in importance. The island of Arvad, known also as Aradus, opposite which stood Anta- radus, Zaraphath, or Sarepta (noted for its manufactures), Byblus, and Arka, were amongst the minor civic states. Tyre, Sidon, and Aradus, in conjunction, founded TripoHs, 14 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. or the triple city. Later, Berytus became an important place, and is still an Oriental emporium under the modem name of Beyrout. These cities were bound together by a community of interests, and the common worship of Mel- karth, the Tyrian Hercules, called Baal in the Scriptures, strengthened political union. The Phoenicians were engaged in manufactures and trades, and though they defended them- selves with skill and courage when attacked, were a peace- ful people. Their colonies were established, not for the sake of extended dominion, but to serve as centres of commerce. Nebuchadnezzar besieged Sidon, and laid it in ruins, but was unable to subdue Tyre. New Tyre superseded Old Tyre in wealth and importance, but it was compelled to submit to Alexander the Great, after a seven months' siege. The villages occupying the sites of the great cities of Sidon and Tyre, under the modern names of Saide and Sur or Tsur, are now petty fishing hamlets. Small villages also indicate the position of most of the other cities. Phoenicia, a prey in turn to Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Macedonian, and Egyptian greed, still retained in its position and natural resources a vitality which made it an important Roman pi-ovince. Tyre was one of the last places held by the Christians against the Saracens, and only from this epoch dates its final and utter ruin. The site of the ancient city is now mostly covered by the sea. Although the Phoenician trade was essentially marine, yet their inland trade was also extensive and valuable. With their neighbours, the Jews, their relations during the reigns of David and Solomon were very intimate. Hiram supplied David with cedars, and sent skilful metal-workers to Jerusalem to aid in building the king's palace, and in the erection of Solomon's Temple Jewish hewers of wood joined \vith those of Sidon in felling the timber of Lebanon. The resources of the two contiguous states differed greatly. Phoenicia produced scarcely any grain, but fruits, timber, PRIMITIVE LAND TRADE— THE JEWS. I 5 and metals were abundant. Palestine was in great part a fertile river-plain, producing fine wheat, barley, millet, wine, and oil, as well as balm, honey, gums, flax, byssus, cotton, and wool, which the Tyrian princes were ready to receive in exchange for timber, gold, dyed cloths, metal-work of bronze and tin, glass, pottery, jewellery, and carved ivory, the pro- duce of their foreign traffic, or of their home industry. The Jews carried on an extensive inland traffic, as factors or middlemen for the Phoenicians. The conquests of David extended the confines of the Hebrew kingdom to the Syrian desert, and southwards ovtr the land of Edom to the Red Sea, on the shores of which Solomon built the ports of Elath and Ezion-geber. The latter monarch also built Tadmor in the wilderness, called by the Greeks Palmyra, or the City of Palm-trees, as a halting-place for the caravans between Syria and Mesopotamia. The name of this city shows that it owed its foundation to the existence of an oasis. Its ruins still attest its ancient grandeur. Baalbek, or Baalath, to the west of Anti-Libanus, was enlarged and fortified by the wise merchant-monarch. The Greeks gave it the name of Heliopolis, the City of the Sun. Its temples, now in ruins, impress travellers with wonder both on account of the massive blocks of stones of which they are built, seemingly beyond human power to move, and of the symbolical figures sculptured upon them. Solomon in founding these ports and cities was not without a pur- pose. His subjects had as strong a predilection for inland as the Phoenicians had for maritime traffic, and each nation left to the other its special division of labour. Solomon's interest in Baalbek and Palmyra proves that the direct road between Phoenicia and Babylon was in the hands of the Jews. This was the most important caravan route in exist- ence, and it ran entirely through the desert. The Hebrew ports on the Red Sea were open to the Phoenicians, who brought thither the products of India and Arabia, the Jews conveying them overland to Phoenicia. 1 6 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. The overland trade with Egypt was conducted in much the same way. The Jewish people profited as keenly by the idiosyncrasies of the Egyptians as by those of the Phoenicians. The latter were subjected to so many restric- tions in their intercourse with Egypt, that they availed themselves to a great extent of the services of the Hebrews in the conveyance of the flax, fine linen, and embroidery, for which the land of the Nile was celebrated. Solomon also traded with Egypt on his own account, for we read of his importing horses and chariots, which he sold again to the neighbouring princes. Wine and oil, with which Pales- tine abounded, were not produced in Egypt. The inunda- tions of the Nile, though they deposit a soil unequalled for promoting the growth of grain and gourds, are unfavourable to both the vine and the olive. These Syrian productions were therefore the chief means of repayment at Solomon's command. To these were doubtless added the gems, spices, and balsams brought from India and Arabia, and through the ports of the Red Sea. In the direct trade of the Phoenicians with Egypt, which was confined at first to a part of the city of Thebes, but afterwards extended to a part of Memphis also, the wine of the district of Chalybonitis, around the modern city of Aleppo, was the staple of ex- change, together with copper, of which the Egyptians made extensive use in their metal-work. The great increase of Jewish wealth is narrated in Scrip- ture history. The zenith of prosperity was reached in the reign of the merchant-king, who " made silver to be in Jeru- salem as stones ; and cedars made he to be as sycamore- trees that are in the vale, for abundance;" "and Judah and Israel were many, as the sand which is by the sea-shore for multitude, eating and drinking and making merry," That the cities of Phoenicia were no less wealthy is testified by sacred and profane historians, who refer to Tyre and Sidon as types of wealth. From the Syrians and Cappadocians the Phoenicians PRIMITIVE LAXD TRADE-THE SYRIANS, ETC. 17 obtained various products, which they bartered at a great profit for the commodities of other countries. The wine of Chalybonitis was of such repute as to banish almost all other kinds from the tables of royalty. Its transport over- land was difficult, and added to its costliness. A few jars of it could be exchanged in Egypt for as many loads of corn. From Syria was obtained the fine wool which the Phcenicians wove into choice fabrics and dyed with their famous purple. The celebrated snow-white Nicean horses, regarded in Persia as alone worthy to draw the chariot of majesty, were bred in Cappadocia. Other horses were reared, but none approached this breed in beauty. Mules also were obtained from the same parts, and Circassia and Georgia contributed slaves. As many as ten thousand slaves were occasionally sold in the market of Delos in a day. Engaged in every form of commercial enterprise, the Phoenicians trafficked in the constituents alike of maritime and of inland trade. The commodities con- veyed by caravan consisted of raw materials as well as of industrial products. The cotton, linen, and woollen fabrics were so skilfully dyed that they presented the effect of shot silk. Sidon and Sarepta were noted for the manufacture of glass, which is supposed to have been first made by accident. The discovery was for a long time put to no greater use than that of making beads and trinkets, to be used as cheap objects of barter. In like manner, ornaments, chains of amber and gold, carved ivory, and other artistic work, engaged the skill of the Phcenicians, and appear to have found especial favour in the eyes of the Hebrew women. Some authors trace to this people the first use of coined money. It is probable that the arts of computation and of alphabetic writing spread from Phoenicia to Greece, and thence through the Western world. How Phoenicia learnt these arts is not clear. Tne fable of Cad- mus satisfied ancient inquirers, but modern investigators consider the alphabet of the ancient Phoenicians and III B iS THE GROIVTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Hebrews to have been a simplified development of the hieroglyphic system of Egypt. Whether the adaptation was the work of the practical skill of the Phoenicians or of the Hebrews is disputed. The fact is certain that these characters form the foundation of all the historical alpha- bets of the world — Sanscrit, Zend, Greek, Roman, Arabic, Ethiopian, Armenian, and Slavonian. PART I!.— MARITIME OR COASTING TRADE. Transport by sea, in lessening the labour, time, and cost of procuring commodities from distant countries, gave new life to commerce, and indefinitely widened its scope. The Phoenicians w^ere the earliest sailors on record. Homer refers to their seafaring habits, and their daring as traders and pirates, nearly a thousand years before the Christian era. They navigated the Arabian and Indian seas, and brought to the ports of the Persian Gulf the products of Ceylon and Malabar, of the Indus and the Ganges, Bactria and China, thus linking the elephant traffic of Hindostan with the caravan commerce through Babylon and Palmyra, and with the Arab caravans from Gerrha, and thence with the Occidental trade of the Medi- terranean. Their vessels in the Red Sea coasted Arabia Fehx and Ethiopia, exchanging the produce of both these countries at Elath and Ezion-geber in return for the com- modities brought overland through Edom. The rich coun- tries just referred to were the ancient Ophir, whence the Jews obtained gold, silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks. The persistence of the Phcenicians extorted from the rulers of Egypt limited rights to the navigation of the Nile, and to those merchants a part of Memphis was assigned for ware- houses and offices. According to Herodotus, they were the first mariners who rounded the Cape of Good Hope, having started from the Red Sea, at the instance of Pharaoh Necho, I PUCE XI CI AN MARITIME TRADE. 1 9 about 600 B.C., and in three years circumnavigated Africa. That the Phoenicians first passed the Pillars of Hercules is undisputed. Before Saul, the first king of Israel, had begun to reign, they had already ventured out into the Atlantic ; and the tin mines of Britain and the amber lands of the Baltic had possibly been visited by them. Long before this they had begun to frequent, and even to settle upon the isles of the Levant and the ^gean. Cyprus in particular (the ancient Chittim) could be seen from their shores, and to reach it was one of their earliest efforts. Judging from the distribution of the geographical names along the coast-line, the voyage to Carthage seems, in the first instance at least, to have been not along the northern coast of Africa, but by Crete, the southern extremities of Greece, and Italy, and Sicily. Keeping near the shore, and guided at night by the stars, they gradually extended the length of their voyages. In the course of time they improved their skill in navigation and ship-building. The acquisition of wealth, whether by just or unjust means, appears to have been the sole object of their traflic. The Phoenicians were ever ready to pur- chase any number of captives taken in war, to sell, accord- ing to universal custom, as slaves, and they would, it is said, when the chance offered, kidnap Greek and Hebrew children. The Greeks, amongst whom the Phoenicians at the first had settlements, suffered from their piratical habits, and the less advanced borders of the Mediterranean still more so. The Greek ports and the isles of the ^gean were for a time closed against the Phoenicians, and, in alliance with the Etruscans, the Greeks expelled them from Southern Italy {Magna Gracla) ; but tne desire for Oriental luxuries less- ened the jealousies of trade, and Greece could not perma- nently deny herself Phoenician wares. In Sicily, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles, the Phoenicians planted colonies, and suc- cessfully competed with the Etruscans. Colonies were gra- dually formed along the Mediterranean coasts. In Asia Minor 20 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. and the Euxine, as well as Africa and the islands, the natives were taught husbandry, and thus they learned to produce commodities valuable to Phoenician commerce. Carthage and Adrumetum (apparently the Semitic word Hadramaut, a not uncommon geographical term in Western Asia), Great and Little Leptis, with several hundred smaller stations, arose in Africa. Many of the great commercial centres on the shores of the Mediterranean grew, as their names indicate, out of these colonies, and trade was zealously pursued before Greece or Rome had risen to importance. Spain was literally a mine of wealth ; for gold, lead, and iron abounded, and silver was so plentiful that the merchants are said by Aristotle to have ballasted their ships with it, and, when overladen, to have cut off the masses of lead which served as anchors, and substituted silver. The natives gladly accepted Tyrian ornaments and glass trinkets for that which they possessed in such great abun- dance, and the Phoenicians disposed of this beautiful metal in the East, where it was held in higher estimation than gold. When the supply thus procured failed, the Phoenicians became the taskmasters of the natives, whom they enslaved and compelled to work in the silver mines. Spain also possessed rich resources in animal and vege- table produce. Fine wool, wax, and salt fish, corn, wine, oil, and luscious fruits were only second in value to the precious rnetals. A Phoenician origin can be assigned to nearly two hundred Spanish localities. Cadiz, " on the most remote point of the world," is to this day an important commercial city. Hispalis [Seville), Cartei'a [Ca?'taijo), near Gibraltar, and Malaka {Malaga), are other examples. The Tarshish of Scripture Avas probably South Spain {Tartessiis). From Spain the Phoenicians set out for still more distant enterprises. It appears hardly possible that their vessels could have weathered the rough waters of the Bay of Biscay, yet it is certain that they obtained tin and lead from the peninsula of Cornwall, and amber from the PHCENICIAN MARITIME TRADE. 21 shores of the Baltic, They also visited, sooner or later, the Azores and the Madeira Isles. The secret of Phoenician commerce beyond the Pillars of Hercules was jealously guarded by the merchants, who retained it for many ages as a close monopoly. Thus the commerce of the known world came into their possession. Maritime trade, for many generations, was solely and indisputably their owti. They were not only merchants on their own account, but the universal carriers for other nations. Wealth poured into their cities in pro- fusion. Colonies were a necessity with such an enter- prising people, in order that when ships arrived cargoes might be in readiness at widely distant points, and inter- change be made without delay. As the necessaries and comforts of life accumulated, the population also increased, and colonies were often the outpouring of numbers too cramped in the small territory of the mother-country. Political discontent, too, was an incentive to emigration, and to this cause the rise of Carthage, Tyre's great daughter- colony, is said to have been due. Phoenician colonies con- tinued to be established for a period of between five hundred and six hundred years, from iioo b.c. to 550 B.C. Although the parent state exercised litde coercive autho- rity over its colonies, yet commerce and religion formed a bond of union. The temples and deities of Phoenicia were everywhere revered, and offerings from all quarters were transmitted to the mother-country. CHAPTER IV. ASSYRIA, BABYLONIA. Assyria and Babylonia, in their widest geographical sense, were nearly convertible terms, but, as empires, the first was most ancient. It could be by no accident that civilisa- tion traced its earliest manifestations to the river plains of the world. Thus the Tigris and Euphrates claim with the Nile, the Indus, the Ganges, and the rivers of China to be the parents of communities whose origin is lost in the past. The country watered by the Assyr-ian streams bore a strong resemblance to Egypt, and, like it, was saved from being an utterly arid sandy track by periodical inunda- tions. From the Mediterranean inland much of the desert expanse was broken only by oases; the vegetation being lihaceous bulbs, nodes, succulent and herbaceous plants, preserving moisture and maintaining life in the driest soil, — an ephemeral verdure, disappearing in the summer heats, but waking to activity with the rains. Whether Assyria was peopled by colonies from Egypt or the converse, or the similar surroundings of the two races gave rise to analogous industries and arts, the early history is too obscure to detail, but the husbandry, building, weaving, dyeing, and traffic of the one were certainly the reproduction of the other. The arrow-headed or cuneiform* inscriptions and colossal figures in recent years excavated on the site of Nineveh, and now enriching the British Museum, are the counterparts of the hieroglyphics and sculptures of Egypt ; and as the chrono- logy of both countries is gradually being deciphered from • Cuneiform, or wedge-shaped ; Lat. cuneus, wedge. KIXEVEII-BADYLO\\ 23 two lost languages, extant records may not always be left to be interpreted by the imagination. Nineveh or Ninus, named from its supposed founder, one of tlie oldest and largest cities in the world, the capital of a great and civilised monarchy, was the prototype of Babylon, and the history of the first may be correctly read in the series of incidents befalling the second. The greatness of both capitals was built upon trade, their sites making them suc- cessively the emporium of the East and the West \ and their common fate was to be conquered. Trade brought to Nineveh prosperity, respect, and power; the regions around were sub- dued, even the Babylonians succumbed. Ultimately the Baby- lonians rose against their masters and blotted them out from existence. Such a subversion implies the previous transfer of power from the dominant to the subject people. Primi- tive industrial virtues were a necessity while Nineveh was poor and rising, but appear to have fled when opulence was attained. Sensuality enfeebled the citizens until all fear of their martial prowess was dissipated, and their riches only CKcited the cupidity of a hardier race. While Nineveh was wasting its strength, Babylon was gaining vigour in subjection, and the desire for freedom, blended with dis- dain for their enervated rulers, incited the citizens to revolt. Sennacherib had already, B.C. 714, weakened the empire by his expedition against Egypt and the Hebrews, and the Medes and the Babylonians in alliance razed Nineveh to the ground b.c. 606, and apportioned the empire. Babylon, founded by the Nimrod of Scripture, the Belus of profane history, covered a great space on both sides of the Euphrates. The district of Babylonia, properly so called, comprised the alluvial liver plain eastward of Syria. The Euphrates and Tigris unite before they flow into the Persian Gulf, and form the modern Shat-el- Arab. Above their confluence they enclose the vast mud flat of Babylonia, of which, strictly speaking, they form the boundaries. Higher up, the streams converge again to 24 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. within a few miles of each other, at which point the Median Wall was erected, both as a fortification and defence against the approach of a hostile army and a line of demarcation between Babylonia and Mesopotamia. Babylonia was an almost rainless region ; yet under a perfect system of irrigation it attained marvellous fertility. It was nearly destitute of wood, and entirely so of building- stone. Whole pages of ancient historians are filled with descriptions of the magnificence and dimensions of the capital, and of the opulence of its inhabitants. Huge walls, pierced with a hundred gates of brass, surrounded the city, through which the Euphrates rolled between embankments of masonry. The palace of the great king, with its terraces or gardens, was accounted one of the wonders of the ancient world. The only towns we know to have existed on these plains besides Babylon were Forsath, now Bassora, and Borsippa, neither of much extent ; indeed, the latter seems to have been rather a district of the capital than a neigh- bouring town. The Babylonian plain was subject to vernal floods, which by a network of canals and reservoirs were rendered ser- viceable to the country which they would otherwise have devastated. Remains of these watercourses are still to be seen. Bricks burnt and unburnt, and cemented with bitumen, the " slime " of Scripture — of which springs are still in activity — formed the building material of Babylon. Travellers are amazed at the mounds of brick which even now line the rivers for many miles, though the ruins have formed a quarry whence were taken the materials used in the building of the large towns of Ctesiphon, Seleucia, Kufa, and Almadain. It has been computed that more bricks were used in the walls and towers of Babylon than in the Great Wall of China, which is twelve hundred miles long. Babylon owed its prosperity less to the surrounding fer- tility than to its excellent position as a caravanserai ; yet the CITY OF DABYLOX-ITS PROSPERITY. 25 soil yielded abundant crops of dates and grain. Corn is said to have been mown twice, and then eaten down by cattle before it was allowed to come into ear, in order to check its tendency to exuberance of leaf, and even then the return was more than two hundredfold. These regions claim to be the centre from which corn spread, and where it was first used for food. The varieties of the palm fur- nished bread, wine, vinegar, sago, dates, and date honey, an esculent something like the cabbage, food for cattle, fuel, and ropes. The city was placed in the highway of the primitive land- trade east and west, and on its waters were made the first knoAvn attempts at river-traffic. Food-produce in abundance, at scarcely any cost of labour, was ready for traders in exchange for Chinese silks, Indian gems and spices, Bactrian gold and gold-dust, and Western silver and wine. At home, textile manufactures of wool, linen, and cotton were carried to great perfection. Sindones, as some remarkably fine and beautifully dyed cotton fabrics were called, were so costly as to be restricted to royal use. Brilliant tapestries, upon which the zoology of India was embroidered, were coveted by princes for the choicest hangings of their palaces and harems, and from these the West received its first notions of Indian natural history. Carpets and coverlets from Babylonian looms were treasures more precious than gold. Borsippa is mentioned as famous for the finest linen and cotton fabrics, but manufactures generally were carried on within the precincts of the capital. The dye-stuffs were the Tyrian purple, obtained from Phoenicia, Indian lac, the pre- cursor of cochineal, and some other tropical products. The production of articles of luxury of great value also employed the Babylonians. Their parching climate rendered the use of cooling perfumed waters universal. They were expert in the art of engraving stones for seals, and they cut the gems of India for signet rings and jewellery. The curious fashion prevailed of carrying a walking-stick of fine wood, elaborately 26 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. carved with devices of fruit or flowers, and serving, instead of costly jewels, to indicate rank and consequence. The first boats used for navigating the Tigris and Euphrates were rude coracles of light wood covered with skins. Such vessels are sculptured on the Assyrian monu- ments, and under the name of keleks continue to be used on both rivers for the transport of goods. The current of the Euphrates was too strong to allow frail rafts to ascend against the stream ; they were therefore used only in descend- ing the river, were then broken up, and the wood sold, asses being laden with the skins on the return journey. By such means the wine and oil of Armenia, and commodities from the borders of the Mediterranean, reached Thapsacus, a station between Babylon and Aleppo, on the upper course of the Euphrates, where the merchandise was again transferred to caravans and conveyed to the capital, whence it was dis- tributed along various divergent routes. Wind-power was eventually enlisted in the service of trade, the use of sails enabling the traders to enlarge and strengthen their river craft, and to make them less dependent upon the force of currents, so that they were able to navigate the rivers both up and down. Like the Egyptians, they feared the sea, and left its navigation entirely to the daring and skill of the Phoenicians, who founded the ports in the Persian Gulf, Gerrha, half-way upon the Arabian coast, Tylos, and Arados. At Tylos, one of the Bahrein islands, superior cotton was cultivated, teak oak was felled, and handsome sticks, streaked and spotted like the skins of the tiger and the leopard, were cut; the banks, not even yet exhausted, produced pearls superior in hardness and beauty to those of Ceylon. Muscat, Djulvar, and Ormuz shared in this commerce. Between these cities and India an active maritime commerce sprang up, and the port of Gerrha became the starting-point of a caravan route across the Arabian desert. Through Bactria came Indian produce, cotton, silk, and wool, both raw and manufactured, and large dogs trained for hunting. CITY OF DABYLON-ITS DECLINE. 27 Media and Hyrcania supplied timber of various kinds ; Scythia, skins ; Egypt, flax, cattle, horses, and mules ; the enterprising Phcenicians sent from the Jewish ports of Elath and Ezion-geber the valuable commodities procured from the shores of the Red Sea, and their own storehouses con- tributed the wealth of the Western world. The district extending lower down the river Tigris, as far as its mouths, bore the name of Chaldea. The Chaldeans were the ruling caste in the state, its astrologers, seers, and soothsayers, and for that age of the world their knowledge had an extensive range. They were acquainted with the motions of the sun, moon, and five planets, the signs of the zodiac, the calculation of eclipses, and the division of the year into twelve months. The sun-dial and the water- clock were used for computing time, and their system of weights and measures was the basis of the Roman standards. The Golden City, the " glory of the Chaldees' excellency," attained its greatest power during the reign of Nebuchad- nezzar, who extended the Babylonian empire from the Tigris ' to Egypt, from Armenia to the Arabian desert, and success- fully withstood the attacks of Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt. Profuse wealth finally led to moral corruption on the part of the rulers, and invited aggression. Cyrus laid siege to Babylon, diverted the course of the Euphrates, and entered the city by the bed of the river during a nocturnal feast, B.C. 538. Thus it sank to the level of the third capital of the Persian kingdom, Susa and Ecbatana ranking higher. Babylonian commerce declined under the Persians, who put an end to the maritime traffic, fearing lest an inroad upon their dominions should be the consequence of the navigation of the Persian Gulf. Babylon (b.c. 324) opened its gates without opposition to Alexander the Great, who endeavoured to restore its commerce, and to that end improved the navigation of the Tigris and Euphrates. His death in the following year frustrated his intention of making 2 8 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Babylon the capital of his empire. The decline of this great city was decisive under Seleucus Nicanor, one of Alexander's generals, to whom it fell as part of the Syrian kingdom, of which he had assumed the government, and a rival city, named after the builder, Seleucia, on the banks of the Tigris, completed its eclipse. Babylon was at the commencement of the Christian era almost wholly in ruirs. CIIArTER V. CARTHAGE. Carthage, the chief offshoot of Tyre, and principai in- lieritor of the colonial commerce of the mother-city, has had no native historian to recount its glories, and its history has to be sought in the literature of its con- querors and destroyers. Its foundation is ascribed to Elissa or Dido, who, with many Tyrians, fled from the land of her birth (about 813 B.C.), to escape the domestic distractions which overtook Tyre and Sidon, in consequence of the usurpation of Ithobaal, or Ethbaal. Ethbaal was priest of Astarte, and father of Jezebel, the wife of Ahab. He assassinated Pheletus, the last of Hiram's sons, B.C. 898. In opposition to Utica, the Old Town (Hebrew, aiika, old), founded B.C. iioo, Elissa's settlement was named Kartc/iadk/ia, or New Town, corrupted by the Romans into Carthago, and by the Greeks into Karchcdon. Like their ancestors the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians owed nothing at first to conquest. They paid a yearly tribute for the land they setded upon, and sought their wealth in industry and commerce. A skilful, civilised people could not, however, dwell in tlie midst of nomadic tribes, who were continually at war with each other, without being appealed to for aid, and finally gaining the supreme power. From tributaries they rose to be masters, and in the height of their prosperity they ruled a territory extending from Cyrene to Numidia, fourteen hundred miles in length by eighty in breadth, besides possessing a considerable influence over the interior of the continent. The name Africa, first given to their own colony, grew into use as the common designa- 30 THE GROWTH A\D VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. tion of their own dominions, and afterwards of the whole continent. Besides the north coast of Africa, Carthage possessed nearly all Spain, and the islands between Spain and Italy. The ruling passion with the Carthaginians, as with the Phoenicians, was love of gain. Possessed of little patriotism, they employed mercenaries in all their wars, and imposed upon the African tribes the yoke of military servitude. They showed judgment and good sense in their domestic affairs, for there is no record of turbulence or civil war till the era of their downfall. The soil was cultivated by negro slaves, and a profitable shive-trade existed with the adjacent countries. Their territories yielded corn and fruits of all kinds, various sorts of provisions, wax, honey, oil, skins, wild spartum (a kind of broom, from which they made ropes and numerous articles), a peculiar extract called Punic colour, and other materials for manufactures. The Cartha- ginians were celebrated for various industrial products, such as woven fabrics and artistic work in leather and wool. Their tanning was very superior : they manufactured pure white and coloured leathers, of the kind now known as morocco. They also practised the arts of pottery and dye- ing, and understood the working of metals. Their skill in handicraft caused the term Punic to become descriptive of exquisite workmanship; and in Rome, Punic couches, lanterns, and wine-presses, were in the highest estima- tion. Funic is derived from Fceni or PJmni, the Latin name for these people, in reference to their Phcenician descent. Carthaginian commerce, though very extensive, was in a great measure confined to direct interchange, and managed entirely by merchants. Even after the destruction of Tyre, it did not include the carrying or commission trade of the Phoenicians. The position of the city on what is now the Bay of Tunis, midway between the Levant and the Pillars of Hercules, enabled it to command the CARTHAGINIAN COMMERCE. 3 1 Mediterranean trafific, while various inland caravan routes also brought commodities to its markets. Colonies, properly so called, Carthage did not possess, for its policy of aggrandisement, which could endure no rival, caused all its settlements to be mere trading stations. The chief of the insular possessions was Sardinia, which was held till a few years after the conclusion of the first Punic war, B.C. 241. Corsica, also a Carthaginian posses- sion, was lost at the same time. After contests which lasted two hundred years, Carthage never secured more than a partial footing in Sicily. The last remaining possessions before the destruction of the state were the Balearic Isles, Malta, and Spain. Phoenician and Greek vessels covered tne eastern Mediterranean, compelling the Carthaginians to settle and trade where they could more successfully compete with their rivals. In the west they met the Greeks of Sicily and Italy, the Greek colony of Marseilles, then Massilia, and the Etruscan pirate merchants, for all of whom the Cartha- gmians were more than a match. They obtained oil and wine from Sicily ; honey, wax, and slaves, from Corsica ; fruits and beasts of burden, chiefly mules, from the Balearics ; and bitumen from the Lipari Islands. Malta furnished costly tissues for clothing. Elba, remarkable to this day for the fine iron it produces, supplied material for their furnaces. For the commodities thus obtained, the Cartha- ginians gave the produce of their own industry and com- merce, the work of their looms, and especially slaves, precious stones, and gold. As the state increased in wealth, its system of employing mercenaries became further developed, and draughts of labourers were employed in Spain to work the mines more vigorously than during the Phoenician period. When, through the disastrous Persian war, Phoenicia lost her commercial supremacy, Carthage and Greece divided the eastern and western Mediterranean. Sicily, the border island of this division, was long the subject 32 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE, of contention between the Greeks and Carthaginians, and the scene of many indecisive conflicts. Their maritime commerce outside the Mediterranean extended both north and south, but the extreme Hmits were kept profoundly secret. It is recorded that the master of a merchant vessel voyaging north (probably to Britain), rather than permit a Roman ship, which followed him, to learn his destination, ran his vessel ashore, and led his pursuer to do the same. The Carthaginian, then throwing the whole of the cargo overboard, lightened his vessel and got her off. Upon his return to Carthage, he was commended for doing the state a service, and compensated for the loss of his freight. Cerne, an island on the west coast of Africa, opposite Madeira, was the chief station for business with the natives of that part of the continent. According to Herodotus, who learnt more of this commerce than the Carthaginians would willingly have allowed, a silent bargaining used to take place between the natives and merchants. The latter went ashore with their wares and kindled a fire, the ascending smoke of which was the signal that brought the natives down as soon as the sailors retired to their ships. These natives, a tall and handsome race, of dark complexion, with long but not woolly hair, and of pastoral habits, were fond of showy trinkets, which, with harness, pottery, and Egyptian linen, their visitors deposited on the shore. In exchange, they brought elephants' tusks, skins of wild beasts, and gold, placing them alongside the merchants' wares. The Carthaginians again landed; but, if dissatisfied with the proposed barter, they once more retired, leaving the goods untouched till more gold had been added ; when satisfied, however, they made the ex- change and departed. Herodotus speaks of the good faith which was always observed, neither side acting unfairly by the other; but when the shrewd, calculating Carthaginians met ignorant African tribes, it is not hard to see who were likely i CARTHAGE-NEGRO SLAVERY. 33 to have the best of the bargain. There are many references in history to this mode of silent barter, in which the contracting parties scarcely saw each other. It was employed in dealing with the natives of India ; and modern travellers describe the practice as continuing in Soudan to the present time. It arose probably from ignorance of each other's language, and from a native fear of approaching visitors whose power appeared so great. Nevertheless, this mode of conducting traffic could not have been universally practised, for amongst the commodities brought from the interior, black slaves appear prominent, and bulky substances, such as salt from the desert. The whole history of the negro is associated with kidnapping. Negroes were the victims of the slave- dealer, as depicted on the earliest Egyptian monuments ; and the Carthaginians in later times bought them in droves for export to Italy and Greece. A trade, in which grain produced in Numidia was exchanged for dates, the produce of less fertile parts, as well as a traffic in feathers, and in furs, completes the summary of this maritime commerce. Southwards, across Sahara, the commodities brought by caravans were the same as those obtained on the west coast — slaves, salt, dates, ivory, and gold. Communication between Egypt and Ethiopia was constant, and more par- ticularly with the city of Ammonium, now Siwah. The gems and other precious commodities of India, the perfumes and pearls from the coasts of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, the costly furniture, wool, and tapestry of Phoenicia, as well as the scarlet and purple dyes, reached Carthage by this route. We owe to the commercial acuteness of the Carthaginians the introduction of bills of exchange and letters of credit, which have done so much to extend the domain of com- merce. They also introduced the practice of bottomry, or lending money on mortgage of ships. The earliest of such documents of which mention is made, were pieces of leather impressed with the government mark, and passing current III c 54 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. like our bank-notes. Yet they appear not to have had any money proper, ahhough they must have been acquainted with the coinage of Greece. A municipal oligarchy, composed of a few wealthy families, whose intelligence in building up their own fortunes by trade insured some degree of administrative skill, pos- sessed the chief power, and carried their business habits into the offices of government. From them were chosen, to execute the laws, two sufifetes, sJwphetim, the same title which in the Old Testament is translated "judges." Amongst other regulations by which the suffetes were bound, was one by which they were not permitted to taste wine during their term of office. The revenue was derived from tribute paid by subjugated races, from taxes upon distant dependencies, payable in produce or in gold, from rigorous import duties, and from the Spanish mines. So great was the revenue from this last source, that the whole cost of the second Punic war was thereby defrayed. In the army were to be found Gauls, Iberians, Ligurians, and negroes ; the officers were native Carthaginians. The most formidable parts of this heterogeneous army were the Numidian horse- men and the Balearic slingers. The citadel, Byrsa, con- tained barracks for twenty thousand troops, with stables for four thousand horses and three hundred elephants. The inner harbour contained the residence of the admiral, maga- zines and quays for the shipment of cargo, and docks for the building and repairing of two hundred merchant vessels and galleys of war. The fleet was very numerous, numbering, in the great engagement with Regulus (b.c. 256), three hundred and fifty galleys. A gloomy and cruel religion was professed. The tutelary deity, Melkarth, has been variously identified with Baal, Bel, Jupiter, and the Sun. The Phoenician Astarte, Ashtaroth, or the Moon, was also worshipped. They sacrificed infants, even of noble families, together with captives taken in war, to IMoloch or Saturn, supposed by some to be MelkartK CARTHAGE— CAUSES OF DECAY. 35 The cries of the victims were drowned by the sound of fifes and drums. Their religion reflected its character upon their criminal code, which was Draconic in severity — cruci- fixion, for example, being a common punishment. The best we know of Carthage is the excellence of her civil constitution, which, according to Aristotle, presei-ved her for several centuries from anarchy and despotism ; her care for the national credit, which led to the payment of every obligation incurred during the struggle with the Romans ; and her filial loyalty to Tyre, when besieged by Nebuchadnezzar and by Alexander the Great, on which occasions she opened her gates as an asylum for the Tyrian women, children, and aged people. Literature, that would have at least saved the Carthaginians from oblivion, was of less account amongst them than the acquisition and the retention of riches ; and Cato's stern words, Delenda est Carthago, applied to its records, seem as full of meaning as when applied to the city itself. Unseen but inevitable causes of decay were sapping the vitality of the Carthaginian empire, long before the final struggle with Rome took place. The grasping spirit which impelled them to make their own city the emporium of the world, without returning any equivalent benefit ; to discountenance ship-building elsewhere ; to close their harbours to all foreign vessels, and to resent the prosperity of any foreign state, was a fatal defect in their character and polity. They had not the intelligence to perceive that the more they encouraged production in their distant settle- ments, the greater would be the surplus flowing into their capital. A people whose patriotism was so weak as to allow them to entrust to foreigners, in whom there was no loyal sentiment, the sacred duty of defending their soil, were foredoomed to ruin. A stigma was cast upon industry by the forced labour of slaves. The rich fields covered with herds, the artificial irrigation from numerous streams, the vineyards and olive-gardens of the 2^6 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. wealthy, were the results of the toil of negroes, whose zeal was damped by the knowledge that they could never rise out of servitude. When the long struggle came with Rome, the Carthaginians seem to have had no friends. Although temperate and painstaking, they had become unfitted, by habits, laws, constitution, and temperament, for military dis- cipline or prolonged defence. Despite the military genius of Hamilcar, and the magnanimity and devotion of Hannibal, Carthage was worsted in the first and second Punic War, was forced to agree to a humiliating peace, and ultimately deprived of all its vast possessions. The third Punic War, B.C. 149 — 146, ended in the conquest of the city by the Romans, who were resolved upon its utter destruction. The burning of the temples, palaces, and monuments lasted seventeen days, and of seven hundred thousand inhabitants before the siege, only fifty thousand remained alive at its close. Under Augustus a new or Roman Carthage rose near the site of the former capital, and became one of the second cities of the empire j but its Mediterranean trade had departed CHAPTER VI. PART I.— EGYPT BEFORE THE ERA OF ALEXANDER. The ancient commercial history of Egypt is divided by strongly marked features into two epochs — that before and that after the time of Alexander. How far back the first period extended we know not. We see through the haze of time a nation apart, yet introduced at length to the fellow- ship of the outer world, chiefly through the persistence of Phoenician and Greek merchants, much in the same manner as the peculiar nations of China and Japan are, in our own day, gradually being opened to Western commerce. There is reason to believe that Egypt was a settled nation long before the foundation of Nineveh and Babylon ; but Egypt did not enter into free intercourse with the rest of the world till after the time of Alexander. Two sea boun- daries afford an extensive line of coast, while it is united to Asia by the isthmus of Suez, and lies open to the interior of Africa, the Nile forming a grand channel of communica- tion with the south. The position of Egypt, between the cradle lands of the human race and the African con- tinent ; the affinities of the people which connected them on the one hand with the Semitic races of Arabia, Syria, and Babylonia, and on the other with the Ethiopians and Libyans \ the wonderful fertility of the Nile valley, in con- sequence of which " all nations came to Egypt to buy com" (Gen. xii. lo; xxvi. i; xli. 57), combined to make that country a great centre of commercial intercourse. The country was flooded three months in every year by the overflow of its river, and was likewise artificially irri- gated by a network of canals, as well as from Lake Moeris, 38 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. constructed by the king whose name it bears, as a reservoir for the superabundant waters at the time of inundation. Inland boats and barges, made of boards of papyrus, were in general use on the Nile and on the canals as the common means of communication between the towns. A sailor caste is spoken of, and boats occupied a conspicuous place in the religious festivals. The Egyptians reached, perhaps, the highest development possible to a people excluding themselves from association with other states. Their system of castes confined trades and professions to certain families, and made productive skill in the various arts and handicrafts descend as an heirloom from parent to child. Resulting from this prac- tice, a superior degree of excellence was manifested in their works of metal and wood. Their harps excelled those of modern make in beauty of form, and their chairs and couches were of chaste designs. In wickervvork they showed great artistic skill. For many purposes of art and utility they used a compound metal of a green colour, the method of alloying which is now lost. Their cutlery and weapons of war were also made of a kind of brass or bronze. Elegance was specially aimed at in their pottery; the examples now in our museums are made of fine clay, and are of very beautiful forms. Excellent cotton cloths and mus- lins, together with woollen fabrics and embroidered work or tapestry, were among the products of their industry. Buy- ing and selling fell to the lot of the women, while household duties were attended to by the men. In accordance with this custom, it was the daughter, not the son, on whom devolved the duty of supporting a helpless parent. The laws promoted self-dependence. Securities for loans were contrived, usury was forbidden, and the rights of creditors were limited to the property of their debtors. They were a grave and unsociable people, of quiet, temperate habits, and submissive under control. Every patch of the country that water could reach was EGYPT— ITS EARLY COMMERCIAL LYTERCOURSE. 39 cultivated, and good roads were formed. The Egyptians consumed more of vegetable than of animal food. The rich brown deposit of the Nile yielded lavishly grain, garlic, the lotus, and gourds. The crops succeeded each other at intervals of six or eight weeks, and, like the soil, were literally, as well as metaphorically, the " gift of the Nile." Higher up the river valley were quarried the massive syenite slabs used in the erection of their temples, and the obelisks or needles which, at a later date, took Cleopatra's name. Eastward, between the river and the Red Sea, a mountainous strip produced marble and the only metals found in Egypt. Camels were numerous ; and the celebrated horses of the Delta were, from the flatness of the district, of great utility for chariots and warlike pur- poses. Long before Egypt owned vessels fit to navigate the sea, companies of merchantmen traversed the country in all directions, bearing "spicery and balm and myrrh, and almonds, frankincense, and wines" (Gen. xxxvii. 25 ; xliii. 11) from Arabia and Syria. Gold, ivory, feathers, skins, and slaves came through Ethiopia from Central Africa, and fine salt was also imported. Of this intercourse imperish- able records remain in the hieroglyphics, paintings, and sculptures. The jealousy of the Egyptians regarding the intrusion of foreigners by sea was the eff"ect of fear. Possessing no timber for shipbuilding, and having a distaste for navigation, they were ill prepared to resist invasion ; and as the first sailors were as much pirates as traders, no vessels, for a long period, were allowed to anchor in the Nile. Caravan traders only, not being formidable, were tolerated, with a kind of contempt. Later in history Egypt owned a fleet of four hundred vessels, engaged in the coasting trade, and even venturing as far as India ; the wood, copper, and iron necessary for their construction being obtained from the Phoenicians. 40 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Psammetichus, who ruled over Egypt B.C. 671-617, was the first king that dared to "break in upon ancient prescrip- tion. He not only opened the country to Phoenician and Greek vessels, but employed Greek mercenaries in his army. These measures brought wealth to the state, but gave great offence to the warrior caste, the whole of whom, in a body of about a quarter of a million, emi- grated into Ethiopia, where they had a district assigned to them. From the reign of Psammetichus, there was no national army, and a result undesigned but of great moment followed the policy of entrusting to other than their own citizens the defence of the kingdom. It led to gradual loss of nationality. The native writing grew into disuse, and after the Persian conquest, B.C. 525, it became extinct. The Greek alphabet superseded hieroglyphics, hieratic, and demotic characters ; the national records excited no pride in the past, and became a dead letter, to be but partially unsealed after a lapse of two thousand years. Amasis, the foreigner's friend, the grandson of Psam- metichus, and son of Nekos, the Pharaoh-Necho of Scrip- ture, allowed the Greeks to erect temples and warehouses, and in the last year of his reign, 526 B.C., he removed all previous restrictions upon vessels by declaring the mouths of the river free to navigation. Many Greek merchants, there- fore, settled in Egypt, introducing the manners and customs of their own country. Egyptian youths were placed with these families in order to learn the Greek language. In this way there gradually arose a class of interpreters who became im- bued with Greek habits and modes of thought, which they communicated to their own families. Cyrus conquered the country, 525 B.C. Cambyses committed great atrocities, but the fate of his expedition against Ammonium and Ethiopia put an end to the commotions of war, and the gentler government of Darius Hystaspes left the Egyptians free to do as they pleased, so long as they did not fail in the pay- ment of their yearly quota of a tribute of 700 talents, EGYPTIAN PROSPERITY UNDER THE PERSIANS. 4 1 equal to ;^i2 5,ooo, which was raised partly in Libya, Barca, and Cyrene, as well as in Egypt. Besides this, the country had to provide with corn a Persian garrison of one hundred and twenty thousand men, stationed at Memphis. The fishing in Lake Moeris was likewise monopolised by the conquerors. Under these comparatively easy conditions, commerce resumed its prosperous career. The Persian supremacy lasted from 525 B.C. till 332 B.C., when Alexander the Great conquered the country. During these two centuries trade and manufactures became much extended, but it is difficult to distinguish the wealth of the Greeks and Phoenicians from that of the natives. The paintings and sculptures in the tombs depict weavers and dyers using ornamented distaffs and looms. Linen and cotton fabrics, and silk from the byssus of the pinna, were worked in unmixed white or dyed of various tints, red, yellow, blue, green, and black. These stufts were renowned for their quality and costliness in every country which Egyptian produce reached. Greek writers affirm that thirty thousand cities existed, and many millions of people. So exuberant was the produce of the Nile valley, that a large surplus of population was always at the monarch's command, to carry out his gigantic archi- tectural projects. This was the era of the erection of those huge monuments whose ruins astonish the modern world. Kings fought hard against oblivion. Lifetimes were devoted to render imperishable the records of great rulers whose names are now forgotten, whose conquests are deemed fabulous, and whose embalmed bodies are undistinguishable amongst millions of other mummies. Lake Moeris, on the other hand, and the canals of Sesostris remain, as evidences of wisdom and skill applied to domestic improvement, and to the development of natural resources. 42 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. PART IL— EGYPT AFTER THE ERA OF ALEXANDER- ALEXANDRIA. Alexander's ambition urged him to leave permanent monmnents of his fame. He destroyed cities, but built greater. After the destruction of Tyre, Egypt submitted to the conqueror without an effort in self-defence. His keen eye, seeing the capabilities of the country, and the commanding position of the Delta, fixed upon a part of the coast opposite the island of Pharos as a site for a metropolis. Democrates, carrying out the instructions of his master, connected Pharos with the mainland by a jetty or mole, and thus divided the channel into two harbours, facing the new city. Alexandria was built upon a grand plan, having, in- cluding the suburbs, a circuit of fifteen miles ; while two noble roads, a hundred feet broad, and adorned with temples, colonnades, and palaces, crossed it at right angles. These formed at their intersection a noble open place or square, whence could be viewed vessels sailing in from the sea to either harbour. One of the quarters thus marked out was wholly devoted to the palaces and gardens of royalty ; and here, a few years afterwards, in the chief of the ro)^al temples, was deposited the body of the great founder, in a coffin of gold. The successors of Alexander in Egypt were the Ptole- mies, who raised the city to the summit of its opulence and greatness. Ptolemy Philadelphus reared a lighthouse of white marble, on the island of Pharos, to the height of four hundred feet, adorned with columns, and described as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Fires on its summit at night guided vessels safely into port. A modern lighthouse now stands on the same spot. Lake Mareotis, on the south of the cit}^, was formed into a third harbour, by a canal communicating with that on the east. The western harbour was so spacious and deep, that vessels too large for any other port could there find anchorage, and EGYPT UNDER THE PTOLEMIES. 43 load and discharge their freights. Such a ship, sent by Hiero, King of Sicily, as a present to one of the Ptolemies, is said to have had on board small gardens, with water- courses for their irrigation, an apparatus for slinging stones, and eight lofty towers, and to have taxed the utmost powers of Archimedes to make it manageable. Caravans brought their merchandise as far as Lake Mareotis, whence their treasures were conveyed, by canal, to the adjoining harbour. The convenience of Alexandria as a mart for trade between the East and the West, attracted merchants from every commercial country. Its inhabitants thus became cosmopolitan, blending the thoughts and manners of all nations. The Ptolemies, especially the first four princes of that name, fostered the development of the city. Ptolemy Lagus, or Soter, encouraged foreigners to reside there, by granting them districts to live in. As many as one hundred thousand Jews were at one time inhabitants of the city. Although this prince was almost constantly at war, he still made commerce his care. He owned, besides a powerful navy, a fine fleet of merchant ships, promoted expeditions to establish trade, and signed treaties of com- merce with other states. His son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, who inherited the same spirit, dug a canal for ships from the Nile to the Red Sea, and, to increase the inland traffic, lined the caravan routes with wells and caravanserais. Arsinoe, Berenice, and Myos Hormos arose on the banks of the new canal, whence commodities transferred from ship to caravan were conveyed to Coptos and Thebes. It was a boast in his reign that " no citizen was idle in Alex- andria." Even the blind and lame were taught to labour. Glass-blowing, the weaving of linen, paper-making irom the papyrus, and the arts connected with the shipping trade, employed the people ; while the most fruitful country known to mankind provided them with abundant food. The basis of commercial prosperity, thus laid, was broad 44 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. enough to bear, without serious peril, the devastations of the civil wars caused by the follies and incapacities of some of the succeeding Ptolemies. Ptolemy Euergetes (Ptolemy III.) succeeding to the rich inheritance of his fathers, determined to make his capital the most learned, as well as the most commercial city of the time. He founded a school for teaching the sciences connected with commerce, and invited philoso- phers of every country to regard Alexandria as their home, and Eratosthenes, who suggested the means of measuring the earth by methods similar to our own, was among those who responded. Ptolemy IV. possessed a fleet of more than four hun- dred ships. The crew of one is said to have consisted of seven thousand four hundred sailors and mariners, and the size, as described, is almost incredible. His fleet must have been numerous, for there are proofs that the Egyptian trade extended to the Euxine; and his in- fluence must have been great, inasmuch as he sought and obtained the abolition of the tolls at the Bosphorus. Cleopatra, the last of this celebrated dynasty, added four hundred vessels to the fleet of Mark Antony; and when the great battle of Actium was lost, she was prevented from retiring to India by the Arabs having burnt another fleet belonging to her in the Red Sea. By the destruction of Carthage, B.C. 146, the great trade of that city was diverted to Alexandria, which thus received a new impetus. Its commodities necessarily comprised almost everything marketable that could link nations together. Primarily, Alexandria drew its stores from Egypt, of which it was for the time being the capital. Coptos, below Thebes, was the starting-point for the caravans of Arabia and India, as Kopt, its modern representative, is now for the pilgrimages to Mecca. Asia and India despatched their treasures to Alexandria for further distri- bution ; and Europe, from its remotest islands, sent to the ETHIOPIA. 45 same mart her surplus produce. From the south and west came the merchandise of Soudan. We do not trace to Alexandria any inventions that have modified commerce. There are extant coins of the Ptolemies, showing an acquaintance with money; but these, though an advance beyond the primitive silver rings and ingots of Egypt, were merely adopted from the Greeks, and are inscribed with Greek characters. The city was long noted for the fostering care it bestowed upon art and science ; and even while its trade languished under the military rule of the Romans, the library contained, it is affirmed, a volume for every inhabitant — a larger number of books than were ever collected elsewhere, before the invention of printing. The whole are, however, lost to us. PART III.— ETHIOPIA. Ethiopia is the name given to the region of the Nile above the first cataract at Assouda, and includes Nubia and Abyssinia. The name has also been applied to the whole of Africa, south of Egypt, because of the colour of the inhabitants. The ancient capital, near Shendy, was ISIeroe, the remains of which, in the absence of written records, warrant the inference that the city was of great antiquity. Meroe was situated on a triangular piece of land, several hundred miles long, formed by the fork of the Blue and the White Nile. It was a fertile district, rich in timber and minerals, and gold mines were worked in the hills. Scattered in profusion over the surface of this tract are the ruins of pyramids, sepulchres, obelisks, and temples. Built of sandstone, their appearance shows more of the wear of ages than the syenite structures of Egypt, and but few of the hieroglyphics can be deciphered. These remains lend probability to the opinion held by many that Meroe was the birthplace of the arts and sciences, and the cradle of civilisation. On the oth'^r hand, some writers 46 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. trace the civilisation of Meroe to the emigration of the dis- contented warrior caste of Egypt in the reign of Psammeti- chus. Whether Egypt was peopled from Nubia, or Nubia from Egypt, is an unsettled point. It is certain that Ethiopia was a powerful and civilised kingdom in ages very remote, and that no more than a nominal conquest of the kingdom was ever made. Many sovereigns of Ethiopian race, even entire dynasties, ruled over Egypt. While the terrible barrier of its deserts kept Ethiopia secure from invasion without, its capital was open to trade from all parts of the compass. Numerous wells, which might be called artesian, dug in the Libyan sands, attest the existence of a great caravan trade from the centre of Africa. The Meroese also founded Ammonium in the same desert, and their king was priest of Amnion. The temple of this place was, like that of the Hall of Camels at Palmyra, part of a caravanserai, or encampment for traders. It was in an expedition against this city that the army of Cambyses was overwhelmed with sand. Napata, now Merawe, in Dongola, likewise owed its origin to the Meroese, The eastern trade of this great capital reached as far as India. There is a tradition of the existence of a canal which connected the Nile at Meroe with the Red Sea, and formed a great highway of trade. A caravan route across the Arabian desert connected the Red Sea with the Persian Gulf, where, as we have already seen, was a depot of Indian and Asiatic produce. Caravan communication existed likewise with Carthage by way of Great Leptis, and with Egypt. Meroe was therefore one of the chief commercial marts of its day. The kingdom reached its highest prosperity about seven or eight centuries before Christ. In Ethiopia, the Nile, bordered by high banks preventing its overflow, consists of a series of rapids and cataracts which for six hundred miles render it of very little use for navigation. Mountains approach the river closely on each side, and the width of the valley does not in parts exceed ETHIOPIAN NATIONS. 47 seven miles. The southern territory, at the foot of the Abyssinian high lands, is the most humid and fertile. Irri- gation in the arid parts was effected by rude canals. The border tribes lived by ostrich and elephant hunting. Five different nations have been enumerated as inhabiting Ethiopia, viz., the Meroese, the Troglodytes, the Macrobii, the Nubians, and the Egyptian " warrior caste," of whom the first were in every respect the most civilised. They were the husbandmen, merchants, philosophers, priests, and seers, and worshipped Jupiter Ammon, to whom was conse- crated the city of Ammonium in the Desert. History is silent respecting the decline of the Ethiopian kingdom. In the reign of Augustus, B.C. 22, the Romans defeated Candace, queen of Ethiopia, but could not keep possession of the country, and few records are extant of a more recent date. CHAPTER VII. GREECE. Greece proper, in ancient times, occupied about the same area as the modern kingdom. Washed on three sides by the Mediterranean, and its coast deeply indented, every part of the country is within easy reach of the sea, and, though united to the mainland, its character is insular. Off the western coast there is a range of large islands, stretching from Corcyra (Corfu) to Cythera (Cerigo), and on the east lie the Cyclades. The designation of Archi- pelago, first applied to the numerous islands of the ^gean Sea, has since become the common appellation of every insular group. Throughout the peninsula, mountainous barriers separated different communities. The diversity of feature and produce which marked this classic soil was reflected in the Greek character and institutions. We possess no authentic record of the founding of Greece as a nation. In its natural characteristics it was eminently original — a land to which the world is indebted for new thoughts departing from Oriental monotony. Just as repose was the ruling principle in Egypt, so restlessness distinguished Greece. It was composed of a number of states, differing in dialect, laws, and industry ; but all endowed with the love of free- dom and enterprise. Such a people became of necessity colonisers and merchants. No single city of Greece ever contained within itself the wealth of Carthage or Tyre ; but the republic of Athens in its best days attained a prosperity never reached even by Babylon. There are many allusions to the early intimate relations between the Greeks and Phoenicians j and monuments have GREEK COLONIES. 49 been found in Athens itself, with Phoenician inscriptions, commemorating sojourners from Tyre, Sidon, and Citium, one of which may be seen in the British Museum. Phceni- cians opened the Greek mines. They suppUed the Greeks with tin, which came into extensive use ; from the Greeks they obtained poHshed iron, unwrought iron being procured from Carthage. The Greeks, however, soon shook off their dependence on the Phoenicians, and became their keenest commercial rivals. Corinth, Elis, Argos, Messenia, and Attica were the leading commercial states, from which colonists spread over the neighbouring archipelago, and multiplied the marts of trade. Colonisation was a distinctive feature of Greek enterprise and policy, ^olian, Doric, and Ionian settle- ments were founded in Asia Minor, where numerous towns arose, of which Miletus, Ephesus, Smyrna, and Phocea especially, disputed with the Phoenicians the profit of the Eastern and Western traffic. The famous royal caravan track between Sardis and Susa competed with the maritime route for the treasures of Persia, and all the above cities shared in the proceeds. Smyrna was the lovely crown of lona, the ornament of Asia, and Ephesus was celebrated for its riches and splendour. Miletus was scarcely second to Tyre in luxury and wealth. Milesian colonists settled round the Euxine, opened up the traffic of another Mediterranean, founded the first Greek station in Egypt, and established Naucratis on the Nile. Cyrene, in Africa, was like\\ase founded by the Greeks. Marseilles was a settlement of the Phoceans, the inhabitants still fancifully designating themselves by the ancient name. Tarentum, Sybaris, and Croton were the principal to\\ais that sprang up in Magna Grecia ; Syracuse and Agrigentum the chief in Sicily. Patriotism caused the Greeks to ex- tend to their colonies the name of the mother-country, and to call the colonists by the common appellation of Hellenes. in D 50 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. The Greeks, like sea-rovers generally, were first induced to build ships for the sake of plunder, rather than of com- merce. Thucydides graphically pictures the inhabitants of the shores or the isles as people who, having once risked the journey across from one coast to another, grew thievish, and wandering abroad in quest of booty, would fall upon any straggling town, rifle it of everything worth carrying oft', and regard the act as glorious. Bred a race of hardy sailors, and afterwards better engaged in colonisation and peaceful commerce, there arose, distinct from the nobility, a wealthy class, holding property not in lands but in portable goods. They congregated in cities, instituted governments for the protection of life and wealth, and continued trading and accumulating riches. When the necessaries of life had been supplied, a taste for comfort and luxury soon arose. Archi- tecture and sculpture, pottery, and work in the precious metals, attained a perfection since emulated in vain. They devoted themselves also to study and contemplation ; and Greek philosophy has ever since influenced human thought. Athens and Corinth were the chief seats of commerce in Greece proper. Athens possessed three harbours, of which the Pirseus was the most important. A wall, sixty feet high, and wide enough for two chariots to run abreast, encircled the port, which was also united to the city by another double wall, five miles long. Attica did not yield more than half the grain consumed by the Athenians, and corn was, con- sequently, the most important commodity imported. It came from Egypt, Palestine, and Sicily ; but the great gra- nary of Greece was then, as it is now for Europe, the Crimea and the Ukraine. Thrace and Macedonia sent timber ; from Africa came ivory and gold; from Egypt, linen and paper ; while war provided endless consignments of black and white slaves from the outlying parts of Europe and Africa. A trade in furs was carried on with the Scythians north of the Sea of Azov ; and from the same people were ATHENS-CORINTH. 51 procured gold, horses, and skins. Athens monopolised Greek commerce for more than a hundred and fifty years. The chief export trade consisted of wine, oil, figs, wax, and honey, the most fragrant in the world, from Mount Hymettus. Representatives from every mart were to be found in the warehouses of the Piroeus. Olives were most abundant, and the fruit was consecrated to Minerva, in recog- nition of the value of its oil. The entire freedom of trade permitted by the Athenians attracted to their harbour all the choicest productions of the known world, from the snow-clad regions of the north, to the glowing sands of the south. In return, the exquisite creations of Athenian looms, forges, and chisels, went forth to ennoble and refine the manners of mankind. The Athenians lavished their magnificence chiefly on temples and public buildings. Their dwellings were small and externally unornamented. The interiors, however, were sumptuously furnished and decorated. Babylonian tapestries, Thracian pictures and chairs, Carthaginian pillows, Corinthian cushions, and spe- cimens of Athenian art, enriched the apartments. The baths were constructed of marble from Mount Hymettus ; and the dressing-rooms displayed costly fabrics and per- fumed requisites for the toilet A levy was made upon nature for every delicacy of food and wines, with which to spread the table. Chaste jewellery, of the rarest value, adorned the women. The affluence of the state was only subdued in its display by that artistic or poetic perception of harmony which the Greeks evinced from their infancy. As many as ten thousand houses and one hundred thou- sand citizens, with three times that number of slaves, were enumerated when Athens was in its pride. Corinth had the reputation of being the most luxu- rious city in Greece. Its name has come down to us as indicative of profusion. Its position on the isthmus, uniting the peninsula now called the Morea to the mainland, gave it two harbours, and thus enabled it to command the sea, 52 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. both to\yards Italy and Asia Minor. Corinth did not attain eminence so soon as Athens, but kept it longer. It was a powerful city, as remarkable for its manufactures as its trade, being especially celebrated for metal-work and porce- lain. The order of architecture named from the city shows that Corinthian art had reached great perfection. The Romans described the place as containing more statues than any city they had ever taken ; and there is a story that during the conflagration which followed its capture, streams of silver and other metals became commingled in the streets to such an extent as to originate a new commercial product, afterwards called Corinthian metal.* Many of the Greek settlements emulated Tyre in com- merce and opulence. Byzantium was so happily situated, that, as Hallam observes, its site was selected, by the Greek colonisers, with a sagacity to which the course of events has given the appearance of prescience. Seated on the confines of Europe and Asia, it links the two shores of the Bosphorus rather than belongs to either. Com- manding the Euxine, and the terminus of the grand caravan system, the chief line of which was between Sardis and Susa, it became the entrepot of the known world. Corn and skins from the Ukraine, furs from Siberia, slaves from Circassia, salt fish, honey, wax, and fat cattle, were obtained in return for oil and wine. Even in those primitive days, the Crimea and Southern Russia had become the granaries of more civilised nations, and for the promotion of the trade the Greeks built towns of wood along the shores of the Euxine. Byzantium was placed by its caravan trade in communication with the Ganges and China, whence its * This origin of "Corinth bronze" is on the face of it fabulous. The promiscuous fusion and intermixture of metals, as described, would not have produced a homogeneous alloy so renowned, nor would the secret of malcing it have been so completely lost. The Corinthians were indeed long before as skilful in melting together gold, silver, copper, and other substances, to produce their famous composition, as they were in transforming it into the purest style of vases and other forms of grace and beauty. CRETE-Cl'PRUS. 53 bazaars were filled with silk fabrics, pearls and gems, spices and balsams, ivory and gold, cotton and linen goods, and Indian wares. The commodities sent in exchange consisted of red coral and amber, dredged from the Mediterranean coasts, glass and metal w^ork. Under the name of Byzan- tium, the city flourished for a thousand years (B.C. 658 to A.D. 330). It was alternately held during the Peloponnesian wars by the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, and after the expulsion of the latter (b.c. 390) by Thrasybulus, it remained for some time independent. The Macedonians were after- wards masters of the city. Severus (a.d. 196) took it after a three years' siege, and razed a large part of it to the ground. Constantine (a.d. 330) rebuilt it, called it after his owTi name, and removed thither the seat of empire from Rome. The island of Crete for a considerable period possessed an extensive commerce, and is reported to have contained a hundred cities ; but it declined, and fell into decay. The common proverb declared that the " Cretans were always liars," a character inconsistent with sound commercial suc- cess. The coveting of Cyprus, which may be seen from Phoenicia, was probably the first stimulus to the Mediter- ranean traffic. Rhodes, like Crete and Cyprus, owed to its excellent position a commerce out of all proportion to its natural resources. The climate of this island was very fine, and its soil produced excellent wines. A statue of Apollo, called the Colossus of Rhodes, is said to have bestridden the mouth of the harbour, bearing in its out- stretched hand a beacon light. There were three hun- dred and twenty tons of brass used in its construction, which took twelve years to complete; it stood seventy cubits or one hundred and five feet high. The Colossus was shattered by an earthquake, B.C. 224, after standing fifty-six years. Fragments of it remained where it fell for nearly a thousand years, when they were removed, 54 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. on nine hundred camels, by a Jew, who bought them of one of the generals of Caliph Othman. Rhodes rose from its ruins, and, till the Romans destroyed its freedom, continued to be the chief carrier of the Levant. To Rhodes we are probably indebted for the foundation of maritime law, and for the system of marine insurance. Miletus, the queen of Asiatic Greece, standing near the mouth of the river Meander, boasted of eighty colonies. Its mariners, in order to extend its commerce, ventured beyond the Pillars of Hercules ; but its chief settlements were in the Black Sea. It possessed immense flocks, and was noted for its woollen fabrics. It was the emporium for Lydia and Phrygia, and from it the products of these districts were dis- tributed abroad. The city, after offering a vain resistance, was left in ruins by Alexander the Great. Colonists from Corinth founded Syracuse, which eventu- ally became the capital of Sicily. It was one of the most famous Greek colonies, and its wealth and grandeur were based, as in the parent state, upon commerce. When most prosperous it had a circuit of twenty-two miles, and the splendour of its edifices, built of stone quarried in the neighbourhood, was not surpassed even by that of Car- thage. The Athenians and Carthaginians in turn besieged the city, but each met with a disastrous repulse. Syracuse is celebrated as having been the abode of Archimedes, who for more than two years, by his mechanical devices, aided his fellow-citizens in withstanding the Romans. After its capture by Marcellus, in 212 B.C., Syracuse became the chief town of the Roman province of Sicily. Greece, as a Roman province, retained the supremacy of trade. To Greek teachers the Romans owed almost every- thing in literature and philosophy. They entertained no such fear of the Greeks as they had of the Carthaginians, on the score of military rivalry ; and their policy was, there- fore, simply that of conquest, not annihilation. We are now in a position to consider the benefits which GRECIAN INDUSTRY— PHILOSOPHERS. 55 were conferred on the world at large by the commerce and refinements of the Greeks, In this investigation our interest centres in Athens. Spartan pride and roughness must be passed by. The contempt for industry, and the want of sound economy, exliibited in the laws of Lycurgus, might make a state feared, but could not make it truly great or lasting. Baron Liebig says : — " The source of wealth, trade, and power of the Grecian states, when the latter were in their prime, was a highly-developed and widely-spread in- dustry. Corinth produced what would correspond to Bir- mingham and Sheffield wares ; Athens was the centre of the manufactures which we now find divided between Leeds, Staffordshire, and London, such as woollen cloths, dyes, pottery, gold and silver utensils, and ships. The citizens were manufacturers on the largest scale — ship-owners and merchants, who had their offices and factories along the whole coasts of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The men of science were the sons of the citizens, and thus became familiar with trade, manufacture, and commerce. Thales was a trader in oil, Socrates was a stonemason, Aristotle an apothecary ; Plato and Solon were not strangers to trade. In ancient Greece the learned man spoke the same language as the tradesman. The mind of the latter had been as highly cultivated as that of the philosoj^her, the difference between them consisting only in the direction of their knowledge. Democratic institutions frequently brought them into personal intercourse. In fact, the thirty-eight chapters of ' Problems ' appear to be no other than a series of questions from tradesmen, artists, musicians, architects, and engineers, which Aristotle endeavoured to solve, as far as his knowledge enabled him to do. Until the time of Pericles, no other country of the ancient world united the necessary conditions for the rise of science as they were found in Greece, owing to its social state and to the inti- mate relationship that existed between the productive and intellectual classes. But Greece ivas a slave state, and in 56 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. slavery lay the ban which contracted its civilisation within fixed limits that cot/Id Jiot he extended.''^ Servile labour en- feebled the Greek republics, and, with political vanity which followed upon wealth and power, undermined the mecha- nical arts, made free industry sink in public estimation, and trade to languish. Expenditure increased as production diminished, thrift and zeal gave place to profusion, while political embarrassment and domestic want provoked attacks upon the dealers in corn. We owe to Greece the invention of coinage. Iron tokens, to which an artificial value was affixed, were used in Sparta ; brass coins were used in other states. Athens from the first issued gold and silver coins, the standard of value being so carefully maintained that they passed current without question in every state. Licences to follow certain trades originated in Athens, and laws were made to discourage usury. Debtors were severely dealt with. Deliberate fraud was punished with death, and bankrupts were sold and kept in bondage, till they had saved enough to redeem them- selves, Plato was in danger of being thus enslaved for debt, but his friends ransomed him. A public register of debts was kept. We must not forget, however, that our own laAvs not long ago punished forgery and even more venial crimes with death, and caused debtors to be impri- soned for life, without giving them the chance of labouring for their redemption. To Corinth we owe the appointment of consuls at mercantile ports. The consuls were merchants who knew the manners and customs of the people with whom their countrymen had commercial dealings, and who could be relied on to arbitrate justly when disputes or mis- understandings arose. Alexander the Great combined with his love of conquest a desire to make Greek trade universal. He planned the conquest of the East and Carthage, of Italy and Western ]'"urope, a group of states of which his native land would be the centre, and Babylon the great Asiatic emporium. His ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 57 career, though cut short at an early age, nevertheless con- tributed partially to bring about this result; inasmuch as through the Greek garrisons settling in the places where they were stationed, the language of Greece became widely diffused, and a strong desire arose for commercial inter- course. CHAPTER VIII. PART I.— ROME. For a thousand years the Romans made conquest their policy. They were essentially a martial people. Warfare, however, is destructive of the means of subsistence. While, therefore, we inquire into the industry and commerce of the Romans, with the view of ascertaining how much of our present prosperity is due to them, there is also, on the other side, the question of how much has been lost by the re- pression or destruction of the genius and individuality of nations, of which they were the guilty cause. The patriotic spirit which leads men to die for their country lost its force in a common subjection to Rome. The sentiment of devo- tion could not be strong, when the only tie uniting the provinces to the capital was that of subjugation and tribute. The fall of Rome left every European state denationalised, and a spurious civilisation was followed by centuries of bar- barism. While the Roman territories were small — as late, indeed, as the time of Alexander — agriculture was honoured, and the rulers of the state tilled their own lands. When the wealth of Rome increased by conquest, the cultivation of the land, and the manufactures in connection therewith, were made servile occupations, so that the poor citizens who would have been skilled labourers had there been no slaves, became state-fed paupers ready for every political commotion. In the works of Roman writers there are allusions which prove that the Roman citizens did not despise the profits of commerce, and that when even a senator could engage, though illegally and under a feigned name, in the slave or corn traffic, or ROME, A DEPOT. 59 turn the skill of his slaves to account, his aversion to the occupation was overcome. Crassus and Cato in this manner gained much of their wealth. Rome, as the capital of the world, the centre to which tribute converged through a thousand channels, disposed of this revenue in a profuse and sumptuous luxury, without parallel either before or since. Denied natural resources for interchange, there poured in continuous streams of commodities both by land and sea, for which the tribute from the provinces and the plunder accruing from conquest afforded means of payment. While the Roman citizens thus consumed the wealth brought to their city, foreign merchants made it a cosmopohtan mart or clearing-house for a fresh dispersion of the products of the Alexandrian trade, the traffic with China and India, the Scythian fur trade, and the trade with Africa, Spain, and Gaul, The productions of every clime were thus brought to Rome, " the gate- keeper of the world," and her merchants enjoyed the ad- vantages of universal commerce without the expenditure of time and money required for extensive travel. Amongst the middle classes, in the early age of simple wants, a merchant's guild was instituted, but was not held in honour. The fruit and corn dealers took prominent places in the home trade ; smiths and carpenters formed a centuria to themselves, and tanners and cordwainers were thriving handicraftsmen. Weaving and dyeing were subse- quently added to the limited list of manufacturing indus- tries. The facilities aftbrded for interchange were purely political. The capital was never anything else than a depot, importing everything, and exporting no produce of its own. Thus corn arrived from Sicily, Sardinia, and Egypt ; amber from the Baltic ; fine cloths from Malta and Mauritania ; silks, spices, and gems, by caravan from the Indies. The produce of the soil, the mines and the industry of every province, as well as costly works of taste and of genius, were at the command of a prodigal aristocracy and wealthy 6o THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. citizens, of victorious generals and of provincial governors, who returned to squander the treasures they had amassed by official avarice and extortion. The revenue that poured into the treasury was prodigious. The private fortunes of some of the citizens exceeded the wealth of many modern kingdoms. Roman profusion was copied in other cities. The disinterment of Pompeii and Herculaneum from their graves of Vesuvian ashes and lava has disclosed the splendid decoration common in the apartments of the wealthy. The exteriors of the houses were plain, but the interiors astonish us with their adornments. In one house a mosaic consisted of nearly a million and a half of separate pieces in one hun- dred and ninety-eight squares, upon which are depicted, of the size and colours of life, twenty-six warriors, representing the battle of Issus between Alexander and Darius. Two edifices are of special interest as having belonged to the illustrious Caius Sallustius and Marcus Arius Diomedes. The dwellings corresponded in their fashion and appoint- ments to those of Rome, but did not equal the latter in their sumptuous proportions. Pompeian baths, temples, and public buildings, also, scarcely vied with the mag- nificent structures of Rome. It was a saying of Crassus that " no one was rich who could not support an army " — he himself being worth a million and a half sterling in landed property alone. Scaurus, the step-son of Sylla, built an amphitheatre capable of accommodating eighty thousand spectators. It was supported by three hundred and sixty costly marble, glass, and gilt pillars, and beautified with three thousand statues ; even by such profuse expenditure as this, he was unable to dissipate the enormous fortune bequeathed to him by his father. Though the Roman houses were comparatively small, yet the sums lavished upon their construction and furniture altogether transcend modern notions of costliness, A single table, according to Pliny, was often valued at a price ex- ceeding that of the spoils of a city. Caesar states that the ROMAN VOLUPTUOUSNESS. 6 1 house of Clodius the tribune cost ;!^i 20,000. The suburban and country villas likewise afford examples of Roman luxury. Baths covered immense areas. Ponds for fish and eels — of which the Romans were very fond — aviaries for birds, extensive parks for game, and gardens for the choicest fruits, were regarded as necessaries. Within doors were rooms for every division of the day and every season of the year. Voluptuousness reached its highest extravagance during the time of the emperors. To the taste for profusion was added that for the rare delicacies of the table. Pyramids of fowl and game, Trojan horses (wild boars filled with a variety of small game), peacocks, cranes, and nightingales, appeared at the dinners of the great. ** If a man will eat daintily," a writer of the period observes, " he must indulge in Samian peacocks, Phrygian fowls, Melian cranes, ^tolian kids, Chalcedonian porpoises, Tarentine oysters, Chian mussels, Egyptian dates, Spanish acorns, murenae or sea-eels from Tarshish, pikes from Pessinus, sea-fish from Rhodes.'' Mark Antony served up eight whole boars to twelve guests. Caligula wantonly dissolved pearls in vinegar as part of the fare at his feasts. Thousands of peacocks and nightingales were killed for their brains alone. Vitellius and Heliogabalus are to this day held up as the types of gluttony. Lucullus, a more refined epicure, dedicated his saloons to certain gods, and affixed a scale of entertainment to each apartment. When acting as the host of his friends, Pompey and Csesar, he directed his servants to furnish an extemporaneous supper in the room Apollo, and explained to his guests, when they were astonished at its magnifi- cence, that it was the rule of his house to spend ;^i,5oo upon every banquet in that apartment. The extravagance in dress corresponded with that in eating. Lucullus lent a hundred purple robes, and offered two hundred for the actors in some public games. It is related of the Roman Apicius, that when by senseless 62 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. extravagance he had reduced his patrimony to the last ^^80,000, he put an end to his Ufe as the only means of escaping destitution. Caesar, when starting to ad- minister the government of Spain, was arrested by his creditors for a debt of a million and a half sterling ; nor would they allow him to set out till Crassus became his surety. A short tenure of office, however, enabled Caesar not only to pay his debts, but to use a still larger sum in purchasing popularity at Rome. Mark Antony out-dis- tanced all these examples. In a few years of his adminis- tration of the states of Asia Minor it is said that he appropriated about forty millions sterling of taxes, and then made the people pay the same amount as before twice a year instead of once. Roman domination was unfavourable to commerce : the productive resources of the earth declined as it became Romanised. The Romans were, however, too sagacious to rest satisfied with barren conquests. Though unwilling to labour, they stimulated industry to a certain degree in every country that came under their sway. They removed the sense of subjugation by enrolling the conquered people as part and parcel of the empire. They made roads and bridges, they built cities and aqueducts, and brought the soil into cultivation. They encouraged the arts and sciences of the Greeks, and extended their own civilisation to many other countries. The Romans, likewise, in obtaining the supremacy of the world, put an end to the incessant petty warfare between rival states, and established an unrestricted trade and a community of interests in all their provinces. Their chief service to commerce was that of rendering in- tercommunication everywhere easy and safe. Their great works in road-making spread over every province, from Britain to the Euphrates. So broad and solid were many of these roads that parts still remain entire. Watling Street in our own country is an example. This road led from the Kentish coast through London to Carnarvon, and is still ROMAN BANKS— CONSTANTINOPLE. fiT, one of the best English roads. After good roads followed the system of posts or stages, by which couriers in the service of the emperors could change horses — a plan said to have been first used by Cyrus. The post only conveyed public despatches. Our monetary and banking systems have both been founded on Roman practices. The J[^ s. d. of accounts are the initials of librce, solidi, and denarii — Latin terms applied to the metals used as media of exchange, whether by weight or coinage. There were in Rome government banks, private banks, and loan banks. A prevalent prejudice against receiving interest for money lent caused the private bankers to be but little esteemed; but the government banks were managed by men of high position. Loan banks lent money on land and other property, for a certain term, without interest. Constantine rebuilt Byzantium a.d. 330, named the city after himself, and made it the seat of his power ; but the Eternal City could not be thus easily stripped of its metro- politan rank. The removal of the capital led ere long to the division of the Roman world into the Eastern and Western Empires. Constantinople became the centre of a power Greek in character, Roman in name. We have seen how, after the conquest of Carthage, Greece, Egypt, and the East, Rome was flooded with ill- gotten wealth. The citizens made display the chief aim of existence ; rank became mere tinsel, and outward pros- perity a hollow mask. At length southern and western Europe were overrun by tribes of barbarians who trampled in the dust the power of Rome. The downfall of the Western Empire marks an epoch in political and com- mercial history. The relation between the different nations entirely changed at this period. It is the historian's line of demarcation between ancient history and that of the Middle Ages. 64 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. PART 11. —E TR URIA . Etruria (the modem Tuscany), a great and civilised nation before the building of Rome, is an example of a powerful country whose literature is lost, and whose lan- guage is extinct, and almost undecipherable. Its history, like that of Carthage, can therefore be gleaned only from references in the writings of its foes; and its refinement, from its buried works of art. By the Romans its people were called Etruscans ; by the Greeks, Tyrrhenians. Amongst themselves they went by the name of Rasanse. The accounts of their origin are purely speculative, for their language, the surest guide in such inquiries, cannot be employed to help research. There are a few indications of Asiatic origin ; mingled, however, with evidences of a mixture of races, in which the Umbrian appears predominant. In the infancy of Rome the Etruscans had extended their power from the base of the Alps to the Gulf of Taranto ; and, when pressed back by hostile neighbours, they were still a flourishing and powerful people within Etruria proper. After a long struggle for their independ- ence, they were compelled to yield to the rising power of Rome. In course of time they were enfranchised, when they soon dropped their language, and merged their nationality in the common character of Roman citizens. Etruria was remarkable for its fertility. The soil yielded rich harvests of corn, wine, oil, and flax. Its maritime position gave the people the command of a great sweep of the Mediterranean, called after them the Tyrrhene Sea. The natural resources of the country provided in abundance materials for ship-building, the Apennines having their slopes clothed with timber, and their flax furnishing textures for sails. These advantages made commerce a natural development of Etruscan life. The inhabitants regarded themselves as exclusive masters of the Mediterranean, and were hostile to every nation disputing with them the rights ETRUSCAN CHARACTER-WORKS OF ART. 65 of trade in its waters. The Greek colonists in Sicily, united under command of Hiero, tyrant or ruler of Syracuse, met the Etruscan fleet in battle, and defeated it, 464 B.C. Enmities thus aroused being not lightly appeased, the Etruscans for a century afterwards repeatedly made war against the Syracusans and other Sicilian Greeks. The Etruscans enriched themselves by husbandry and cattle-rearing, as well as by their piracy and trade. Corn was sent to Rome almost as soon as that city was founded. The people grew luxurious. They became fond of high living and sumptuous entertainments, drank out of silver cups, and wore costly embroidered garments. The Roman satirists called them corpulent gluttons, and Virgil charged them ^vith being addicted to all kinds of sensual pleasures. Nevertheless, the Romans borrowed many of their institutions, and sent the young nobility to them for instruction. Art and science were cultivated, and religion mingled in all affairs, domestic and national. Their mythology comprised the two classes of the Shrouded Deities, never revealing themselves to mankind, and the Subject Gods of a lower rank. The chief ports were Pisa, Populonium, Caere, Hadria on the coast south of the Po, and Spina. To these ports were brought frankincense for use in sacrifice, ivory, and the precious metals for manufac- tures. The Etruscans were noted for all kinds of work in silver, gold, and other metals. Their pottery was in request in every part of Italy. The exquisite vases, found in so many of their tombs, appear, however, to have been the work of Greek colonists. The Etruscans, skilled in painting, sculpture, and architecture, were employed upon Roman buildings, and taught the Romans the use of the arch. The still extant figures of the She-Wolf and of the Orator are often regarded as masterpieces of bronze statuary, though some critics refer these works to Greek artists. Etruscan candelabra, of the same material, were prized by the Athenians as early as the age of Pericles. HI E CHAPTER IX. SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT COMMERCE. By careful examination and comparison of the facts of his- tory, we arrive at certain conclusions relative to the rise, development, and Hmits of the commerce of the Oriental- Phoenician and the Grsco-Roman world, and are enabled thence to infer how far ancient principles and influences have moulded modern progress and civilisation. Commerce, whether regarded as rising from the well-watered regions of Cathay, from the plains of Shinar, or from the Delta of the Nile, pursued its beneficent course westward until it rested and centred in Rome. Bactria, the medium of communi- cation between the remote East and Chaldea, appears in the earliest records of commercial intercourse as already en- riched by the treasures of India and China in transit to the more magnificent empires of Assyria and Babylon. The varied means of industrial intercourse — by river- valley, overland, maritime, and oceanic — were primarily utilised by the Phoenicians, whose expeditions, radiating to all the cardinal points, made their nation the first possessors of universal commerce as well as of the chief sites of trade and industry. Once familiar with the open sea, the Phoe- nician traftic took advantage of the monsoons for the Indian voyage, skimmed the Mediterranean, and brought the arts of trade to the Greeks. Land and river traffic, the prevailing, although expensive mode of transport in Jewish and other hands, soon fell comparatively into disuse, except in so far as they formed links in the chain of more extensive maritime commerce. During the Grseco-Roman period Carthage appeared, C ARTH AGE-ALEX Ah'DRI A— BYZANTIUM. 67 inheriting both the virtues and the vices of its Phoenician parentage. Its great opportunity came when the supremacy of Phoenicia ceased after the Persian war. In hke manner, its dechne is to be dated from the estabHshment of Alex- andria as its rival. There seems to have been in the mind of Alexander the project of a universal commercial empire, of which he himself should be the chief potentate, Greece the centre, Babylon the grand emporium, and the deltas of the Indus and the Nile the outlets. It would be vain to speculate upon the merits of a scheme, the realisation of which might have altered the world's destiny, but which was dependent primarily upon unvarying military success, and even more upon a Hfe early and abruptly cut off. An integral part of Phoenician, Greek, and Carthaginian com- merce was their systematised intercourse, which extended the number of civilised cities, or the depots of trade, and formed the models of modem colonisation. Eventually the whole of this trade was absorbed by Rome, whose disdain of peaceful industry was not wholly counteracted by the ex- cellence of the imperial roads, and other facilities for transport. With the disruption of the Western Empire Oriental trade was confined to Asia, whilst in Europe, during the migrations of the Germanic races, Byzantium alone retained some degree of vitality, and with it the germs of a new growth. The commercial world of the ancients, at the time of its greatest extension, was but an irregular zone between 10^ and 45° N. lat. Southern Europe was cut off from the unknown North by the Alps and their connected chains, be- tween which and the deeply indented coast of the Mediterra- nean, was a range of territory so narrow and confined that the climate and resources were nearly similar throughout, thus diminishing the necessity for interchange. Beyond these bounds tin and yellow amber were nearly the only com- modities procured from the outer barbarians, whose know- ledge of the resources of their country did not exceed that 68 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. of the means of supplying their mere animal wants, or of the existence of minerals found near the surface; and whose notions of luxury were confined to glass beads and trinkets. The list of the staples of exchange was not less circumscribed than was the geographical area from which they were drawn. Half the food substances of the moderns were unknown. Flesh, fish, milk, cheese, honey, bread, vegetables, oil, and wine, exhausted the choice of food of the Greeks and Romans. Most of these commodities were too bulky and perishable for the freightage of long caravan journeys, and the ships of the time were too small to carry such cargoes with profit, unless for short voyages. Hence we cannot conceive of any extensive commerce springing up except in union with Asia. Oriental produc- tions were the luxuries of Europe. The Asiatics, though passive and incurious, were always ready to accept the profit brought to them. When this union was severed, commerce disappeared from Europe. By the concurrent practice of all the nations of antiquity religion and trade were made mutually subservient. The name of every great commercial centre, from the far East westwards, such as Balkh, Babylon, Baalbek, Tyre, Memphis, Alexandria, Carthage, Athens, Rome, is associated with celebrated temples, and less important depots were severally presided over by their tutelary deities. Many devotees were thus, by the profits of business, enabled to perform pilgrimages which otherwise would have been quite out of their power ; while traders on the same route were con- tinually reminded of higher duties than buying and selling. So also fairs, attracting merchants from all quarters, were held in connection with sacred festivals. The Isthmian and Olympian Games were of this character. Our modern system of banking was foreshadowed and initiated by the money-changers, who made the temples of old their business resorts. A history in common appertains to the decay of the great DECAY OF THE GREAT CITIES— ITS CAUSES. 69 commercial cities of antiquity. In their infancy, trade, pursued with enterprise and diligence, brought wealth to the state, and the people acquired a taste for luxury and dis- play. An age of indulgence and splendour set in. The desire for wealth grew with its possession. " Crescit amor nummi quantum ipsa pecunia crescit." A spirit of aggran- disement was evoked, and for a time might carried all before it. A false sense of security resulted from military success, and licentious profusion took the place of early simplicity. Nineveh, Babylon, Palmyra, Tyre, Meroe, Memphis, Thebes, Alexandria, Carthage, Athens, Corinth, Rome, rose to an extraordinary pitch of greatness, and then fell in- gloriously. The proximate cause of the ruin of the great cities was conquest. They dragged down with them in their fall many dependent cities, by the diversion of trade from its accus- tomed routes, or by its local annihilation. There is not left one town worthy to represent the glories of antiquity — teeming populations and wealth have alike disappeared. Nature has reclaimed the regions where human life was once so active. The garden has again become a wilderness. The sands of the desert cover the ruins of the capitals of once powerful empires. Over the gigantic monuments which their genius reared the sea now rolls, and pestilent marshes occupy the places where formerly waved the golden grain of their harvest-fields. The contrast between these cities in their prosperity and their desolation is so striking, that we naturally search for the hidden agents of change — for conquest was only an outward cause — so long working to effect the mighty revolution. Commerce, in itself, had no destructive tendency, nor could wealth, the fruit of commerce, be charged with their ruin. Decline, on the contrary, followed the loss of wealth. The possession of wealth did not necessitate its misuse, for it might as readily have been consecrated to great and noble purposes as desecrated by profusion and vice. 70 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. More than once these cities fell a prey to force, yet their vitality remained undestroyed, and they rose again to wealth and consideration, after having been razed to the ground. Babylon was successively conquered by the Assyrians, Chal- deans, Persians, Macedonians, and Romans. Egyptian commerce survived the Persian conquest. Let us not, then, blame commerce and opulence for results which arose from ill-directed human passions. Con- quest was the proximate, not the ultimate, cause of the ruin of the great cities and empires of antiquity. Although their downfall was sometimes accelerated by the ambition or incapacity of rulers, yet the germs of decay were to be found in the sloth, self-indulgence, and venahty exhibited long before among all classes of the community. In the days of old, as now, nations were impoverished or flourishing in the ratio of their obedience to moral law. Two of the main economic errors of the ancients were the prevalence of slavery and the employment of mercenaries for defence. A consequence of the second error was the de- crease of patriotism and the loss of nationality. Commerce began to forsake its sites as fast as industry and morality fled, and Greece and Carthage were prepared for submission long ere they fell before the Roman legions. Mere physical courage did not fail, for its practice was ever called for in mercantile pursuits, and was stimulated by having property to lose. Tyre withstood Nebuchad- nezzar for thirteen years, and New Tyre withstood Alexander for seven months, while Rome was more than a century in finally subduing Carthage. // was the insph-ation of loyalty that was lacking. Rome, whose wealth was not commercial, but extorted by force from its producers, was impoverished without remedy when that force no longer existed, and succumbed with ignominy to barbarian hordes whom the army in its prime would have easily repulsed. So utter was the ruin that the neighbourhood of the imperial city has since remained a scene of desolation, almost as lyAH A CAUSE OP COMMERCIAL DECAY. 71 dreary as the valley of the Jordan, and as silent as the Sahara, while the blight of the evil air, *' malaria," or fever scourge, has been a perennial warning to settlers. The disturbances of traffic by war led to the opening of new routes of trade, which were chiefly maritime. Thus the destruction of Tyre sent trade to Alexandria, Indian commodities coming by way of the Red Sea. The policy of the conquerors also sometimes crippled, diverted, or destroyed trade, as when the Persians became masters of Babylon. Alternations of industry and war, of production and destruction, being unfavourable to commerce, the cara- vans decreased in number, or sought new routes, and the merchant cities declined. When the means of subsistence were thus lessened or cut off, the population diminished, and fertile territories, once wrested, foot by foot, by human labour from the ban-en desert, resumed their sterility. The transformations brought about respectively by indus- try and neglect are the most startling and instructive con- trasts amongst the facts bequeathed by antiquity. Nineveh, Babylon, Palmyra, sprang into existence and reached such a pitch of grandeur that two thousand years have not sufficed to obliterate their ruins. Alexandria leapt into commercial life, conceived and royally constructed by one and the same mind. Although commerce has revived, there has never been a tendency, with the partial exception of Alexandria, to make the ruined sites of antiquity again its emporiums. Are we, then, to conclude that commerce must pass through the stages of birth, maturity, and decay? Will modem commerce thus die out, and British pre-eminence, scarce a century old, become extinct ? These problems, called forth by the phenomena of the ancient world, can only be solved by induction from the experience of later ages. One vital lesson stands out in bold relief upon the rolls of ancient history, and is repeated through all time. It is that human well-being is founded primarily upon labour, and is increased just in proportion as skill and intelligence 72 THE GROWTH AA'D VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. devise new means of making that labour productive. Where industry was apphed cities were reared, and the deserts around, transformed into green oases, furnished enough and to spare for the needs of commerce. Then, as now, where there were no canals for irrigation, no reservoirs to receive the water from the melting of the snows on the table-lands, the failure of the rains brought to the pastoral people famine, intensified by want of forage for their cattle; pestilence followed in its wake, until the calmness of death and depopulation settled down upon a " God-forsaken country." Then, as now, the Almighty was profanely charged with singling out each country in turn for the visitation of his wrath. Another lesson from the Past is that no nation can maintain its greatness, or escape decay and death, if the springs of life become poisoned by frivolity and vice. We learn from " the land of the cypress and myrtle " that gifts of intellect and taste cannot avert ruin when moral earnestness has been lost ; from " Imperial Rome " that no genius for war or government, no vastness of empire or pomp of state, can sustahi the social life of a people aban- doned to lawless vice. PART II. MEDIEVAL COMMERCE. CHAPTER I. NATIONS OF THE MIDDLE AGES, I.— THE BYZANTINE OR EASTERN ROMAN EMPIRE. When Byzantium became the capital of the Eastern Empire, Constantine lavished enormous sums in the eftbrt to make it equal the glories of Rome. In imitation of the Seven Hills of the Eternal City, its boundaries were enlarged, so as to include five hills besides the two already embraced. The natural grandeur of the site, however, could not be improved by art. The Bosphorus is a deep, tideless water, and its harbour, the Golden Horn, is eminently fitted for ships of all sizes. Gibbon thus delineates the natural advantages enjoyed by Constantinople as a mart of exchange : — " When the gates of the Hellespont and Bosphorus were shut, the capital still enjoyed within its spacious enclosure every production which could supply the wants or gratify the luxury of its numerous inhabitants. " The sea-coast of Thrace and Bith}Tiia, which languish under the weight of Turkish oppression, still exhibit a rich prospect of vineyards, of gardens, and of plentiful harvests, and the Propontis has ever been renowned for a plentiful store of the most exquisite fish, that are taken in their stated seasons without skill and almost Avithout labour ; but 74 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. when the passages of the straits were thrown open for trade, they alternately admitted the natural and artificial riches of the North and South, of the Euxine and of the Mediter- ranean. Whatever rude commodities were collected in the forests of Germany or Scythia, as far as the sources of the Tanais and the Borysthenes ; whatever was manufactured by the skill of Europe or Asia ; the corn of Egypt, and the gems and spices of the furthest India, were brought by the varying winds to the port of Constantinople, which for many ages attracted the commerce of the ancient world." The Byzantine empire, after the destruction of Rome, bridged over the interval between the old and the new civilisations. Constantinople, safe from the hordes which had darkened Europe, retained many of the traditions of Rome, and kept up a commercial intercourse with the coun- tries of the East, and mainly by her instrumentality the restoration of art and science was effected. In the reign of Justinian (527 — 565) industry and com- merce received from a foreign source an impulse, the influ- ence of which has spread more and more in succeeding ages. This was the introduction of the silkworm. For many centuries silk was thought to be a vegetable down, like cotton, its true origin having been jealously concealed from the merchants. Two missionaries returning from China concealed in a cane some silkworms' eggs, which they brought to Constantinople. Worms from these eggs were distributed throughout the Byzantine empire. Cyprus and Sicily soon produced great numbers, and the Peloponnesus became known as the Morea from the white mulberry trees which began to be abundantly cultivated. Byzantine trade with India was at first carried on through Egypt, the Persians intercepting the direct overland traffic, until the Euphrates valley v/as once more opened to caravans. Syria and Mesopotamia were subdued by the Caliph Omar, who built the town of Bassora ; yet few goods reached Con- stantinople, for the empire was nearly always at war with the TRADE OF CO.XSTAMTIXOPLE—THE AVARS. 75 Arabs. When the Moslems took Alexandria, the communi- cation by way of Egypt was cut off, as the Christian states would enter into no dealings with the infidels. Such, how- ever, was the desire for Indian commodities, that a route was opened by way of the Greek settlements on the Black Sea and Independent Tartary ; and for two hundred years the products of India and China reached Constantinople almost exclusively by this circuitous course. Each gene- ration improved the commerce of the IMediterranean coasts, and an active trade arose between the Greek empire and Spain, Africa, and the Republics of Italy. Byzantine commerce during Justinian's reign comprised Egyptian silks and half-silks, raw silks, linen, and flax ; sweet wines and fruits — especially dates and figs — sugar, cassia, and drugs ; Indian spices, cloves, nutmegs, mace, cinnamon, galanga root, and large quantities of pepper. Precious stones, perfumes, and horses also came from India. Silver was imported by the Genoese, probably from Spain ; while the Pisanese introduced woollen stuffs, scarlet, and fustian. Few of the exports were native produce, for Con- stantinople was an emporium rather than a manufacturing city. Grecian velvets, other silk stufts, cotton cloths, linen, and wool ; nuts, saffron, oil, timber, pitch, honey ; gold, silver, mercur}^, copper, iron, tin, lead, weapons, and slaves are enumerated. Restrictive laws led to an illicit trade in some varieties of goods, of which purple state-robes were an example, their export being prohibited. The commercial vigour of the ancient Greeks never distinguished their Byzantine posterity. The land trade of Constantinople was carried on with no great activity. The Avars, a nation of conquerors inhabiting the provinces of the Danube, from Upper Hungary to the Inn, had the management of the Western land traffic. They were the carriers of goods, some of which eventually reached the most northern kingdoms of Europe, but by the middle of the ninth century their name was extinct ; the bearers of it, 76 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. of Asiatic or Turkish origin, being treated as barbarous intruders both by the Germans on the west and the Slavonians on the east, are said to have been wholly exter- minated. There is an old Russian proverb to the effect, " They are gone like the Avars, man and child." For two centuries the Bulgarians carried on the trade between Constantinople and Germany, till disputes arose between them and the Greeks, who were at first defeated in the fierce encounters that ensued ; but the Bulgarians were at length subdued by the Emperor Basil, in 1018. The Bulgarian movements, as well as those of the Slavonians of Moravia, were in a gi^eat measure determined by those of the Hungarians, who, emigrating into Europe from the back of the Ural mountains in the ninth century, took possession of the plain of the Danube, and established there a kingdom which still preserves in its name (Hungary) and that of its people (Magyars) the memory of its founders. The Ungrians made Semlin in Hungary the depot of the international transport trade. They took upon themselves the conduct of the traffic throughout, built factories, and established agencies in the capital, where Stephen I., who died in 1038, erected for their encouragement a splendid place of worship, Hungary flourished in every town because of the rich profits of their extensive business as carriers and brokers. This Western land traffic waned, and in the end disappeared, before the rising maritime commerce of Venice, Genoa, and other Italian republics. The commodities which specially dis- tinguished the Western trade consisted of raw produce, manufactures, and works of art ; Greek artistic work ; olives, saffron, and hazel nuts ; oil, liquorice, raw silk, silk and mixed stuffs ; purple and priestly robes ; gold dust and Eastern spices ; pepper, ginger, cloves, nutmegs, galanga root, and anise-seed. Sword belts bound with brass and copper were sent by sea to the West, and in the land traffic Constantinople received overland from Germany Wendish slaves or serfs ; from Bohemia and Moravia, weapons of DECAY OF BYZANTINE COMMERCE— THE CRUSADES. 77 ancient German manufacture ; Avooden tools and saddles from the Low Countries ; woollen and linen, principally of Friesland make, and metals, from Transylvania and Hungary. During a part only of this period could Byzantine com- merce take the old Chaldean road to India. Obstructed by Persia and by continual contentions with the Arabs, the route through Independent Tartary was made use of. Byzantine commerce both by land and sea at length lost all its importance, and fell almost entirely into the hands of the Italians. IT.— LATER MARITIME TRADE. The decay of the Byzantine trade is to be traced in part to the struggle for empire between the Mohammedans and the Greeks. The government of Constantinople could not safely spare vessels of war to convey merchandise across the sea. The neutral states shrewdly took advantage of this condition of things, and the Mediterranean trade quickly passed over to Italy. The vessels of the empire were confined exclusively to the waters of the Black Sea. The policy pursued by the Greeks in commercial affairs aided very much in driving traffic out of their own hands. Justinian increased his revenues by granting monopolies, and by reserving to the state the sale of important articles. As a government can never be so good a trader as an individual, whose fortune depends upon his enterprise, thrifc, and skill, Justinian's policy led to the decline both of manufactures and commerce, Avhich every year went farther westwards. Venetian merchants visited the Levant as early as the ninth century. Nevertheless, during the Dark Ages, but little intercourse took place between the Eastern and Western nations, until the Crusades broke dowTi the wall of separation. At first the Venetians sought permission from 78 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. the Byzantine court ; but in the time of the First Crusade their services were of so much importance that they were welcomed to Constantinople, obtained the control of the entire Greek navy, entered into alliances with noble families, and became possessors of great property. Such prosperity was not lasting, for it involved the Venetians in the wars of the Greeks. In 1172 the Emperor Manuel Comnenus required them to assist in attacking the king of the Two Sicilies, and upon their hesitating, he treacherously pretended to continue on friendly terms with them till an opportunity occurred of seizing their vessels and cargoes, and imprisoning the owners. Although he afterwards set the merchants at liberty, they never regained their goods, Comnenus delaying the restitution from time to time, and his successors refusing it altogether. As soon as the Venetians lost influence at the Byzantine court, the merchants of Genoa, Pisa, and Amalfi sought commercial intercourse, and the emperor assigned to these traders a portion of Constantinople in which to erect their dwellings, stores, and churches. States which treated each other's vessels as pirates, and were envious of each other's prosperity, could, however, no more agree in that city than in Italy. The Genoese and Pisanese fought, whenever they met, as fiercely as they did at sea and at home. During the time of the Fifth Crusade (1198 — 1204) domestic contentions placed a usurper on the Byzantine throne. The rightful heir applied for help to the Crusaders, who, in conjunction with the Venetians, took Constantinople in 1203, and made the heir to the throne their creature. Another revolution took place in three months ; the usual scenes of pillage and murder ensued, the city was partly destroyed, and Baldwin of Flanders was made emperor. The Venetians re-estabhshed themselves in the capital, took possession of the sea-coast, and monopolised the commerce during the time that the city was in the possession of the Crusaders. It was restored INDIAN TRADE WITH CONSTANTINOPLE. 79 by the Franks to the Greek emperors in 1261, who ruled it till the Turkish conquest. The Indian trade was carried on by the Venetians, while they held Constantinople, and by the Genoese who suc- ceeded them. ]\Iore than once, however, a papal interdict denounced all intercourse with the Arabs — except that of war — and prohibited Christians from supplying them with wea- pons, iron, and timber. This interference on the part of the Church obstructed the direct trade through Egypt, and made it necessary to seek some other route. Tana {Azof) and Feodosia {Kaffd) were founded as starting-points for a caravan route through Bokhara, Samarcand, and Balkh. Bokhara and Samarcand are parts of the province some- times known as "Western Turkestan, to distinguish it from the Eastern or Chinese province of the same name. Great Bokhara and !Mawar-al-Nahr are also names which have been given to it at various times. It corresponds to the Sogdiana and Bactria of the ancients. The only variation from the route that had once before existed, was in the region between the Crimea and the Caspian. The caravans reached the Volga, and the merchandise was sent up the river to Astrakhan, carried overland to the Tanais or Don, and thence do\\Ti the latter river to Azof. The Pisanese also shared in this trade, having their depots at Kaffa. The revolution that terminated the Venetian hold upon Constantinople also brought the Grseco-Latin empire to an end. Michael Palaeologus, the new ruler, had been assisted by the Genoese in ascending the throne, and he rewarded them with privileges which gradually enabled them to drive their rivals, the Venetians and Pisanese, from their vantage, and to dispossess them of the trade, both in the city and the Black Sea. The Genoese, now in the ascendant, signed a commercial treaty with the Khan of Tauris, now the Crimea. The Venetians, regardless of their religious scruples, or of the papal interdict, entered into a similar treaty with the Arabs in order to obtain the produce of So THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. India through Syria and Egypt. The interdict was not removed till 1345; but from this time, till the Portuguese doubled the Cape of Good Hope, the wares of India found their way unimpeded through Egypt to Venice, their chief emporium. During the hostile rivalry of the Venetians and Genoese for Byzantine trade, many of the German towns, formerly supplied through the Italian marts, found it more advan- tageous to open direct communication with Constantinople, in order to obtain Indian produce. The Danube, as far as Servia, became the means of transport, and thus in the twelfth century a chain of commercial stations linked the Bosphorus with the German Ocean. Vienna, Ratisbon, Ulm, Augsburg, and Niirnberg Avere the leading towns in South or High Germany engaged in this through trade. The Greeks highly valued the trade with Russia, whence were obtained furs, and slaves, grain, dried and salt fish, hides, iron, timber and pitch, honey and wax. Slavonic merchants took the most active part in this commerce, as intermediate agents between the boyards, or Russian nobles, and the Greek government. Travelling did not suit the indolent Greeks. They found it easier to apportion a suburb of their city to these traders, and to bribe them into residence, by furnishing them monthly with sup- plies of bread, fish, meat, wine, and oil, than to take an active part in the trade themselves. By a selfish policy, however, which defeated and ruined the trade, they levied imposts upon goods arriving in Constantinople, and drove away the Russian merchants during the winter, in order that the city might always remain an emporium, and that the Venetians, Genoese, and Pisanese should not become direct customers of the northern traders. The Russians from Novgorod and Tschernigov used to meet at Kiev and repair to Constantinople together; but from the obstacles put in their way, they arranged to meet the Venetians at the mouth of the Dnieper, where Russian COySTANTINOPLE DURING THE CRUSADES. 8l interchange was from this time effected without passing through Constantinople. Fish and grain were the sole Russian commodities which then reached that city. In the thirteenth century sixteen hundred vessels were employed in this fish trade. Despite the false economy of the Byzantine government, trade had greatly enriched Constantinople. ' ^Vhen taken by the Crusaders and Venetians, it was, in the words of Hallam, " decked with the accumulated wealth of ages, and resplendent with the monuments of Roman empire and of Grecian art." The severity of ancient taste, which had existed through nine centuries, was seen gliding into the more various and brilliant combinations of Eastern fancy. In the libraries were gathered the remains of Grecian learn- ing, which the chiefs of the Crusaders were no more able than their soldiery to appreciate. " Four horses, that breathe in the brass of Lysippus, were removed to the square of St. Mark at Venice, and we have to deplore the fate of many pieces of sculpture wantonly destroyed or coined into- brass money." Thus the Greeks threw away their noble commerce. Timid and self-indulgent, they declined the labour and risk of national enterprise, and over-reached themselves by endeavouring to wring their profits out of more adventurous races. From the time of the crusades Byzantine commerce ceased to be worthy of mention, and after more than a thousand years of power, A.D. 328 — 1453, Constantinople was taken by the Turks, and the existence of the Greek or Eastern Empire ceased. Ill CHAPTER II. I.— THE ARABS. Although their country had been the highway of traffic from time immemorial, the Arabs can scarcely be said to have had a national existence till, as Mohammedans, they burst forth from their deserts, and subdued the nations from the Indus to the Pyrenees. Inspired by the precepts of their new reli- gion, they encouraged trade and the arts as works pleasing to God. Ancient writings are full of reference to Arab trade. A company of Midianite merchants going down into Egypt bought Joseph of his brethren. When the Jews despoiled the Midianites, they took golden collars off the camels, as well as ornaments of gold from the merchants. From the prophet Ezekiel we learn that Edom had the control of the trade with Phoenicia, giving emeralds, purple, broidered work, bezoar, and precious stones, for Phoenician wares. Predatory Arabs infested Egypt, and kept possession of Thebes for several centuries before the time of Sesostris. Gherra, on the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf, was for ages a commercial link between Babylon and India. Some historians think that Ophir, whence Solomon obtained gold, silver, gems, and sandal-wood, was in south Arabia. The early intercourse of the Phoenicians with India was carried on by caravans across the desert, the Hebrews acting as intermediaries in Syria, and the Arabs in their own land. Herodotus says of Arabia, that it was the only place where frankincense and myrrh were to be found. CARAVAN STATIONS-BAGDAD. 83 Arab commerce in the Middle Ages attained great magni- tude. Along the African coast the Arabs planted trading stations communicating with Egypt. They possessed also, for a time, the entire maritime commerce of the Mediterra- nean. Before the conversion of the Arabs to Moham- medanism, they had regarded INIecca as their capital. It afterwards assumed additional importance as a sacred shrine for pilgrimages. The ancient caravan routes were revived. Medina, Kufa, Borsippa, Bassorah, Damascus, Bagdad, Mosul, and Madain, the last-named situated opposite the ancient city of Seleucia, on the Tigris, were also caravan stations, and acquired thereby fame and opulence. The capital of the caliphate, and the centre of the routes tra- versed by the caravans, was Bagdad, which, in commercial activity, eclipsed its splendid predecessor, Babylon. Pilgrims visited it from Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Persia, and the west coast of Africa. Most of them combined traffic with devo- tion ; some were hired as guards ; some came as proxies for true believers, who, in lieu of pilgrimage in person, pre- ferred to employ the services of professional pilgrims. Commerce was attracted to every spot where the Arabs settled. When they conquered a state, they appointed a governor and a cadi or judge, and established mosques and schools. Highways were constructed, and kept in good condition. Wells were opened along every route which led to the Holy City. Caravanserais, or halting-places for the night, were placed at convenient intervals, landmarks were set up to indicate distances, and posts were established where fresh horses and camels could be obtained. These matters became a part of the state administration. Great com- mercial advantages arose from the magnitude of the Arab empire, and the policy pursued by its government. A community of language throughout their possessions in Europe, Asia, and Africa, promoted social intercourse. Traders could journey throughout the whole extent of the Arab empire, certain of a caravanserai, and of being not 84 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. only understood but welcomed in every town. Trade was unimpeded by restrictions imposed by rival states. Their prosperity surpassed that of the ancients, both in its extent and its diffusion. In their dominions commerce was free, for to restrict the trade at any place was to impose a penalty on themselves. They broke up the system of concentrating wealth upon one gorgeous emporium, till it sank under the weight of its voluptuous burden ; they mul- tiplied trade marts, and made their whole dominion a hive of industry. The social life of the Arabs offered a marked contrast to that of the European nations. While civilisation was barely kept alive in Germany, Gaul, and Britain by the monks, and the inhabitants were in a state of rude poverty, trea- sures of gold and silver, works of art, and splendid palaces abounded in the cities of the Arabs, thus realising in a great degree the marvels of Arabian fiction. The caliphs patro- nised letters. Jewish, Persian, Spanish scholars were wel- come at their courts. The writings of the Greek philosophers were translated, and eagerly read ; astronomy and chemistry were studied, and it is to the Arabs we owe our numerical system and the science of algebra. Geographical knowledge was greatly increased by the enterprise of Arab traders. Caravans passed through Tar- tary into Siberia. Arabs settled in India, where various native princes embraced the Mohammedan faith. Trade extended still farther east, and merchants soon penetrated to the Indian Archipelago and China, and, westward, caravans reached the Niger, fetching thence gold and slaves, and also wild beasts, upon the taming of which the Arabs exercised all their skill. On the east coast of Africa it spread as far as Madagascar. Everywhere arose well- peopled towns and splendid palaces, and by skilful irrigation the land yielded bounteous harvests, which in their turn multiplied commodities for exchange. The wealthy prided themselves upon the cultivation of TAPESTRIES AND CARPETS-COFFEE. 85 beautiful gardens, and even the lower classes exlilbited taste in producing the refinements of life. Silk stuffs were among the choicest articles of manufacture. A thousand silk tapestries, embroidered with needlework of gold thread, are described as belonging to the Caliph Mostansir. Those tapestries represented the caliphs and heroes of the Arabs whose names and deeds, together with the name of the dynasty to which they belonged, were embroidered by the side of their respective portraits. Besides historical incidents, figures of towns, roads, rivers, and seas were worked upon carpets, in gold, silver, and silk thread of many colours, upon a ground of blue silk. These carpets were very costly ; one alone is said to have been worth 22,000 deniers. Yemen, in Arabia, excelled in weaving; and Sana, the chief to\vn of that district, produced dates and flour. The balsams of Mecca were exchanged for the textiles of Persia and India. Coffee was a product of Arabia, and called kahwah (pronounced by the Turks cahvch), a name derived from its original use, as a stimulant to induce wakefulness.* Another result of Arabian commerce was a love of travel. Merchants sent their sons under convoy of the caravans, as a necessary part of education, and made them visit distant cities, in order to obtain instruction from teachers eminent in science and art. A higher degree of civilisation was thus attained than ever before existed. The glories of Bagdad, the capital, especially attracted foreigners and strangers from all parts of the empire ; its visitors equalled in number the pilgrims to Mecca. Princes went there as a completion of their mental culture. * It is interesting to trace the growth of this beverage in public favour. Coffee-houses, the first opened, were established at Constan- tinople in 1552; at Marseilles in 1671 ; Paris, 1672; Hamburg and Niirnburg, 1696 ; London, 1652, in St. Michael's Alley, Cornliill, by Pasqua Posee, at the sign named after his own head. The coffee plant was introduced into Batavia, 1690 ; Amsterdam, 1710 ; Surinam, 1718; Hindostan, 1719 ; Cayenne and jNIartinique, 1722; and Jamaica, 1732. 86 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Damascus, the chief town of the province of Syria, and one of the oldest cities in the world, was situated on the line of route taken by the pilgrims, and profited from their traffic. Damascus was always celebrated for its cutlery, and particularly for its sword-blades. The beautiful trace- ries wrought upon them gave rise to the term '* damas- cening," as applied to steel ; while " damasks," as applied to textile fabrics, indicate a raised pattern, greatly prized. The district of Armenia, and especially Trebizond, on the Black Sea, was famous for purple tapestry. In the bazaars of Teheran, through which city a caravan route led into Tartary, were elegant household furniture, linen, cotton, and camel's hair fabrics, combs, and miscellaneous goods. During the period of Saracen supremacy, the internal trade of Persia had its chief seat at Ispahan, the capital. Textile manufactures of remarkable softness, both in linen and wool, were produced in this city, the linen being as fine as silk, and the wool the produce of a superior breed of sheep, peculiar to the fertile region in which they were bred. Part of the Aralo-Caspian depression was peopled with traders, who acted as the intermediate merchants between the Russians and the Arabs, the latter supplying linen, silk, and cotton manufactures, in exchange for furs, honey, and wax from the north. The route taken by the traders ex- tended from Khorassan to the mouth of the Volga, diverging thence northward to Kazan, and westward to the Don. Political relations were formed between the Arabs and the Chinese. Three caravan routes connected Bagdad with Canton. Two of these routes were by way of MongoHa, the towns of Independent Tartary being the principal depots ; the third passed through Bactria, by way of Balkh and Khotan, both important trading towns. Khotan also re- ceived the name of Kiu-sa-tan-na, or " Bosom of the Earth." Its manufactures were numerous, the sciences and arts were assiduously cultivated, and the neighbourhood was strikingly beautiful. A caravan trade extended from Kho- CARAVAN TRADE TO IXDIA—SPALV. 87 rassan, through Affghanistan and Bactria, to India, passing four large towns in its route, Nisapur, Meru, Herat, and Balkh. Meru produced textile fabrics, and was the centre of the silk trade. Herat manufactured carpets and sword- blades, and saffron and assafoetida were extensively culti- vated. In the midst was a magnificent mosque, while at the foot and at the summit of a hill respectively stood a Christian church, and a temple to the sun for the use of the fire-worshippers. Balkh, from its antiquity, was called the mother of cities. Precious stones were found abundantly in its vicinity. One of its caravan routes led to Moultan. II.— THE ARABS IN SPAIN. Spain fell under the Saxacen yoke, a.d. 712, at a period when the conquerors were quite as barbarous as and much fiercer than the Visigoths whom they supplanted. Part of the peninsula was conquered by arms, and other parts were acquired by treaty. The Saracens, as lords of the soil, claimed the sole ownership of every con- quered district. Where treaties were entered into, they allowed the inhabitants to retain the rights of pro- perty, but jealously excluded them from military ser- vice. An Eastern army was distributed over the prin- cipal Iberian provinces. Cordova maintained the legion of the caliphs ; Seville was occupied by the troops of Emessa ; Algesiras and Medina-Sidonia by soldiers from Palestine ; Granada by a thousand horsemen chosen from the highest Arab families. The Moors invaded France, a.d. 720, and advanced as far as Tours, near which they were defeated, with terrible slaughter, by Charles Martel, a.d. 732. The Pyrenees proved an obstacle which the Arabs could never permanently surmount. The hardy mountain races would not submit to foreign rule, but, during the four centuries of Moorish domination, waged an offensive as well as defensive warfare. 88 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Moorish history in Spain is the counterpart of that of the great Eastern monarchies. Wisdom and bravery pro- duced in one age fruit which folly and effeminacy forfeited in the next. Under the hand of industry, the land brought forth abundantly ; even the most sterile parts were fertilised by means of canals and aqueducts, and commerce aided the growth of wealth. In less than half a century, the mandates of religion and the natural aptitude of the Arab race for civilisation brought rapid advancement, and the ruthless invaders had become a polished people. The emirs of Spain at first owed allegiance to the caliphs of Damascus. When the dynasty was changed, Abdar- rahman, a fugitive from the ancient royal house, arrived in Spain, where he became the sovereign of an independent Moorish kingdom. The wealth which had been paid as tribute to Damascus now remained in Spain. Writers give the annual revenues of Abdarrahman at 10,000 ounces of gold, 10,000 lbs. of silver, 10,000 mules, 1,000 suits of armour, 1,000 helmets, and 1,000 lances. Abdarrahman III. enjoyed still greater revenues. His reign was the zenith of Moorish prosperity. Without bearing heavily upon his subjects, he collected the annual amount of five and a half millions sterling. His grand vizier on one occasion made him an offering which shows the profusion of Moorish riches. It consisted of 400 lbs. of pure gold, 420,000 deniers in silver bars, 400 lbs. of aloe-wood, 500 oz. of amber, 300 oz. of camphor, 30 pieces of embroidered cloth of gold, loir.arten- skin mantles, 100 fur mantles of other kinds, 4 dozen horse- cloths of gold and silk, 4,000 lbs. of wrought Spanish silk, 30 Persian carpets, 800 sets of steel harness, 1,000 shields, 100,000 arrows, 115 Arab steeds, and 20 mules with costly coverings. Genius and learning followed in the train of prosperity, and influenced the manners and customs of the age. Oriental fancy revelled in the harmony of gold and colour, as seen in the fretwork tracery of the courts of the Alhambra. CORDOVA-MOORISH INDUSTRIES. 89 Mosques and palaces were numerous in every province ; their grandeur and beauty, as exhibited even in their ruins, being objects of wonder to the modern traveller. At Cor- dova the mosque built by the first king Abdarrahman was 600 feet long by 250 feet wide. The roof was supported by marble columns, 1,093 in number, dividing the central space into twenty-nine compartments. Between 7,000 and 8,000 lamps, consuming daily 20,000 pounds of oil, illumi- nated this splendid edifice. The Palace of Zehra was even a still greater triumph of architecture. It occupied twenty- five years in building, and cost three and a quarter millions sterling. A whole town was afterwards built out of its remains. Cordova, the Moorish capital, was celebrated for its silversmiths' and filigree work, as well as for Cordovan leather. There were in this city 600 mosques and nearly 1,000 baths; and its industry employed 200,000 families, each occupying a separate dwelling-house. There were 16,000 looms for silk-weaving, and 130,000 weavers in Seville alone : 400,000 inhabitants are reported to have quitted the city when the Moors surrendered. The villages along the course of the Guadalquivir were scarcely a quarter of a league apart. Industry in every form was vigorously pursued. No degradation was felt to attach to labour, nor was it considered servile, as with the Greeks and Romans. The Arabs, as conquerors, were more lenient towards those who submitted to them than were the victors of earlier times, and they have the credit of always maintaining treaties inviolate. Old silver mines, thought to be ex- hausted, were made to yield afresh by skilful working ; and the Spanish mines then furnished the chief supplies of pre- cious metals. Rubies were sought in Beja and Malaga, and coral and pearl fisheries were prosecuted on the coast. In the weaving and dyeing of silk and wool, and in metal- work especially, the Moors attained great eminence. Other produce of their labour and skill was exported to Con- stantinople, in the form of raw silk, oil, sugar, quicksilver, 90 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. bar-iron, dye-stuffs, amber, loadstone, antimony, rock-crystal, sulphur, and myrrh. Granada enjoyed a prosperity beyond that of the fictitious wealth afterwards due to the discovery of the American gold and silver mines. Valencia too, before the Moriscoes were expelled, was the best cultivated district of the Iberian peninsula. Long-continued success filled the Moors with false con- fidence ; they grew vain, and lost the fervour of religious zeal. Absorbed in pleasure, or covetous of power, they disregarded the intrepid mountaineers who had never been subdued, and who were destined at last to win back the peninsula from its enervated invaders. During the fifteenth century the Moors were driven from Spain. III.— AFRICA. Barbary. — Barbary was the Arabic term vaguely used before the Saracen conquest to designate the Mediterranean states of Africa, from Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean. Part of this region was anciently known as Mauritania. The Saracens from Egypt overran these territories for a distance of 2,000 miles, and governed them by a viceroy from Damascus. The breaking up of the first caliphate induced the Barbary Arabs to imitate the invaders of Spain, and estabUsh an independent sovereignty, under the Fatimite caliphs of Egypt. Kirwan, the capital, founded in 670, and situated twelve miles south of Tunis, was the residence of the viceroy. Though now a town but little known, it was then the nucleus from which radiated caravan routes to the east, west, and south. In the heart of the city was a grand mosque, 250 yards long by 150 broad. It was sur- mounted by a white marble cupola, supported upon 32 columns of the same costly material, while 414 stone pillars formed a portion of the general structure. From this centre led splendid streets, through which diverged a con- MAURITANIA-KIRWAN, THE CAPITAL-FEZ. 91 tinual trade to the seven gates of the city. The street to the Spring Gate and that to the Tunis Gate were Hned on each side for a length of over two miles with shops dis- playing the produce of every clime, from the distant Urals and from the still more remote empire of China. Many flourishing towns were within easy reach of Kirwan, each boasting its marble palace and its market-place. Bakkadah was noted as the only town where palm wine was sold, and Kafsah numbered in its environs as many as two hundred castles. Sab rah, in the line of the grain trade, was con- nected with the capital by means of a long wall. Several busy harbours lay near Sabrah, as famous for their manu- facturing industry as for their maritime trade. Susah wove a transparent tissue so exceedingly fine that it was designated " woven wind." Mahadiah and Safakas cultivated the white mulberry and reared silkworms. Tarabolos was situated near a saline plain, from which the inhabitants obtained large supplies of salt. Every port on the coast carried on a vigorous trade, both inland and marine, the latter chiefly with Sicily and Spain, while caravans kept them all in con- nection with the capital. The fruitful region of ancient Mauritania, now an arid strip of desert, corresponding to Morocco, Fez, and Western Algeria, boasted numberless castles and villages, and was intersected by a network of aqueducts for irrigation. Nature not more benign then than now, rewarded industry and skill with sustenance and comfort for a thousand inhabit- ants, wherever water was supplied, for every ten who now exist there half famished. Such advantages attracted in- habitants from Arabia, as well as many of the Moors from Spain, who together founded the city of Fez in the eighth century. Fez became eminent for its manufactures, especi- ally that of Fez caps, still worn by the Turks. Besides its looms and dye-works, it fabricated silk and gold thread, and possessed smelting furnaces and manufactories of soap. The fertile soil produced grain, dates, grapes, and olives. 02 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Rich meadow-lands fed fine herds of horses, goats, camels, asses, and flocks of sheep. Iron, copper, and antimony held the chief place among its mineral produce. Com- merce was carried on with Mecca by caravans, and with the Levant, Sicily, and Spain by the feluccas or Arab vessels. Central Africa (Soudan, Nigritia, or Negroland) was visited for black slaves, gold dust, ivory, and feathers, for which Segel-Messa was made the emporium. From Segel- ISIessa, which was also a manufacturing town, caravans struck off east and west to Egypt and the Niger. So important was this commerce, that the Arabs cut through a mountain pass fourteen leagues in length, in order to facilitate the traffic. Egypt was overrun by the troops of Amrou, general of the fierce caliph Omar, to whom is attributed the order to burn the library of Alexandria, upon the capture in 640 of that city, under the plea that if the books agreed with the Koran they were needless, and if otherwise they were bane- ful. By this wanton act the baths of Alexandria, it is said, were supplied with fuel for half a year. Alexandria retained its rank as a great commercial city for a thou- sand years ; and survived many alternations of fortune. It was the chief port for the Barbary fleet of the Venetians, and was their resource, in opposition to the papal interdict against intercourse with the infidels, when they lost their standing at the Byzantine court in 1261. It retained a degree of importance, as a channel whereby Indian pro- duce, through Egypt, reached Venice, until the new route to India, round the Cape of Good Hope, led to the deser- tion of the ancient pathways of trade. Under Arab rule, the commerce of Egypt rose to a high degree of prosperity. Syene was the emporium of the caravan trade. Temnis and Damietta stood nearly on an equality as the principal industrial towns. Caravans going to the East met at Fostat, then the capital of Egypt. Many advantages resulted to the town from this arrange- ment, and it became the centre of Oriental riches and THE ARABS IN SICILY— MARITIME COMMERCE. 93 splendour until the twelfth century (a.d. 1167), when it was burnt to the ground. The city of Cairo was founded by the Saracens. IV.— SICILY. From a.d. 832 to 1090, the Arabs held possession of the delightful island of Sicily, where winter is as delicious as spring, and summer is tempered by the sea-breezes. As conquerors, they conciliated the Sicilians, and added to the native productions cotton and sugar from Egj^t, and manna from Persia. Immense crops of corn, especially wheat, had made Sicily the granary of the ancient world. Vines, olives, and many kinds of fruits abounded ; its minerals were also rich and varied. Sicilian embroidered works and tissues were highly esteemed, and were, it is said, always worn at the coronation of the German em- perors. Everything connected with the Arab system of trade indicates a highly advanced and noble-minded race. Their commercial laws, even when violating the principles of political economy, were framed in a spirit of humanity. They regulated the price of the necessaries of life in what they thought the interest of the poorer classes, so that the burdens of these should be light ; and they forbade the over-lading of sea-going vessels, so that merchants eager for profit should not freight their ships at the risk of seamen's Hves. The maritime commerce of the Arabs was extensive, yet insignificant compared with their caravan trade. Travelling by sea was a task for which their previous history had not prepared them. Considering, however, the poor craft to which they entrusted their lives and goods, the extent of their maritime commerce may well excite our astonish- ment. Eastward they started from Bassora for Muscat, where they had before them the south-east coast of Africa on the one hand, and India on the other; both of which 94 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. regions they visited, for the purposes of trade. Nearly every place now existing on the east coast of Africa had an Arab origin. Gold-dust, ostrich and peacock feathers, leopards' skins, elephants' tusks, amber, and tortoise-shell, were brought to these marts or depots by the inhabitants of the interior. Similar stations were established on the Malabar coast of India, whence they pushed their trade to still more distant parts — the Maldive Islands, Ceylon, Sumatra, Farther India, and the Nicobar Islands. The Arab merchants were welcomed in China on their first arrival, in 787, and although the Chinese imposed upon them strange modes of selling the goods, yet the founding of agencies was permitted, the traders were exempted from fiscal burdens, and justice was permitted to be administered by their own judges. Few ships, however, ventured on a voyage so full of risk as that to the distant seas of China. When the merchandise of India was diverted to Portugal, the Arabs, as agents and interpreters between the Portuguese and Hindoos, regained much of the im- portance they lost as active merchants. In these voyages they guided their course by a piece of floating wood, furnished with a needle, which had the curious property, under all circumstances, of pointing northward, an instru- ment which they most probably adopted from the Chinese, who still use it in their merchant craft. An improved form, under the name of the mariner's compass, has given con- fidence to seamen, has encouraged commerce, and, more than any one discovery besides, has aided geographical research. CHAPTER III. COMMERCE OF THE ITALIAN REPUBLICS. VENICE. Venetia, on the mainland of Italy, had for many genera- tions been a flourishing province of the Roman empire, when Attila, king of the Huns, with his fierce followers drove the inhabitants from their homes, to seek shelter in the lagunes at the head of the Adriatic Sea. These lagunes, about four miles in breadth, lay within a long, narrow, insular belt of sand, having several openings to the sea, and were so shallow that a considerable part of their bed was laid bare at every ebb-tide. The difference between the old and the new habitations of the people was as great as can be conceived. The generous Italian soil, which had lavishly supplied them with oil and honey and wine, and whose meadows had given sustenance to fine breeds of cattle, was exchanged for flats of mud and sand — the deposits of the southern Alpine streams. Little of the ground was capable of producing more than a stunted vegetation, and its possession was disputed by sea-fowl. Upon so unpromising a foundation the Venetians built their commercial greatness. Their natural resources were salt, in exhaustless quantities, from the lagunes, and equally un- limited supplies of fish from the sea. These were their earliest articles of trade, and they obtained in exchange from the neighbouring shores greater variety of food, articles of clothing, and timber for their galleys. To such a race, life on the water was as natural as that on land, and they became expert and daring sailors. Their obscure position caused them to be overlooked while the Goths were para- 96 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMM2RCE. mount, and each succeeding age their vessels increased in number and in size. With their growth in power and wealth, the Venetians repossessed themselves of their ancient territories. The foundation of Venice was laid in 452, ere Genoa and Pisa had entered upon mercantile pursuits. Commerce must have made considerable progress before the end of the fifth century, when the Venetians are referred to in history. In the latter part of the seventh century their government assumed the form of a republic, citizenship in which was easily obtainable. It was not, however, till the time of the Saracens that Venice attained its greatest power, ruling territories on the mainland of nearly 20,000 square miles in area. Their ships made them the chief carriers of Europe, and they were called upon to convey the Crusaders to the Holy Land. Venice was aggrandised by this traffic, not only getting rich freightage from passengers, but bring- ing costly cargoes home from the East : her merchants, too, were ever ready to take possession of trading stations, wrested from the infidels by the soldiers of the Cross, and even to trade with the Saracens. Venetian commerce attained its greatest extent when a great armament, starting in 1204 for the recovery of Jerusalem, took advantage of factions in Constantinople, and turned out of its route to seize that city. Blind old Dandoio, the Doge of Venice, headed this enterprise, in which a French contingent had been persuaded to take part. In the division of the spoil the Venetians looked chiefly to themselves. Henry Dan- doio took the curious title, accurately descriptive of the Venetians' share, of " Lord of Three-eighths of the Roman Empire." They also made bargains with the needy Cru- saders, and thus increased their share of the capital and its provinces. In this way they became possessed of the Pelo- ponnesus, Cyprus, Candia, and the Ionian Islands — places which they long retained. The revolution brought about by the Genoese and Greeks VENETIAN COMMERCE-COVERXMEXT. 97 in 1 261 led to the banishment of the Venetians from Con- stantinople and the Black Sea. Venice now turned her attention to Alexandria, with which port so profitable a trade was carried on that the merchants were able to disarm ecclesiastical threatenings by large bribes, and yet to enrich themselves, A few years later the Venetians asserted their pre-eminence over the Genoese in a great naval battle, and once more opened to themselves the trade with the Black Sea. The fruits of this victory were again lost, for the Turks took Constantinople, and deadened at once every form of industry and enterprise. The Venetians were still left supreme in the Mediterranean. Alexandria, the rendezvous of their Barbary fleet, received olive-oil, fruits both fresh and dried, and honey ; cloths, velvet, and furs; copper, lead, vermilion, and quicksilver; giving in return the products of Africa and Asia. From Dalmatia, which under Doge Orseolo II. (997) became a possession of Venice, were obtained timber, wines, oil, flax, hemp, grain, and dried fruit ; fat cattle, wool, and furs ; lead and quick- silver; and finally, slaves. Orseolo II. gave a new im- pulse to navigation. He formed trade relations with distant parts, farmed out the customs, and obtained the abolition of inland duties in Germany. Commerce is so identified with the history of this aristo- cratic republic, that an account of its government throws light upon its trade and advancement. There were, at the end of the fourteenth century, 1,000 nobles — a number which subsequently increased to 1,500 — who grew so haughty that the saying went round on the birth of a son, " A lord is born into the world." At the head of the government was the Doge, and under him six lords or councillors {signoria). A senate, often chosen from the citizens, formed a permanent council, and under them three inquisitors completed the legislative and executive power. A powerful navy was formed for defence, for war, and for colonisation. Industry was encouraged, so that the city at III G qS the growth and vicissitudes of commerce. length prospered as much from manufactures as from com- merce. A quarter of a million of people crowded its thoroughfares. The mud hovels built at first were trans- formed into marble palaces, and the few poor shrinking fishermen hiding for their lives became the wealthiest people in Europe ; celebrated for their treasures of art, the perfection of their manufactures, their foreign possessions, and the vastness of their commerce. Hotels arose for the accommodation of strangers, and the boundaries expanded to meet the wants of the growing population. Water- highways, skimmed by gay gondolas and lined with princely residences, intersected the city. The flags of every nation waved at the quays, and the merchants who met on the Rialto offered enormous rents for the smallest vacant counter. The first bank guaranteed by a state was an institution founded in this "City of Waters," in 1157. Pope Innocent IV. made use of it to pay 25,000 silver marks to a Frankfort burgher. Venice coined large amounts of money for its trade, and for that purpose received at its mint gold and silver bars from various countries. In the fourteenth century Venice had 3,000 merchant- men manned by 25,000 sailors. A tenth part of these were ships exceeding 700 tons burden. There were besides 45 war-galleys manned by 11,000 hands ; and 10,000 workmen, as well as 36,000 seamen, were employed in the arsenals. The largest of the war-galleys was called the B u centaur ; it was a state vessel of the most gorgeous description. Every year the Doge of Venice, seated upon a magnificent throne surmounted by a regal canopy, dropped from this vessel a ring into the Adriatic, to symbolise the fact that lagid and sea were united under the Venetian flag. This ceremony commemorated the victory gained over the fleet of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in 1 1 7 7, when the Venetians obliged him to sue for peace. Ascension Day was selected for its celebration, and the Bucentaur, glorious with new scarlet and gold, its deck and seats inlaid with costly woods, VEXETIAN FLEETS-IXLAXD TRAFFIC. 99 and rowed with long banks of burnished oars, for many years bore the Doge to plight his troth with the words, " We espouse thee, Sea ! in token of true and eternal sovereignty." The merchant fleet of Venice was divided into companies sailing together according to their trade. Their routes, and the days for departure and return, their size, arma- ment, crew, and amount of cargo, were all defined. In those times the seas were as much infested with pirates as the deserts with robbers ; each squadron therefore hired a convoy of w-ar-galleys for its protection on the voyage. There were six or seven such squadrons in regular employ- ment. The argosies of Cyprus and Egypt, and the vessels engaged in the Barbary and Syrian commerce, concentrated their traffic chiefly at Alexandria and Cairo. The so-called Armenian fleet proceeded to Constantinople and the Euxine, visiting Kaffa and the Gulf of Alexan- dretta. A Catalonian fleet traded with Spain and Portugal, and another with France ; while the most famous of all, the Flanders galleys, connected the seaports of France, Eng- land, and Holland with the great commercial city of Bruges. The internal traffic with Germany and Italy was en- couraged with equal care, oriental produce arriving from Constantinople and Egypt, and many other commodities being distributed, at first by way of Carinthia, and after- w^ards of the Tyrol. Germans, Hungarians, and Bohe- mians conducted this distribution. In Venice a bonded warehouse {fondaco dei tedescJii), or custom-house, was accorded to the Germans, where they were allowed to offer their \vares for sale, though only to Venetian dealers. Similar privileges were granted to the Annenians, Moors, and Turks, but not to the Greeks, against whom a strong animosity prevailed. From a state paper of the Doge Moncenigo, we learn some particulars of the inland trade with Italy. All the towns of Lombardy were active buyers of Eastern commo- 100 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. dities and Venetian manufactures, but Florence was the best customer. Ten million sequins (zechins) were thus annually brought into circulation. Addressing the Vene- tians, the Doge Moncenigo warily dissuades them from war, by describing the value of their trade. " Ye are the channel," he says, " through which all riches flow. Ye pro- vide for the whole world. Everywhere men have a com- mon concern in our welfare, and gold from every source flows hither. Through peace, our noble city has yearly 10,000,000 ducats employed as mercantile capital in dif- ferent parts of the world ; the annual profit of our traders amounts to 4,000,000 ducats. Our housing is valued at 7,000,000 ducats, its rental at 500,000; 3,000 merchant ships carry on our trade; 43 galleys, and 300 smaller vessels, manned by 10,000 sailors, secure our naval power ; our mint has coined 1,000,000 ducats within the year. From the Milanese dominions alone we dra.w 1,000,000 ducats in coin, and the value of 900,000 more in clothes ; our profit upon this traffic may be reckoned at 600,000 ducats. Proceeding as you have done, you will become masters of all the gold in Christendom ; but war, and especially unjust war, will infallibly lead to ruin." It was not until 1272 that the citizens generally were permitted to become merchants on their own account. Foreign trade till then had been the sole prerogative of the nobles. Now, however, permission was given for voyages to Marseilles, Montpellier, and Aigues-Mortes, for the dis- posal of Venetian goods. Venetian commerce was very soon greatly enlarged by the enterprise of the citizens. Wool was brought by the Flanders galleys, and made into black cloth for inland trade, and into scarlet textures for the Levant. This branch of industry was protected by the prohibi- tion of French and Flemish cloth, when the superior cheap- ness of the last threatened to undersell the home produce. Manufactures of linen, cotton, and camels' hair employed many of the inhabitants. Silk-wea\'ers, banished from VENETIAN GLASS, ETC-FOREICN TRAVELS. lOI their native city of Lucca for political reasons, found refuge in Venice, and repaid their welcome by introducing an im- portant branch of industry. Charlemagne usually wore a Venetian robe, and his courtiers were filled with wonder at the richness of the fabrics brought by the merchants of Venice to the mart of Pavia. The ancient industries of preparing salt and curing fish were never disregarded. The Adriatic sands supplied material adapted for a glass of rare beauty and value, of which mirrors and other articles of Venetian manufacture were made. Venetian goldsmiths' work was universally famed. Brass and iron foundries prepared the raw material for the armourers, whose weapons, helmets, and bucklers were unsurpassed for strength and beauty. Ship-building, with a people whose principle it was always to have more ships than any other state, was necessarily a very important branch of industry. Not satisfied with penetrating to ever)- part already opened to enterprise, the Venetians travelled into regions before unknown, and gave to the world the record of their daring adventures. Maffeo and Nicolo Polo spent fifteen years visiting Eg}'pt, Persia, India, the Khan of Tartary, and the Grand Khan or Emperor of China. Marco Polo, son of Nicolo, as well as Barthema and Joseph Barbaro, extended the knowledge obtained by their precursors in northern Europe and Asia. It was by such energy of character, directed to commerce and adventure, that the Venetians gained their vast wealth. With the erroneous ideas of their age, however, they were jealous of the prosperity of the other commercial states of Italy, and were not happy till Genoa had been crippled. The same impolitic spirit led their rulers to fetter manufac- tures with restrictions intended to benefit the citizens at the expense of foreign states, but really injuring both, by pre- venting competition, and thus lessening the production of wealth. Duties were laid upon almost every article of I02 THE GROWTH A.\D VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. ' home and foreign trade, and state monopolies of salt and other substances were established. The revenues of Venice were raised almost exclusively by these impolitic modes. For awhile the facilities afforded by their splendid mercan- tile fleet, and by the accumulation of capital, enabled the Venetians to defy competition, but in the end they were scarcely able to hold their o\\'n, either in manufactures or commerce. The Flanders argosies were prohibited from returning with money in exchange, but were required to bring merchandise, such as amber and English wool, by which the Venetians thought to secure a double profit. It led, however, to the northern nations abandoning the trade with Venice, and dealing elsewhere. Forgetful of the sources of their wealth, the Venetians went so far as to forbid their nobles to trade. Nevertheless, Venice might have outgrown a bad policy, had not a sudden and unexpected blow laid her conmierce prostrate. In 1498 the Venetian ambassador at the court of Lisbon informed his government that Portuguese vessels had arrived in the Tagus, direct from India, after having colonised several places and established factories in that country. The full import of this intelligence was under- stood at St. ^Mark's. The golden period of their commerce had passed away. The first thought of the senate was to crush the Portuguese commerce. Finding it impossible to prevail upon the Egyptian sultan to assist them with a fleet in blockading the Indian coasts, they now sued for a treaty of commerce with Portugal, offering to become the sole purchasers of Indian commodities, but were refused. Venice declined, therefore, not through conquest, like the great commercial cities of antiquity, but from faults of indus- trial policy internally, and from the diversion of trade into net\' routes, which were the result of increased geographical knowledge. GEXOESE TRADE-MAXUFACTURES. 1 03 GENOA. Genoa, like most of the Italian cities whicli rose to com- mercial eminence in the Middle Ages, had existed as a Roman municipium, and is referred to at the time of the Second Punic War, The city, allied with Pisa, was the first to engage in attacking the Saracen corsairs which beset the Mediterranean. During the Crusades, Genoa vied with Venice, and the profits obtained at this period stimulated commerce and navigation. The republic became rich, and its sailors were so gallant as to be dreaded even by the Venetians. It was at this date that the Genoese made the conquest of Corsica and part of Sardinia, driving out the Saracens, whom they also deprived of jMinorca and some Iberian provinces. The climax of Genoese prosperity was reached in 1261, when, for the assistance rendered to the Byzantine government, they were permitted to supplant the Venetians at Constantinople, and to monopolise the com- merce of the Euxine. For some years their vessels were freighted with rich cargoes of oriental goods, as well as with the furs and gold of Russia. The Crimean trade was almost exclusively Genoese ; as was also the trade with the southern coast of the Euxine, Trebizond and Amisus, or in the Turkish form of the word Saras'un. Genoa increased its riches by its manufactures of velvet, broadcloth, hosiery, lace, perfumes, and artistic work in gold, silver, and marble. It was the entrepot for Switzer- land, and the outlet for the produce of the fertile districts of Lombardy and Piedmont. Goods were sent inland to Germany, through Niirnberg, and also to IMilan, the com- mon depot of Venetians and Genoese. In the height of its power it became covered with palaces, churches, and benevolent institutions, built of pure marble or of porphyry. Genoese history is bound up with that of Pisa and of Venice. Jealous of the prosperity of otlier states, Genoa was always at feud. Between 1070 and 12S2 four wars 104 ^^^ GROWTH and: VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. with Pisa occurred, which resulted in the extinction of the power of the Pisanese. The conflict with Venice endured for a period of a hundred and thirty-one years. In 1351 the indecisive battle of Pera, a suburb of Constantinople, took place, when seventy-six Genoese galleys engaged unsuccess- fully seventy-four belonging to the Venetians, Catalans, and Greeks. Encouraged by the sympathy of the Pope, whose legate in the East was always the Bishop of Genoa, as well as by their own vigour, the Genoese fought again, when out of seventy galleys only nineteen remained to dispute for the further possession of the title of Mistress of the Seas. Finally, in 1 38 1, the Genoese were compelled to succumb to the maritime ascendancy of their Venetian rivals. During the financial difficulties caused by these long and protracted struggles, the government was frequently obliged to borrow money from the wealthy citizens, to whom the revenues arising from customs duties were pledged in pay- ment of the interest, and, if possible, in liquidation of the debt. These state creditors formed themselves into a com- pany, with independent administration, known as the Bank of St. George, whose constitution, rights, and privileges all officers of the republic, previous to the assumption of their dignities, swore to maintain and respect. The capital or debt due by the state was divided into shares of 100 lire — which sum was called luogo delta repiihlica — and the manage- ment was entrusted to a committee of one hundred share- holders and a board of eight directors, chosen annually at a general meeting. When the power of Genoa in the East began to wane before that of Venice, the Bank of St. George undertook the defence of several of the colonial possessions for the general government. In 1456 the entire island of Corsica and the distant and important settlement of Kaffa on the Euxine were in the hands of this company. The latter fell under the rule of the Turks in 1474. With Corsica they were more successful ; and, notwithstanding the irretrievable losses in the East, the Bank of St. George SOURCES OF GENOESE WEALTH-PISA. 105 would probably have succeeded, through its commercial activity, in restoring the fallen fortunes of the city, had not internal dissensions ruined the independence of the republic. The sources of the wealth of Genoa, as of Venice, were numerous. Its most important trade was westward with Nor- mandy and Flanders, and eastward with the Euxine; of which, as has just been stated, it had the monopoly. Genoa, in its zenith, possessed Marseilles, Kaffa, Azof, Corsica, and Elba. In 1339 a doge, or supreme magistrate, was elected. Rivalry for this office led, during two centuries, to frequent strife, and subjected the state more than once to the power of its neighbours. Andrea Doria freed his country from the yoke of France, and changed the form of government to that of biennial doges, with an advising council, a system retained during the rest of its mediseval history. In their contest with Venice, in the middle of the fourteenth century, the Genoese sought assistance from John Visconti, Duke of Milan. This was rendered, but at the cost of their civic freedom. The state never regained its independence. The Portuguese discovery of a new route to India was also seriously prejudicial to Genoa, although less so than to Venice. PISA. The citizens of Pisa were the early pioneers of the Italian Lombard commerce, and were distinguished as traders from the age of the Othos. The city was the third in importance amongst the commercial states of Italy, and from the eleventh to the thirteenth century it was a small but prosperous republic. The foreign possessions of Pisa were at one time Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Islands, all of which were taken from the Moors, These conquests, and the aid the Pisanese had rendered to the Crusaders, made their power respected, and their alliance sought both by the Genoese and the Venetians. We read of them as being at first leagued with Io6 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. the former against the latter, and as being bought off by the offer of mercantile privileges denied by Venice to other states. Thus they were allowed to trade with the Venetian possessions, paying only a quarter of the customary dues, and at Constantinople they shared on equal terms the pri- vileges which the Venetians enjoyed. When Genoa suc- ceeded Venice in influence at Constantinople, in 1261, the Pisanese had their privileges continued, in order to secure their co-operation, and to sever them from Venice. During this flourishing period there arose in Pisa those marvellous edifices which made the city the school of European architects — the Dome, the Baptister}', the Leaning Tower, and the Arcades of the Campo Santo or Cemetery. The Brotherhood of Humility, a company partly ecclesias- tical and partly secular, established also at this time Eastern trading settlements which materially extended the Pisan commerce. The bitter feeling against the Saracens even- tually toning down, the ports of Barbary, Spain, and Sicily were filled with Pisanese merchantmen. Trimming between Genoa and Venice, Pisa made real friends of neither. For two hundred years a growing envy had smouldered in the Genoese mind, and at length it burst into a flame. Both states raised armaments comparatively so prodigious that they read like fabulous exaggerations. The success which had crowned their contests with the INIoors did not attend the Pisanese when opposed to Genoa. On every occasion they were met by a superior fleet, and in the final battle of Meloria five thousand Pisanese fell, and eleven thousand were taken prisoners, most of whom perished in chains. " If you wish to find Pisa," it was commonly said, " you must look for her in the dungeons of Genoa." The port of Pisa was destroyed by the Genoese, and the mouth of the harbour was filled up. From this reverse the republic never recovered. It was vain any longer to contend for empire. Her colonies fell rapidly, and her commerce dwindled away. One of the Visconti family usurped the FLORENTIXE ARTS— MERCANTILE FLEET. 1 07 dominion over the city, and subsequently sold it to Florence for 400,000 florins ; and with this state, after a century of intermittent struggles, it became permanently united. FLORENCE. Florence, the capital of Tuscany, a part of the ancient Etruria, with but a scanty history till the end of the twelfth century, when Rudolf, first Austrian emperor, sold the citizens their freedom for ^70,000, ultimately became one of the leading cities of Italy in luxury and wealth. Manu- factures were the main source of its riches, and the founda- tion of the fortunes of its most eminent citizens, of whom the Medici attained regal power. The industry of the free republic was directed and controlled by guilds or arts, seven of which were styled the greater guilds, and five (afterwards increased to fourteen) the lesser guilds. The seven greater arts were lawyers, bankers, physicians, merchants, salesmen, and two guilds of manufacturers. The lower arts were smiths, shoemakers, carpenters, masons, butchers, and others. The Pisanese at first acted as maritime carriers for the Florentines, but, urged by jealousy, eventually cut them- selves off from this profitable trade. The Florentines then turned their own attention to shipbuilding, buying Livorno (Leghorn) of the Genoese as a convenient site for the pur- pose, and in the end they acquired an important commerce both by land and sea. Among their chief manufactures were woollens, silks, and jewellery, of which the first was pre-eminent. They possessed agencies everywhere, and acted as European exchangers or bankers. Their mer- cantile fleet consisted of twenty-six vessels — eleven large and fifteen small galleys — the saihng and return of which, as well as the nature of the cargo, were subjected to statutory regulations, after the example of Venice. The importance which their foreign trade attained was exemplified on the occasion of Loniface ^TII. receiving the courtesies of foreign Io8 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. States on his elevation to the papal chair, when twelve envoys out of the number proved to be citizens of Florence. The name of the Medici is associated with science and art, letters and poetry, architecture, sculpture, and painting, and with colossal wealth. As princes, they forgot their former thrift, and lost vast fortunes in commerce through the mismanagement of their agents. The expenditure of the family in thirty-seven years (1434 — 147 1) in buildings and charities amounted, according to Sismondi, to 32,000,000 francs of our present money. A simple and correct taste distinguished the Florentines, and even when their virtue had degenerated, and their voluptuousness had become a proverb, they still possessed their fine appreciation of the beautiful. Florentine dyers, especially of scarlet, were unequalled. French cloths were finished off at Florence. Scarlet stuffs alone employed 200 manufacturers, producing annually 80,000 pieces or rolls of cloth. Silk fabrics and tapestries, straw hats and artificial flowers, soaps, essences, and per- fumes, lacquered ware, and artistic work in mosaic, metal, and alabaster, glass, musical, mathematical, and philoso- phical instruments, and carriages, were all products of Flo- rentine genius and industry. In the chronicle of Benedetto Dei we meet with the following quaint contrast between Venice and Florence : — " Know that we in Florence have two guilds, which are more estimable and noble than any in your city of Venice ; we mean the woollen and cloth manufacturers. They are known at the court of Rome as well as at that of Naples, in Sicily, and at Constantinople, Pera, Scio, Bursa, Gallipoli, Saloniki, Adrianople; and wherever the Florentines send their cloths, there they have banks, chambers of commerce, agencies, and consulates. In silk wares, gold and silver stuffs, we make and shall always make more than Genoa, Venice, and Lucca together. Ask your merchants who frequent Marseilles, Avignon, Lyons, Geneva, Bruges, FLORENCE CONTRASTED WITH VENICE— AMALFl. IO9 Antwerp, and London. They find everywhere respect- able banks, splendid exchanges, estimable trade-societies, churches, and consulates belonging to the Florentines. Inquire at the banks of the Medici, Pozzi Capponi, Buon- delmonti, Corsini, Falconieri, Pontinari, and as many other houses as would fill a hundred pages with their names. These houses do no trade in merceries, quinquillas, sewing- threads, fringes, rose-wreaths, or glass-ware, but in ducats, brocade, and cloth. When you Venetians want to buy spiceries, cottons, and wax from Alexandria, you must pay for them in hard cash. The Florentines give, on the con- trary, their cloths and other stuffs in exchange for their commodities, which they, moreover, get still more con- veniently from Bursa." AMALFl. The republic of Amalfi, a small state in Naples, had the singular fortune of uniting the ancient Roman refinement with the new civiUsation of the Middle Ages. It rose, reached the height of its power, and declined, between the sixth and the twelfth centuries. Its career as a free trading state was brilliant, till checked by the arms of Roger Guiscard, King of Sicily; from which period its splendour was lost. Its citizens were renowned as sailors, and took an active share in the Crusades. The port extended its trade to Egypt, Syria, and Constantinople, and was a great mart of Eastern merchandise, frequented by Moors, Hin- doos, Arabs, and Sicilians. French cloths formed a large item in its trade. Amalfi, scarcely referred to as a com- mercial port after its capture, has its name often repeated in connection with interesting historical incidents. Its citizens founded in Palestine the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, from which the military order took its name. Flavio Gioja, a citizen, introduced or improved the mariner's compass. Justinian's Pandects, after having been lost for no THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. ages, are said to have been brought to light at the siege of Amalfi in 1137. Hallam, however, states that both dis- coveries are erroneously attributed to this city. ANCONA. Ancona, in the Papal States, was founded by the Syra cusans about four centuries before Christ, and has ever been, next to Venice, the most considerable port on the Adriatic coast of Italy. Its early Eastern trade, chiefly with Cyprus, was supervised by a consul residing at St. Jean d'Acre. From the countries of the Levant it obtained raw cotton, spices, sugar, and alum, giving in return Florentine and French cloths, soap, and wine. At a later date, the area over which its commerce extended comprised Northern Europe, and the number of its imports and exports was greatly increased. Home produce, grain, hemp, pulse, linseed, fruits, wine, and oil ; cattle, sheep, hogs, and cheese ; manufactured goods of silk and leather ; cordage, sail-cloth, wax, candles, sulphur, and verdigris, were articles of export. The imports comprehended manufactures, timber, dye-stuffs, drugs, salt fish, wool and wax, hardware and metals, some of which reached Ancona only in course of transit. OTHER ITALIAN STATES. The republics of Italy were so numerous in the Middle Ages, and their struggles and vicissitudes of fortune so frequent, that even to enumerate a few facts concerning each would be too long a task. Bologna, Ferrara, Modena, Lucca, Milan, Mantua, Brixen (in the Tyrol rather than Italy), Como, and Verona must be passed by with the briefest reference. These and other Italian cities prescribed customs duties for themselves, and carried on trade. Many new manufactures were likewise established, the knowledge of these having been gained at Constantinople. THE LOMBARDS-REPUDIATION. Ill In the year 1131 Roger Guiscard ^vas crowned King of the Two SiciHes, at Palermo. He brought artisans from Athens, and founded a silk manufactory in this city in 1146. The sugar-cane was brought from China and planted in Sicily in the same century. The introduction of many plants and animals of economic importance, from their native habitats, about this period, widened the range of industry and trade. Under the name of Lombards, Italian capitalists were found in every European city, competing with the Jews as bankers and money-changers. A bankers' district of the city of London received the name of Lombard Street. All im- portant as banking has been to society, its practice at first was held in as low esteem as pawnbroking. Bankers were in ill repute for the usury they exacted, arising from mutual ignorance of the principles that should govern the borrowing and lending of money. To charge interest on a loan was in feudal times thought wrong. Judging from the failures of the chief bankers of Florence, in consequence of the non-payment of enormous sums lent to our Edward III., it would appear that there were, earlier than Pistol, debtors who thought that " base is the soul that pays." In a similar spirit, St. Louis of France published an ordinance relative to the Jews, the predecessors of the Lombards in his dominions, whereby, " for the salvation of his own soul, and those of his ancestors, he releases to all Christians a third part of what was owing by them to the Jews," Louis at the same time claimed a percentage upon the savings thus eflfected. CHAPTER IV. PORTUGAL. The fortunes of Portugal have been varied. It fell a prey to the Carthaginians under Hamilcar, and afterwards to the Romans, although with the last the struggle was maintained for two hundred years, and the Lusitanians did not wholly submit till the time of Augustus. Their chief leaders in the struggle with Rome were Viriathus, a Lusitanian shep- herd, and Sertorius, a Roman leader, who fled from Rome after the triumph of the Syllan faction. Portugal suffered with Spain from the devastations of the Visigoths, who, for two hundred years, were masters of the country, till overwhelmed in turn by the Arabs, a.d. 713. After a century of occupation, the Moors were expelled from the northern provinces, and by degrees from the south, Ferdinand of Castile, in 1095, nearly cleared the country of them, and Henry of Burgundy, upon whom had been conferred the title of Count of Portugal by his father-in-law, Alphonso VI., King of Castile, was permitted to conquer for his own advantage any remaining Moorish possession. The son of Henry, Alphonso Henriquez, proved a formid- able enemy to the Mohammedans, and after gaining a great victory over them at Ourique, he was proclaimed king by his soldiers in 1139. He took Lisbon in 1147, and before the year of his death in 1185, he ruled over almost every part of the kingdom. Commerce existed between Portugal and England in 1270, and the fishing grounds of each were used in com- mon. Alphonso the Restorer, the reigning monarch, and Dionis, his son, encouraged husbandry and manufactures, PRLYCE HEXRY THE NAVIGATOR. 113 and turned the splendid position of Portugal for foreign trade to such good account as to awaken a spirit which brought about the enterprises of the next century. The early maritime enterprise of the Portuguese is asso- ciated with the genius, energy, and munificence of Prince Henry the Navigator. So enthusiastic was he for discovery, that in 1406 he took up his abode on the promontory of Sagres, near Cape St. Vincent, at the southern extremity of Portugal, in order that he might get the first and last glimpse of the sails spread on his varied missions. From 141 2 he sent out one ship annually to explore the African coast, but his first success was the discovery of Puerto Santo, one of the Madeiras, in 1418, in consequence of a ship having been driven out to sea in bad weather. The Madeiras and Canaries were annexed in 1420 to the Portuguese crown. Madeira, i.e., timber isle, was an island of forests, which, having once caught fire, burned, it is affirmed, for seven years. The productiveness of the island has been ascribed to the fertilising effect of the wood ashes then spread over the soil. Colonies were planted in these islands, and the sugar-cane and Cyprus vine were introduced, the fruit of the last being destined to produce the renowned Madeira or Canary wine. It was not till 1433 that Gil Eannes, one of Don Henry's captains, doubled Cape Bojador. N. Tristan, eight years later, advanced as far as Cape Blanco, three degrees south of the tropic of Cancer. In order to secure his triumphs. Prince Henry procured a bull from Pope Eu- genius IV., which guaranteed to the Portuguese all their discoveries between Cape Nun, in IMorocco, and India. None of his commanders approached within six or eight degrees of the equator. Commercially their discoveries extended the fisheries, and brought them gold, ivory, and cotton, from the interior of Africa ; but, in the restless desire to find a path to India, this trade was almost disregarded. The first negroes were brought to Lisbon by Nuno Tristan in 1442, from the Isle of Arguin, III II 114 ^^^■^ GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. near Cape Blanco. Cape Verde, and the Cape Verde Islands (so named on account of the abundance of green gulf-weed surrounding them), as well as the Azores, were dis- covered about 1448-9 ; and this was the limit of Portuguese exploration during Prince Henry's lifetime. This patriotic and enlightened prince died in 1463. By the year 1472, St. Thomas, Annobon, and Prince's Islands were added to the Portuguese discoveries, and occupied by colonists; and at length the equator was crossed. Fernando Po having given his name to an island in the Bight of Biafra, acquired posses- sion of five hundred leagues of equatorial coast, whence the King of Portugal took the title of Lord of Guinea. The sub- sequent divisions of this territory into the Grain Coast, named from the cochineal thence obtained, and long thought to be the seed of a plant, Gold Coast, Ivory Coast, and Slave Coast, indicate by their names the nature of the products of those lands, and the kind of traffic. Under King John II., after an inactive period of eight or ten years, Diego Cam (1484) pushed forward fearlessly to latitude 22° south, erecting at intervals on the shore, pillars of stone, w^hich asserted the rights of his sovereign to the newly-found land. For the first time, perhaps, in history, men had now sailed under a new firmament. They lost sight of a part of the old celestial constellations, and were awe-struck with the splendours of the Southern Cross, and hosts of new stars. Each successive commander aimed at outdoing the deeds of his predecessor. Imaginary perils, which had frightened former sailors, spurred the Portuguese to greater daring, Bartholomew Diaz, in i486, was sent in command of an expedition of three ships, with directions to sail till he reached the southernmost headland of Africa. Creeping on from cape to cape, he passed the furthest point touched by Diego Cam, and reached about 29° south latitude. Here driven out of his course by rough weather, he was dismayed on again making land to find the coast trending northward. He had doubled the Cape without knowing it, and only PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES— VASCO DE CAMA. I15 found it out on returning, disheartened by the results of his voyage. Raising the banner of St. Philip on the shore of Table Bay, Diaz named the headland the Cape of Tempests, which the king, with the passage to India in mind, changed to that of the Cape of Good Hope. By a curious coincidence, in the same year Covillan, while on an embassy to the towns of Calicut and Goa in Hindostan, learnt the fact that the Cape of Good Hope, the Lion of the Sea, or the Head of Africa, could be reached across the Indian Ocean. Ten years elapsed, when, prompted by the Spanish discoveries of a New World in the West, Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese gentleman of ancient family, set sail from Lisbon (July 8, 1497) on the express mission of reaching the Indies by the Cape of Good Hope. Success crowned the enterprise, and the problem of a new route was solved. Portugal had achieved the honour of lifting the mist that had hidden, from the days of Pharaoh Necho and the Phoenicians, the traditionary ocean path to India by the circumnavigation of Africa. On the 20th May, 1498, Gama reached Calicut, having on the way touched at Sofala, opposite Madagascar, and visited Mozambique and Melinda, from which last place pilots easily steered him across the Indian Ocean. De Gama found here a commercial prosperity based upon hus- bandry, handicrafts, and interchange, and had little trouble in entering into a treaty of trade with the Zamorin, or ruler of Malabar. His sudden appearance was by no means pleasing to the Arabs, who had acted for a long period as commercial intermediaries between India and the Western nations. They gained the ear of the Zamorin, and per- suaded him that the Portuguese were pirates, and as Vasco de Gama had not gifts sufficiently rich to counteract their influence, it tasked his diplomatic skill to effect the depar- ture of himself and his companions from Calicut in safety. Recrossing the Indian Ocean, he returned to Portugal in the year 1499. In the following year an expedition of thirteen ships, under Alvarez Cabral, accompanied by Bartholomew 1 I 6 THE GROWTH A. YD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Diaz (who was lost in a storm during the voyage), met with greater success. Cabral, driven out of his course, dis- covered Brazil, and, after despatching a ship with the tidings to Portugal, he continued his voyage to the Indies with six vessels. Arriving at Calicut, he met with a less hostile reception than Gama had experienced, for the Zamorin, in a friendly mood, gave him leave to establish a factory, and upon it to raise the Portuguese flag.* * Ancient and mediaeval commerce was restricted within the narrow limits of the Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians indeed sailed as far as the Tin-islands (England) ; but they never left the coast. That the Phoenicians obtained amber from Prussia by the Baltic is highly improbable — it was more probably brought from Prussia by the overland route to Trieste. Hanno, son of Himilco, a Carthaginian mariner, according to Herodotus, circumnavigated Africa. Tliis had already been done by the Phoenicians, B.C. 6 10, incited by Pharaoh Necho. The Arabs, as also the Chinese before them, sailed by the magnetic needle, of which they named the poles — the one the cold, the other the warm pole (Zoron and Ason). For many centuries the knowledge of navigation by the mariner's compass was lost to Europe. In the year 1302 it was again brought to light by Flavio Gioja, or Gioia, an Italian, who claims to have invented the sus- pension of the needle upon a point, and once more navigators ventured boldly out to sea. Africa, as far south as the 28° N. lat., and the western and central portions of Asia were known, but not the extent to which that continent stretched to the east. The only authentic information about the east of Asia was that obtained from the two monks, Carpin and William of Ruysbroeck, consecrated in the reign of Louis IX., 1259, who were sent there to spread Christianity, and who travelled overland through Tartary ; and the information spread by the Venetian Marco Polo. He first sailed, 1 293, over the Indian Ocean with a fleet of fourteen ships back to the Arabian Gulf. He first renewed the idea of the circumnavigation of Africa. Theodosius Doria and Ugolino Rivaldus, with some other citizens of Genoa, travelled in two galleys around Southern Africa, and one of the galleys afterwards arrived at Abyssinia. The crew were made prisoners in that place. The annalist and navigator, Antonio Usidomaze, who in 1435 undertook a journey to Guinea, reports it as a fact that he had seen one individual who was a descendant of the Abyssinian prisoners. Also, about 1340, adventurers from Castile, in Spain, had discovered the Canary Islands. CHAPTER V. SPAIN. I. — BARC ELONA. Spain, from its admirable geographical position and pro- fusion of resources, appeared appointed to lead the world in wealth and civilisation. Spain, however, " saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant, and bowed the shoulders to bear, and became a servant unto tribute." The fate of Issachar had ever befallen the beautiful country — that of crouching between two burdens ; one of indolence, self-imposed, the other, foreign, the yoke, successively, of the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Visigoths, Arabs, and Moors. From the dawn of history it was the prototype of El Dorado, which the Spaniards so eagerly sought, while ravaging Mexico and Peru. During the Dark Ages industry and commerce enriched the Spanish Arabs and Moors, and Barcelona, a city in which was concentrated the whole trade that stood in the place of a national commerce, was alter- nately in the hands of the Moors and the Christians. The few mercantile adventures of this period were forced by surrounding examples rather than spontaneous. In 1 341 a small fleet of three merchant-ships, manned by Genoese, Florentines, Portuguese, and Spaniards, was des- patched for purposes of trade, and in 1344 Louis of France was created by the Pope Prince of the Fortunate Isles, the ancient name for the Canaries. Louis, being without patri- mony, resolved to take possession of the gift, and to found there a permanent colony, towards which design the Dauphin Humbert contributed a dozen ships and half-a-dozen galleys. IlS THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Spanish enterprise ended at Cape Bojador (Round Cape), 2° north of the tropic of Cancer, which was reached in the year 1350. The last twenty years closing the fifteenth century were distinguished by the enterprises and discoveries of the Portuguese, events which stirred Spain into activity, and caused her name to become identified with maritime dis- coveries even more astounding. The year 1492 was dis- tinguished by the discovery of America, and by the final conquest of Granada. Before narrating the course of events with which the name of Columbus will be for ever identified, minuter details of Catalonian trade claim precedence in order of time. Barcelona, the chief town of the province of Catalonia, lays claim to a genealogy extending further back than the foundation of Rome. It was in turn a Carthaginian and a Roman colony. In 11 64 the whole province became ab- sorbed in the kingdom of Aragon. As a commercial state, the history of Barcelona dates from the middle of the thir- teenth century. At this period, Hallam says, the Cata- lans began to emulate the maritime cities of Italy, both in war and commerce. Their vessels sailed to every part of the Mediterranean and other European seas. Barcelona was a formidable rival to Genoa, with which city it was engaged in frequent hostilities. Its rank was highest in the fifteenth century, when Venice alone exceeded it in maritime power. It was the depot of Eastern wealth for distribution in Christian Spain, The privileges granted to the Catalans by the kings of Aragon were such as to secure to them almost the independence of a sovereign state. Personal liberty was so guarded that no one could be arrested on board ship for an offence, provided he offered security for his surrender to justice after the voyage. The Catalans became so experienced in ship-building, that other nations resorted to their dockyards for the purchase of merchant- vessels. They excelled the Genoese mariners in intrepidity, BARCELONA-PRODUCTIO.XS OF CATALONIA. I 19 while as manufacturers they were especially expert and industrious. The nobles were as eager for the profits of commerce as the common people, and thus all ranks were united for the common benefit. During the disturbances which followed the taking of Constantinople by the Venetians, and when a great en- croachment of the Western nations introduced Italians, and Spaniards, and Frenchmen into the provinces and islands of the Eastern empire, the Catalans were for a time the great holders of territory on the continent of Greece, the Venetians holding the islands. Barcelona possessed, besides its ship-yards and wharves, a custom-house, a fine arsenal, foreign warehouses, manu- factories, banks, and exchanges, where Jews and Lombards, French, Italian, and German traders, attracted by the en- lightened spirit of its laws, carried on their business. Among others we read, in 1400, of fifteen Dutch and thirteen Savoyard houses of business. It would have been useless for these enterprising citizens to compete in manufacturing industry with the skilled Moors of Seville, Toledo, Malaga, Granada, and Almeria. Numerous guilds of artificers existed notwithstanding, and these proved invaluable after the ex- pulsion of the Moors, making Barcelona the most important manufacturing to\Mi in Spain. The manufactures consisted chiefly of woollen, cotton, and silk goods, lace, linen, paper, leather, and cordage. Much of Catalonia was rocky and barren, but part was very fertile, producing cereals, flax, hemp, liquorice, madder, saffron, almonds, filberts, chestnuts, figs, citrons, grapes, olive-oil, and silk ; of mineral produce, copper, lead, zinc, manganese, cobalt, with coal, nitre, rock-salt, barilla, and marble occurred. A good deal of wine was made, and there existed forests of the cork-oak, as well as of timber fit for ship-building. Upon these foundations the Catalans built up a transport trade greater even than their proper commerce. They held intercourse with the Spanish ports I20 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. of Valencia and Lerida. They possessed a Catalan quarter in the French markets of Beaucaire and Troyes, carrying thither e3pecially Moorish or Morocco leather. They took cloth, saffron, and Eastern goods to Sicily, bringing away grain and silk. Their commerce with Barbary, Egypt, and Syria provided them with herbs, spices, drugs, raw and spun cotton, ivory, indigo of two varieties, carmine, gums, balsam, rhubarb, aloe wood, coral, pearls, and porcelain brought by the Arabs from China ; and these commodities they again dispersed abroad. Flanders, the principal centre of their trade with North Europe, received from them logwood, saffron, cotton-thread, dates, sugar, anise, lac, and furs. Their ships were shut out from Constantinople and the Black Sea by the opposition of the Italians, but with Cyprus, Rhodes, and Candia they had an extensive trade. We owe to Barcelona the establishment of the first bank of deposit for the convenience of private merchants (1401), and also the earliest well-authenticated regulations for marine insurance. The credit of having produced the first work on maritime law in a modern language, " II Consolato del Mare," is claimed by Barcelona, and the claim is at least allowed by Hallam. II.— COLUMBUS AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. Christopher Colon or Columbus will ever have the honour of the discovery of America, although deprived of the right of imprinting his name upon the " other world " which he gave to Castile and Aragon. Previous communication had doubtlessly existed be- tween the old and new continents through the wide- stretching lowlands that surround the North Pole. The reindeer and other representatives of the fauna are common to botli hemisplieres, and the Esquimaux of COLUMBUS-ROTUXDITY OF THE EARTH. 121 Mongolian or Turanian origin wander round the whole circuit of Arctic latitudes. Summarizing the views of Malte-Brun, Humboldt, and other writers, De Tocqueville says, " Some points of resemblance have been discovered between the physical conformation, the language, and the customs of the North American Indians, and of the Tun- gouses, the Manchoos, the Mongols, the Tartars, and other nomadic tribes of Asia. The proximity of these tribes to Behring's Straits lends probability to the hypothesis that at a remote period they peopled the uninhabited continent of America. But science has yet arrived at no certain con- clusion on this point."* Greenland, as well as Iceland (the latter by geographical position more properly American than European), had been settled by Scandinavian colonists, who had also visited the mainland. As a continent, how- ever, stretching across a whole hemisphere, America was unknown. Columbus believing in the rotundity of the earth, and in the indefinite extension of the Indies to the east (a notion derived from Marco Polo), aimed only at reaching the extreme Indies by saiHng to the west, a feat which he might have done but for the intervention of the New World. Impressed with this thouglit, Columbus stored up every shred of information indicative of the existence of western lands till the proofs seemed to him conclusive. Far out at sea a mariner had picked up a piece of peculiarly carved wood, dlfterent from anything then known. On tlie island of Flores two dead bodies had been drifted ashore, of a race unlike any in the Old World. It is also stated that Columbus had been to Iceland, where he met with many circumstances which strengthened his convictions. His great glory is that he observed, compared, and drew inferences, from phenomena patent to all, but to which he alone attached their due weight, and that he after- wards established the truth of his inlerences. Columbus, • " De la Democialie en Amerique," vol. i. c. i. p. 34. T22 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. born probably in 1435 or 1436, was the son of a wool- comber of Cagoletto or Albizola, in the state of Genoa. As a Genoese, he had an inborn love of the sea, and became a sailor at the early age of fourteen. Through the care of his father, he was even then a good draughtsman and a fair scholar, having studied in Pavia astronomy, geography, and navigation, together with geometry and Latin. His range of mental culture enabled him to profit by his practical experience of seamanship. He became a dauntless mariner and a skilful constructor of charts. The circumstances of his early life tended to kindle the fervour of his genius for discovery. About the year 1470 he married the daughter of an old Portuguese navigator, by name Bartholomew Perestrello, who had visited the west coast of Africa, and who possessed a large colleciion of maps and charts. Columbus commenced the drawing of charts as a means of gaining a livelihood, and every one he drew inspired him with a more ardent faith. He determined to test his cherished idea of the existence of land in the West. How he offered immortal fame to his countrymen, the Genoese, and to the Venetians, and was treated by both with contumely, is a matter of history. Yet we cannot but think with regret of the different fate which would have awaited America and its feeble red people if a more humane, experienced, and enlightened nation had responded to his appeal. The King of Portugal basely betrayed Columbus while jjretending to listen to his views, and sent out another seaman, who, without the genius or pre- possessions of Columbus, soon returned to report against the scheme. Columbus now turned to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, while his brother visited England to solicit ships and money from Henry VII. One state after another threw away the noble chance of distinction. Even Spain, though urged by national honour and jealousy to emulate the maritime enterprise of Portugal, hesitated long before she granted the suit of Columbus, for not till he I VOiAGES OF COLUMBUS. I 23 was leaving the country in despair did the queen, under the stimulus of Portuguese discovery and his own pertinacity, concede him three small caravels or boats used in the herring fishery (only one of them completely decked), a mutinous crew of ninety men, and a few thousand ducats for the charges of the voyage. Columbus set sail from the small seaport of Palos in Andalusia, on the 3rd of August, 1492. His heroic perseverance was manifested more strikingly than ever in the management of his frightened and rebellious sailors, who bowed before him at one time as though he was inspired, and at another offered him the choice of death or return. San Salvador, one of the Bahamas, and probably the present Watling Island of the charts, was the first land sighted. Columbus went on shore on the 1 2th of October, 1492, having left the Canaries just thirty-five days before. "While cruising about, he fell in with Cuba and St. Domingo, and then returned to Europe, bringing with him some of the natives, together with gold and curiosities. No honours were now deemed too great for him. His reception was grander than any military triumph. He was soon provided with a fitting armament for the prosecution of his researches. Instead of the dregs of the galleys, his ships were crowded ^vith volunteers from among the bravest seamen. His second voyage lasted from 1493 to 1496. In this he discovered Dominica, IMarie Galante, Guadaloupe, Porto Rico, and Jamaica. It was not until his third voyage (149S — 1500) that he discovered the island of Trinidad, and descried the mainland of South America, near the mouth of the Orinoco. In his fourth and last voyage he surveyed the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and the Mosquito coast, ultimately reaching the shores of Jamaica, with his ships reduced to mere wrecks. Columbus saw in these islands of the western ocean a confirmation of his opinion that he could reach the East Indies by sailing to the west. He returned to Europe to learn of Vasco de Gama's passage round the Cape, and 124 ^^-^ GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. became convinced that he had but to seek a strait or channel through which he could sail to the Moluccas. He perpetuated the memory of his delusion in the name of the West Indies, which he gave to this archipelago ; and, ill- treated by the country upon which he had shed such honour, he did not live long enough to rectify his error.* * The suppositions and grounds on which Columbus founded his plan for finding a passage by sea to the East Indies, by sailing in a westerly direction, were as follows : — I. That various writers, both ancient and modern, had expressed their belief that our earth was a sphere, and the possibility of its cir- cumnavigation. Columbus believed the circumference of the earth to be less than it really is, basing his estimate on the calculations of the Arabian astronomers, Alfraganus and Mohammed Ibn Cottair al Fergani, in the tenth century. Aristotle (de Cselo II. 14), and Pliny (Nat. His., lib. vi. cap. 17), regarded the expansion of Asia to the east as equal to about a third part of the earth's circumference. Strabo (lib. XV. page 1015) gives the interval between the west of Europe and the east of Asia as 130,000 stadii, or 3,250 geographical miles, which is far greater than it really is, the distance being only 2,600 geographical miles, according to Hoffman. Roger Bacon supported the view of Strabo and Aristotle in his "Opus Majus." Columbus wrote a treatise on these opinions, and also on the course to be taken in order to test their truth, which was sanctioned by the great Florentine astronomer (Paulus Fhysicus) ; and after Marco Polo and Ruysbroeck had described the countries (China and Japan) Columbus was prepared to venture all, even life itself, on the accuracy of this spherical or globu- lar theory, 2. These opinions were corroborated by the finding of reeds, cut poles and beams, as also the bodies of men of a race wholly unknown, which had been stranded on the coast of the Canary Islands. Humboldt proves that it was not the discovery of the fabulous island of Atlantis, mentioned by Plato, not the finding of the islands of the Antilles and the seven cities, which kindled that inextinguishable ardour of Columbus, but the discovery of a western sea-path to the East Indies shorter than that by the Cape of Good Hope. These settled convictions were opposed to the superstitious theology and the belief of the learned men of his day, who regarded the hot zone as uninhabited, and inaccessible to ships. f CHAPTER VI. FRANCE. The history of commerce and industry in France during the Middle Ages resolves itself, as in Italy, into the history of separate towns, rather than that of a united kingdom. These towns were situated in the maritime provinces bor- dering respectively on the Mediterranean Sea, the Bay of Biscay, and the English Channel. The Mediterranean division contained three commercial towns, Marseilles, Aigues-Mortes, and Montpellier, with others engaged in woollen manufactures in the province of Languedoc. Marseilles has always been the chief commercial city and seaport of France. Originally a Greek colony under the name of Massilia, it was long a flourishing rival of Carthage ; and during even the depth of the Dark Ages, it maintained its commercial character. Its convenience as a port of de- parture for the Holy Land caused many of the Crusaders to choose it for embarkation. The municipal authorities en- couraged this passenger traffic by rigid laws of inspection, to ensure the comfort and proper treatment of the voyagers. Such restrictions applied to an exceptional trade were of great service, but failed of their purpose when the authori- ties attempted to legislate in a similar way for the perma- nent commerce of the town. With the hope of fostering the growth of native industries, they made it illegal to import foreign commodities, but thereby they diminished both their foreign trade and their home manuiactures. The making of coarse woollens could alone be said to flourish. The wool was obtained from the Barbary 126 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. states, and it employed the looms of all Provence as well as of the city of Marseilles. The cloths were dyed of bright colours with logwood, madder, and carmine, and for their strength and durability found favour in Italy and Greece. The cultivation of the mulberry and the manufac- ture of silk were introduced with success, but attempts to raise the sugar-cane failed. Marseilles grew in prosperity with each succeeding age, until its commerce and manufac- tures became very great. Aigues-Mortes was once a considerable harbour. Louis IX. sailed from this port on his crusade. It is situated amongst the salt marshes of the Rhone, and is now four miles in- land. On account of the stagnant or dead waters by which it is surrounded, and whence comes the name (aquce vwr- tuce), its climate is unhealthy. The marshes are, however, turned into a source of wealth by the manufacture of salt and potash. A more salubrious adjacent town with the name of Aigues-Vives became afterwards noted for the distillation of brandy [eau de vie). The commerce of Aigues-Mortes was chiefly that which it derived as a depot for spices and other Eastern goods, to be interchanged with the woollen and linen textures of the northern provinces of France. The port being undesirable as a residence, the factors and bankers transacted their business at Avignon, higher up the Rhone, where the warehouses of the Italian and other foreign merchants were also to be found. The towns of the province of Languedoc were famous for their silk and v/ooUen manufactures, especially of those dyed scarlet, rose, and azure blue. Montpellier, Narbonne, Nismes, Beziers, Carcassonne, Perpignan, and Toulouse, were the chief industrial towns. Fairs were held at Beau- caire and Montpellier, at which places the Florentines bought English wool, and the Venetians obtained French cloths for their commerce in the Levant. Still more important was the cloth trade of the provinces adjoining Flanders. Troyes, the capital of Champagne, was FRE.XC// A/.lXLTACTL'Ji/XG TOIVXS.-TROVES. 12 J £\ manufacturing town in the fifth century, and a fair was esta- blished there at least as early as 1118. Known as the Remigius ]\Iarket, this fair for three hundred years grew in importance, and attracted German, Dutch, Flemish, Lom- bard, Florentine, and Venetian merchants. Troyes was the entrepot of the manufactures of Champagne and also of the neighbouring provinces of Picardy, the Isle of France, and Normandy. The products of industry to be found there were of a varied character, though none of them in value approached the textile fabrics. The following list of towns includes the seats of the cloth industry in each province : — Champagne. — Troyes, Chalons, Rheims, Provins, Sens, Vitry, St. Dizier. Isle of France. — Pontoise, St. Denis, Paris, Lagni, Senlis. Normandy. — Rouen, Louviers, Bernai. Picardy. — St. Quentin, Aubenton, Amiens, Abbeville. Troyes obtained cloth from the South Netherlands as largely as from the French provinces. The following then Flemish towns were thus in commercial intercourse with Troyes : — Cambray, Valenciennes, !Maubeuge, Avesnes, in Hainault ; Arras, Douai, Lille, Tournay, Dixmude, Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, in Artois and Flanders ; Malincs, Brussels, Louvain, Diest, and Huy, in Brabant and Lie'ge. Amongst the miscellaneous commodities reaching the markets of Troyes were leathern goods from the south of France, and horses from Lombardy and Germany. Eastern produce, such as spices, formed a large part of the mer- chandise of the Venetian traders ; for the French merchants charged themselves wath little business beyond what was brought to their shores. ISIerchandise converging upon Troyes from so many places made the town rich and in- fluential. The Troyes or Troy weight became a standard, recognised and generally adopted. Two causes combined at length to diminish its trade : first, merchants were de- terred by the unwise imposition of heavy dues from bringing 128 THE GROWTH A XD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. their goods; and next, in 129S, when the overland route for Oriental commerce, by way of Syria and Constanti- nople, was closed to the Venetians, and they re-opened the old route through Egypt, goods were conveyed by sea direct to England and the Netherlands. Bruges was the first of the Flemish cities thus favoured by intercourse with the East; Antwerp followed in 13 18. Troyes clung to its privileges and prohibitions till it fell into utter decay ; while other towns, till then insignificant, began to share its failing trade and profits. Charles VII. in 1445 conferred upon Lyons, a city much more con- veniently situated for the trade of southern France, the privilege of holding three markets. Of the northern sea- ports, Harfleur, at the mouth of the Seine, was at this time the seat of a trade with the Portuguese and Castilians. Although the harbours of the western coast of France are admirably suited for commerce, their sea-trade did not attain any magnitude till long after INIarseilles had risen to be an active and important port. The two principal ports were Bordeaux and La Rochelle. Till the year 13 r 2, when they were deprived of the immunities which they had pre- viously enjoyed, the Templars conducted much of the trade of Rochelle. Its exports consisted largely of wine. The Flemings alone bought at this town 40,000 casks annually. One consignment, the vessels conveying which were captured by the English, consisted of 9,000 casks. Bordeaux is an ancient city, having under the name of Burdigala been rebuilt by the Romans, a.d. 260, after its destruction by fire. It is well placed for foreign commerce, and it sent wine to England in 1302. Its traffic with the interior became developed from the facilities afi"orded it by the Garonne, the Dordogne, and their tributaries. The articles of commerce sent from Bordeaux increased in number until the city came to rank next to Marseilles. The foreign trade of France at this period was conducted almost wholly by the Dutch, or by foreign ships trading with the FREXCH IXDUSTKIES STIMULATED BY ITALY. I 29 French ports. Holland took to France cloths and fish, and the raw produce of Russia, Sweden, and Germany. An inter- mittent wine trade with England was carried on, though often disturbed by war. France received from England woollen fabrics, wool, lead, and fish. France owes much of its modern prosperity to the stimulus given to her indus- tries by Italy, which had ever been the richest and most beautiful country of Europe, and the entrepot of the com- merce of the East and the West. Charles VIII., when in Italy, sent to France not only works of art, but artists and artisans, many of whom became French citizens, and by their teaching improved the taste and extended the range of French industry. The French were well aware of their inferiority to the Italians, and even prided them- selves upon being the disciples of those whom they went to enslave. Amongst those who settled in the country were goldsmiths, tailors, carpenters, carvers, weavers, embroiderers, musicians, architects, painters, and philosophers. Under the idea that the profits of the trade would be confined entirely to citizens of France, and that navigation would be promoted, the government altered its policy and ordered foreign goods to be imported in French vessels only. Commerce in consequence was diverted to freer harbours, competition and emulation no longer incited to excellence, and contraband trade was encouraged. III CHAPTER VI T. ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, IRELAND, England. — There was nothing in the intercourse be- tween the ancient nations and our o^vn country that fore- shadowed the supremacy we were destined to attain in the arts of industry and the pursuits of commerce. The geo- graphical isolation of Britain had its counterpart in our social and commercial life. Our richest natural endow- ments, coal and iron, were, in the first period of British history, almost unknown. England was covered with dense forests ; herds of wild cattle and other beasts roamed through the country ; agriculture was practised only in the rudest way, and the natives lived chiefly upon fruits and the products of hunting. Little of the land was arable, and the forests were valued, not for their timber, but for their pannage in the form of the mast of oak and beech, which furnished sustenance to herds of swine. Tin lying near the surface of the soil, and lead in considerable quantities, were exchanged with the Phoenicians for trinkets ; and a few simple commodities were transmitted overland to Marseilles, for use in the Levantine states and Greece. Roman occupation increased the mineral produce, but cattle-rearing and swine-herding long employed most of the inhabitants. Hides, wool, and furs are named among the exports, and British pearls appear to have been esteemed. In the Saxon period a commercial treaty was made between the king of the Mercians and Charlemagne, and about the same time notice is taken of an Anglo-Saxon trader in Marseilles. Other Anglo-Saxon merchants visited the market of St. Denis, in the reign of Dagobert. while EXGLlSfl WOOr^.-VARMOUTH HERR/.\CS.-~LOXDOX. I31 in the eighth century Frisians visited England. Fairs existed among the natives, but trade was restricted by the law which forbade transactions above the value of twenty pence, except in the sight of two witnesses or of the magis- trate. While the Mediterranean was crowded with an active commerce, England was merely productive and passive, waiting at home for traders, who visited it for tin, lead, wool, and hides. English wool was so esteemed that Charlemagne exempted merchants dealing in it from the peril of capture in war. Wool, also, was the staple of exchange for the cloths of the Netherlands from the days of Alfred the Great. William the Conqueror sheltered a band of weavers driven from Zealand by an irruption of the sea, and the country profited by the intercourse they established with Holland. English wool soon improved so much that next to money it was the commodity most eagerly sought in foreign exchange. Part of the ransom of Richard I. was paid in wool. Eventually com and cheese began to be regular articles of export. The herring shoals found off Yarmouth gave the first impulse to our principal fishery. The herring trade was confirmed to that town by a charter of King John. London was the earliest in time and the first in importance of the English trading cities. Tacitus mentions London as a celebrated resort of merchants. Bede relates that it was frequented by foreigners in 614 for the purposes of trade, and William of Malmesbury speaks of it as a wealthy and populous city in 1041. An early trade in slaves brought profit to Bristol. In the Norman period agriculture and manufactures were less iiide than in the time of the Saxons, but spinning and weaving were for a long time household avocations, and the coarsest cloths alone were produced when the industrial arts in France had reached some degree of excellence. During the Roman occupation of Britain the 132 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. native roads were improved, and others still remaining as great highways were constructed. Nevertheless, the general means of communication were wretched ; the car- riages were clumsy, and pack-horses along bridle paths sup- plied the chief mode of transport. On the rivers the Britons skilfully managed their light coracles made of wicker and hides. Probably they ventured in larger canoes as far as Ireland and Gaul. Alfred the Great created a navy of war- galleys, each rowed by sixty or eighty men, to cope with the Danish naval power. Under the Norman kings, further improvements in naval architecture were stimulated by association with France. England was occasionally unable to hold her own, but at other times was aggressive. Trading states in the Middle Ages regarded the seas as the domain of the strongest, and acts which would now be called piracy were often committed. Towns fought against each other without reference to law or king. Yarmouth, Winchelsea and the other Cinque Ports were often in open hostility with the maritime towns of Flanders and France. Individuals as well as towns were left to enforce on their o\\ti account the reparation for maritime wrongs, and in their desire to recover their losses they were not scrupulous, where the real offender was difficult to reach, about choosing another in his stead. English merchants for many generations had to fight for every advantage they gained. The European trading leagues having got the start, did their best to stifle in its birth every new effort at foreign trade. They looked upon English vessels as lawful prizes, and sealed their own ports against fresh comers by heavy "discriminative" duties. A celebrated company of " merchant adventurers," however, received a charter in 1406 from Henry IV., and notwith- standing the opposition of Continental monopolists, pursued a profitable trade, smuggling the cheap coarse English woollens into the marts of Flanders, Italy, and the Levant, in exchange for rich cloths, wines, and arms. The causes and the consequences of the backward condi- EXGLAXD UXDER THE XORMANS.-MOXASTERIES. 1 33 tion of England are not far to seek. Saxons, Danes, Nor- mans, not only plundered the prior inhabitants, but dis- turbed their institutions. At each conquest the nation was thrown back, and had to begin anew. The Britons under the Romans partook of the refinement of their masters. Progress, arrested when William the Norman ground the land under his iron heel and blighted Saxon freedom with the curse of thraldom, was long in making a fresh start. The feudal system in England virtually rendered industry penal, for it enforced idleness on the vassals, who learned to think that war and the chase were the fitting employ- ments for free men, and that useful work was degrading. Forest laws kept the land from cultivation, and consequently husbandry remained in a low condition. The caprice of the seasons led to failures of produce, both vegetable and animal, and famines were far from unfrequent. For gene- rations England continued a country of forests and marshes — the hunting-ground of domineering Normans. Red deer and wild swine were of higher value in the eyes of such men than the lives of Saxon serfs. Trade was checked by rapine and lawlessness, and few foreign merchants would risk life and property for the profits of commercial intercourse. The monasteries of that time seem to have been the sanctuaries of industry as well as of learning. Located in fertile vales, the clergy made labour a sacred duty, and by cultivating the rich lands around them they improved the practice of agriculture. They were lenient masters. By shielding the farm labourers from the injustice of the barons, the monks prepared the way for the overthrow of villeinage. If the loss of liberty be the loss of half our virtue, we owe an indefinite debt to monachism for the restitution of this priceless boon. As freemen the lower orders acquired a right to property, which elevated their moral tone and added to the prosperity of the whole population. Manufactures no less than husbandry were fostered by the monks. The principle of every monastery was, that each community U4 THE CROWTH A\D VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. should supply as far as possible its own wants Ly home labour. Cloth was woven from home-grown wool ; abbeys and churches were planned and built by ecclesiastical artificers, and beautiful ruins and splendid cathedrals remain as evidences of their genius. Each religious retreat was a centre of industry greater than military glory. Conquerors and conquered were silently brought together by the teach- ing and example of the Church, until in the lapse of time and through many agencies the fusion of the two rival races, Saxon and Norman, was completed. From this period England possesses a national history, and dates its growth as an industrial and commercial power. Characteristic of ignorance, indeed, laws were passed to prevent native industry from being injured by the influx of the necessaries and comforts of life from abroad. Thus Henry II. incorporated the weavers of London, and gave them many privileges, condemning all foreign wool to be burnt. Edward I. and Edward III. were warlike rulers, continually in need of pecuniary subsidies, and unscrupulous as to the means by which they obtained them. They per- ceived that trade was a main source of wealth, and so far, therefore, they encouraged the pursuits of industry. Ed- ward I. opened English ports to the merchants of Germany, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Lombardy, and Tuscany, but he confiscated the property of sixteen thousand five hundred industrious Jews, whom he banished from the kingdom, thereby displaying religious fervour, while bringing money to his well-nigh exhausted treasury, and relieving himself of enormous debts. Edward III. granted the weavers, dyers, and fullers of Flanders exclusive privileges, to induce them to settle in the kingdom, yet at the same time fettered the grant with absurd regulations to prevent his invited guests growing rich or proud. A citizen of London in the same reign was executed for using coal as fuel, after it had been forbidden. The clamour against coal may be more easily understood when we remember that EXCLISH NAVY— MERCHANT-PRINCES. 1 35 chimneys and glass windows were luxuries not as yet commonly enjoyed, and that the smoke from fires had to make its escape from crevices in the buildings. The earliest export of coal was from Newcastle to France, in 1325. About this time, also, textile fabrics were first exported from England. Woollen cloths were manufactured at Bristol, London, and Norwich. Linen and silk-weaving began to flourish. The hardware manufacture, however, was still bound down by heavy duties, and tin vessels made in Malta, from ore raised in England, formed a portion of the imports. How rapidly a native marine was formed may be judged by the fact that the Cinque Ports, which for special im- munities granted at the Conquest Avere bound to furnish, when required, merchant vessels for use in war, supplied but five of such vessels for the use of Edward I. ; while, together with London, Bristol, and Southampton, they furnished seven hundred and ten, manned by over fourteen thousand sailors, for the service of Edward HI. in the siege of Calais. This was the era of the merchant-princes whose names are landmarks in English history. The family of the De la Poles, merchants of Hull, were distinguished for their great wealth, amassed in commercial pursuits in the reign of Edward \\\. Between that period and the reign of Henry VHL, the De la Pole family produced a lord chancellor, and acquired successively an earldom, a mar- quisate, and a dukedom. The wealth of Canynge, five limes mayor of Bristol in the reign of King Henry VL, is attested in the stately structure of St. Mary Redcliffe, the *' Pride of the West," one of the finest examples of our ecclesiastical architecture ; and also in the still active charities of that city. Still more renowned is Sir Richard Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London, who had " right liberal and large hands " to all poor people, and the fame of whose wealth has given rise to one of our commonest nursery stories. 136 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Wealth 'arising out of industry and commerce produced great changes in national manners and customs. A power- ful middle class was created, jealous of their rights, and profiting by the depression ol the barons during the Wars of the Roses. These conflicts had long diverted the atten- tion of the English people from the vast natural resources with which they were favoured, while Iberians, Italians, Danes, Norwegians, and Germans, who had, from their offices in London, controlled the foreign trade, obtained for many 5'ears a new lease of our matchless coast and harbours. At the accession of the House of Tudor, the magnitude of Dutch, German, or even French trade had not been reached, but there had, nevertheless, been laid by England the foundations of a commerce and an opulence destined to excel and outlast the prosperity of nations much earlier than herself in the race. Scotland. — The trade of Scotland was less important than that of England, yet large fisheries were carried on along the coasts, and coarse cloths were woven in the towns. The exports were chiefly raw materials, some of which were carried in Scottish ships. The commodities comprised wool, beavers' skins, hides, oxen, horses, and sheep, and were consigned for the most part to the Low Countries. There, as in England, war blighted the promise of dawning commercial enterprise. During the days of the Alexanders * Scottish industry showed signs of development, which the struggle for independence, produced by the claims of Edward I., utterly destroyed. One of the few authentic documents connected with the hero Sir William Wallace, during his regency of the country after the battle of Stirling, * " Qwhen Alysander oure Kjoig wes dede That Scotlande led in luve and lee, Away wes sonse of aill and brede Of meal and malt, of gamyn and glee ; Our golde wes changyd al in lede. Chryste borne into virg}'nite Succour Scotlande, and remede That stad in his perplexite ! " SCO TLAXD.—IRELAXD. I 3 7 is a tieaty with the Hanse Towns to renew the intercourse between them and Scotland, interrupted by the Enghsh. It was discovered in the archives of Hamburg, The acts of the Scottish parhament from James I. downwards are largely taken up with legislation affecting the national commerce. Ircla?id. — Irish commerce resembled that of Scotland and England, and in importance ranked between the two. Dublin, Waterford, Cork, and Drogheda were prosperous ports, deahng in hides, skins, wool, and fish, and to some extent in grain. Woollen and linen goods were exported to a small extent. The commercial imposts were light, which gave the country the advantage of possessing comparative freedom of trade. CHAPTER VIII. THE NETHERLANDS. L— NORTH NETHERLANDS. Holland, or the North Netherlands, is referred to by Tacitus as the country of the Batavians, a tribe claiming to be the auxiliaries and friends, but not the subjects of the Romans. The country was at that time a wide marsh, composed more or less of saline diluvium from the Rhine and the Maas, subject to constant changes of form from the action of the sea, and destitute alike of minerals and of timber. Niebuhr says the prevalence of bog rendered any distinctive term for that substance unnecessary in the old dialect, as though no other soil were known. The Batavians mingled afterwards with the Frisians, the Saxons, and the Franks, the four races constituting the elements of the population of the Northern Netherlands. Dutch history was, to speak generally, one long wrestle for existence. Beaver-like labour had first to enclose a country to live in, and then to procure by commerce the means of subsistence. The kine of the meadows furnished butter, cheese, and hides, and the rivers and the sea fish. Such industrial discipline was severe, but every step was sure. The Emperor Charlemagne chose Frisian robes, both white and of purple dye, as Easter pre- sents to his favourites, and to the princes in alliance with him ; amongst them the Caliph Haroun al Raschid. The interweaving of figures in their textures was an art in which the Frisians seem to have excelled. Their provinces between the fifth and eighth centuries embraced all the THE FRISIAXS-STAVOREN. 1 39 "sea-lands" between the mouth of the "Weser in Germany and that of the Zwin in West Flanders. Their name was after^vards applied only to the northern districts of Holland ; indeed, the Frisian stock now exists only in far-severed frag- ments and upon outlying promontories and isles which form the ruins of a once extensive country, nine-tenths of which have been swept away by the waves of the North Sea; but the western coast of Schleswig is still Frisian. The Norse sea-kings found in them a different people to attack from the inhabitants of many other coasts. The Frisians not only repelled the rovers, but daringly pursued them on the North Sea, and even to the Baltic. Under Charle- magne, they also served on the Danube against the Avars. In order to secure their commerce, they fixed upon Stavoren, a town conveniently situated on the Zuyder Zee, which then covered but a small part of the land now submerged, and made it their capital. Stavoren rapidly rose to commercial greatness. Traditions of the opulence of its ancient burghers still linger in many legends, and in the epithet of " the lamented children of Stavoren." Numerous records are extant of Frisian hardihood, both on sea and land. The Firth of Forth is called by Nennius the Mare Friseaan because of its exposure to their early incursions. Every year the North Sea was covered with their herring-boats. Along with other Netherlanders, they were active by sea and land during the Crusades. The principal period of the rise of the towns of the Netherlands was between the ninth and the thirteenth centuries. The provinces were ruled by feudal lords, whose vassalage to the German emperor was more nominal than real, and at length was but faintly acknowledged. As a means of revenue the rulers took toll at every town, and thus they hampered trade ; but greater injury was inflicted upon the nascent commerce by the jealous and almost incessant strife of the provinces amongst themselves. The south and the north Netherlanders, especially, were always rivals. The 140 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. mouths of the rivers being in Holland, the inhabitants were enabled to exact any tolls they pleased from the Flemish and German merchants. Such imposts led to resistance, in which the Flemings were often successful. The trade of Holland divided itself into the trade of the south, with Venice by way of Germany, and the trade of the north, with the Osterlings or Easterlings of the Hanse Towns in the Baltic. That with Venice was con- ducted partly by the Germans, and partly by the Dutch, the Venetians themselves taking no active part in the carriage of the goods. Repeated interchanges took place in the German towns in the course of transit, so that the same commodities were not always carried from one extremity to the other. Dordrecht, also called Dort, one of the oldest Dutch cities, is situated in the estuary of the Maas, on an island torn from the mainland during the flood of 142 1, about four hundred years after the foundation of the city. Dort was the foremost town of the province, and at one time the resi- dence of the Counts of Holland. Its natural strength was too great for its rulers to be coerced by feudal lords. Heavily-laden vessels could come close to the quays, and the city would have been an important trading-place even without the unusual privileges conferred upon it by its princes, and by which it was enriched. English wool was one of the commodities, of which, for German dealers, it became the principal store. Salt, wines, grain, hops, and wood, were subject to pre-emptive reservations. Being the last port on the Rhine, it was the point where the huge rafts of timber floating down from the German forests were broken up and sold. A great trade was carried on in salt fish and fish oils, as well as in corn and flax. The manu- facture of cloth, both woollen and linen, employed many hands ; ship-building, sawing, and other industrial occupa- tion';, added to the importance of the town. Zierikzee was, before the thirteenth century, a rich and ZIERIKZEE.—HOORX.-IIAARLE.\f. I41 flourishing port; in the fifteenth it possessed the largest ships and a numerous mercantile fleet, and traded Avith Portugal and Spain. Hoorn or Horn, on the Zuyder Zee, owed its prosperity to some Hanse merchants, who esta- blished a trading station there in 1316. The trade they brought to the place was chiefly that in beer, but Hoorn also became the seat of a traflic in cattle with Denmark, and in provisions and dairy produce with the maritime countries further south. Its ship-building yards were ex- tensive, and its inhabitants were amongst the ablest of navigators, Zierikzee and Hoorn are of historical as well as commercial interest, for the public spirit with which they resisted the levies of money and men made by Charles the Bold. As a consequence of the wars of this prince, Dutch merchantmen became the frequent prizes of France and other kingdoms ; valuable cargoes were annually sacrificed, and crews made prisoners ; while at home, taxes were enforced the more rigidly as the citizens became less able to pay. Through the vengeance taken by Charles upon the principal towns, cloth-weaving, which had hitherto been a flourishing manufacture at Hoorn, fell into decay, owing to the numbers of weavers and fullers who were driven from their homes. Zierikzee was made to pay a fine of thirty thousand guilders, and to support a garrison of foreign troops. Haarlem was a large but not densely populated town, early celebrated for its horticultural produce and for its varied industries. Its staple manufactures of textile fabrics, par- ticularly woollens, were in demand in places as distant as Portugal and Spain. Damask linen from the looms of Haarlem was esteemed in every quarter of the world. Specimens of these damask fabrics were produced of such wonderful fineness and beauty, as to surpass those of the Saracens. Haarlem compounded with the Counts of Hol- land in 1245, by a guaranteed payment of J[^2o a year, for freedom from taxes for ever. It suffered pillage in 1491 by 142 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. the " Bread and Cheese " insurgents, who were incited to revolt through the misrule of the House of Burgundy. Leyden at one time sent its cloth to Norway, to England, and to France; it contained a hundred thousand inhabitants, a great number of whom were engaged in the weaving trade. This high state of prosperity resulted from the liberaUty of the citizens. While the wealthier towns of the South Netherlands were exclusive in their policy. North Holland wisely welcomed all comers, and readily accorded to them the rights of citizenship. Fugitives from Brabant and Flanders settled at Leyden and other towns soon after the year 1300, bringing with them their skill in handicrafts. The city grew rich from the labour of these immigrants, and pro- duced from its three hundred and fifty looms nearly fifty thou- sand pieces of cloth annually. It also exported machinery. Delft, like most of the Dutch towns, possessed cloth manufactures, especially those of say or baize : brewing was another important industry, and its potteries were known so far and wide, that Delf or Delft became the com- mon name for that earthenware which is now superseded, even in Holland, by the superior Wedgwood ware and china of England. Gouda likewise was laying the foundation of of considerable trade. Enkhuizen was a ship-building and fishing port. Three- fourths of the Dutch-built herring-boats, from four hundred to five hundred in number annually, were constructed at this port. Its inhabitants numbered forty thousand, most of them dependent upon the " great fishery." The method of pickling herrings, improved by Beukelszoon, a native of Biervlieb, was practised also in Amsterdam, Enkhuizen, Delft, Hoom, Schiedam, Brielle, and Vlaardingen. The produce of this industry was exported all over the world. The town of Deventer, on the Yssel, was known for trading purposes in the year 882. It was burnt by the Norse pirates, and when rebuilt was often subsequently besieged by contending powers in Holland and Cologne. DEVENTER.-h'A^[PEX.-M!DDELBURG. 1 43 It was a free imperial city, well defended, and for a long while a member of the Hanseatic League, a connection which opened to it the trade with Bergen. Deventer also secured trading privileges with Scandinavia. The exports were cattle, corn, butter, cheese, beer, wool, and turf, and there was a busy trade in timber. Coarse manufactures of linen, wool, and carpets also employed the inhabitants. Kampen, another town on the Yssel, resembled Deventer in the character of its trade. It was once a considerable place, boasting a mercantile marine of one hundred and twenty vessels, and pursuing an active maritime commerce with Holland and the South Netherlands, as well as with more northern states, and also a considerable inland traffic by means of the Rhine. Merchants from England, Germany, and the Baltic assembled in its markets. Middelburg is a characteristic example of the Dutch towns, which are said to have been in the Middle Ages not parts of the state, but commonwealths in themselves. The muni- cipal charter of Middelburg, bearing date 12 13, is the oldest document of the kind extant, except that of Gertruydenberg. Count William II. in 1253, and Count Floris V. in 1271, conferred further privileges upon the town. This place was so flourishing that the English made it, about 1380, a staple or market for the wool trade. Raw wool from England came in free of all customs, the citizens, under the pro- tection of their charter, being " allowed to buy what they liked, where they liked, to live at peace with their neigh- bours, and to be left alone." * The wool trade of Middel- burg between 1380 and 1390 drew to its mart merchants from Italy, Portugal, and Spain, and this intercourse led to a prosperous trade in wine. Nimeguen (Nymegen), in Guelderland, in 1050 was noted, with Wyk by Duurstede, for the production of fine cloth of a bright scarlet dye, which had retained its high character • " Industrial Histor)' of tl,e Dutch," by T. iMCuIlagh. 144 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. one hundred and twenty years after, when the chief lord of the province stipulated for a yearly tribute of three pieces to the Emperor Frederick. Nimeguen was a member of the Hanse, and was in alliance with Cologne. Rotterdam, in South Holland, on the Maas, at the con- fluence of the Rotte, obtained municipal privileges in 1270, extensions of which were secured in 1340 and 1361. William VI. also materially promoted the business of the town. Rotterdam has always ranked as one of the most commercial and populous cities of Holland. It had inland communication, by means of canals, with every other town in the country; and owing to its river, the largest ships could come up close to its quays. Its manufactures of rope and canvas were extensive, and it carried on a large trade in wines and grain. It had salmon fisheries, and was also one of the principal ports for the herring fishery, as well as for trade with France and England. The inhabitants of Utrecht ( Ultrajechuii) carry their annals back to the Romans ; they were early renowned as skilful weavers. They possessed the right of levying troops and coining money. Their industry and power inspired them with such spirit that they burned their city rather than capitulate Avhen attacked by the Norsemen. Utrecht was in the tenth century the seat of a trade with the Rhine- lands, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, and the Baltic, possessed commercial relations with Cologne, and was one of the first towns to engage in the wine trade. Besides the weaving of velvet, linen, and wool, the citizens were employed in dyeing and bleaching, and in the making of earthenware, while agriculture was profitably pursued in the vicinity. Amsterdam, on the Amstel, was in the year 1300 little more than a hamlet, sheltering a few poor fishermen who obtained their scanty living from the Zuyder Zee. The neighbourhood was desolate marsh-land. Upon this unpro- mising site the city arose, and became in time the capital of the commercial world. This greatness was chiefly due AMSTERDAM,~ITS PROSPERITY. I45 lo advantages derived from its position. The original vil- lage offered security to fugitives from Flanders, and their intelligence and skill laid the foundation of manufactures and commerce. In 13 13 William III. granted to the Baltic merchants exemption from tolls at Dort — a privilege after- wards extended to Amsterdam. The city joined the Hanse League, and iri 1342 an enlargement of the boundaries became necessary. In 1368 the Swedish king gave to Amsterdam important commercial privileges. War was entered upon in 1437 with the Hanse Towns, or Osterlings, resulting in an extension of the trade of the Northern Netherlands, and in the acquisition of new commercial advantages from Sweden, and soon after from Norway and Denmark, In 1452 Amsterdam was burnt down, and a vast quantity of merchandise destroyed. Twenty years sufficed to restore the city, and to render it independent of the Hanse protection, from which it severed itself in 1472. The trade from this date increased rapidly. In 1482 the inhabitants fortified their capital ; by 1 500, commercial relations had been established with Iceland and Russia. Merchants from every European country met on its ex- change, and it owned a mercantile fleet of two hun- dred sail. Without any native timber, a forest was driven into the ground to build upon, and large fleets were built and maintained. Surrounded by marshy pasture-land, the city was a vast granary, and a storehouse of the fruits of the earth. Fishermen, more expert than elsewhere, made great hauls of herrings, yet no native-grown hemp could be obtained for their nets, or sufficient iron for their fish-hooks. No happy accidents or adventitious cir- cumstances favoured the city, yet " the sea not only bathed its walls, but entered among its streets ; and the fleets of its merchantmen, as seen from the ramj^arts, lay so crowded together, that vision was intercepted by the thick forest of masts and yards." The ancient foundation of the wealth of the Netherlands III K 146 "7"//^ CROWIH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. was their fisheries, a pursuit to which their teeming seas and scanty soil ahke impelled them. References to this industry occur in connection with every maritime tov/n, and prove it to be, not a merely local, but a great national industry. The herring fishery endowed those engaged in it \^^th hardihood, and rendered them skilful navigators. The abundance of the fish not only supplied home wants, but furnished an article of trade, although the perishable nature of the commodities necessitated the speedy curing of the herrings. Norwegian chronicles refer to the herring fisheries in the tenth century. Shoals round the Isle of Rugen, in the Baltic, were so numerous in 1124 that a waggon-load of the fish is said to have been valued at a pfenning. This abun- dance was thought by the simple fishermen to be owing to the sacrifices they offered to Swantovith, their tutelary deity, before casting their nets. Before the twelfth century closed, the fishermen of Zierikzee found shoals as plentiful near Briel, and soon these seas swarmed with shabarts, or herring- boats. Zealanders and Frieslanders fished off the Yarmouth coast at the beginning of the thirteenth century, for in a charter granted by King John to that town they received certain privileges ; and leave to fish was afterwards repeated many times in treaties of commerce. The secret of salting herrings, cod, and ling for export was practised by Peter Chivalier soon after the first charter was given to the town. Twenty marks were paid by Peter de Perars in 1221 for an extension of leave to carry on the art. William Beukelszoon of Biervliet, who died in 1397, has always had the credit of the discovery of a process of curing to which he has given his name. In 1295 Edward I. renewed to the Dutch the privilege of fishing in the firths of Scotland. Schouwen appears in the fourteenth century to have been frequented by the herring shoals in preference to Rugen. Lubeck and other Hanse Towns found profit in these fishing-grounds. HF.RR/XG FISHIXG.—SOL'TH XETHERLAXDS. 1 47 Kampen, and later Amsterdam, Eiikhuizen, and Wieringen, in 1368, took joint possession of a district of Schouwen as herringcurers. Again the herrings changed their haunts, choosing the coasts of Norway as their rendezvous, where Norsemen and Netherlanders ahke caught them. These Norse fisheries throve until 1587, when the apparition of a gigantic herring frightened the shoals away ; so at least the credulous fishermen believed. The art of curing gave a great impulse to the herring fishery. Large takes could now be made with advantage, as nearness to home was not essential. Fishing-nets were increased in size. The first departure from the prescribed, dimensions was made by Hoorn or Enkhuizen fishermen in 1 41 6. To float the nets, in the absence of cork, they used a light wood from the Baltic, called toll-hout, afterwards turned to account for buoys, which gave rise to a useful branch of manufacture, and proved far from valueless as an item of commerce. II.-SOUTII NETHERLANDS. The early history of Flemish commerce presents three eras. The first begins about the year S62, when Baldwin III. induced Frisian weavers to settle in Ghent, already a busy city, and thus laid the foundation of a staple industry. He wisely instituted annual fairs or markets, where no toll was taken for goods, and thus gave great encouragement to trade. The second is connected with Count Baldwin IV., who in 1203 led the fifth Crusade, and, turning aside to the conquest of Constantinople, was raised to the throne of the Eastern Empire, thus bringing the Flemings into communication witli countries hitherto little known. The third period is that of the Burgundian princes, Philip the Good, Charles the Bold, and Maria. It was I4S THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Philip the Good who estabhshed the Order of the Golden Fleece, and publicly honoured trade and commerce. The Flemings laboured under the disadvantage of a low and flat coast-line and a scarcity of harbours. Although the land was well watered and suited for inland navigation, the mouths of all the rivers, except the Scheldt, were in the North Netherlands, where transport was hampered by town dues. Flanders and Brabant were, however, more fertile than Holland, and, being so near to France, the agri- cultural resources of the country afforded more profitable occupation for the inhabitants. Manufactures, also, were established earlier, and took a wider growth than in Holland. While liberal principles prevailed, the Flemings continued to enrich themselves. Commerce at first was passive on their part; they had few vessels of their own. Italian mer- chantmen visited Bruges in the year 1300, and Venetian vessels followed a few years afterwards. Genoa, Florence, Ancona, Bologna sent gold and silver lace, silk, cotton, cam- lets, pearls, oil, and alum ; Venice sent spices, drugs and dies, furs, cottons, and silks. Wines from France, and sugar, yarn, and dye-woods from Catalonia, were subsequently imported. A striking contrast is exhibited between the navigation of the period under review and that of our own day. Catalan vessels occupied six months, Genoese seven, and Venetian eight in making their voyages to and from their several ports and Flanders. Eventually the Flemings carried on a considerable active trade. Floris Berthold, a Flemish merchant, who was described as " richer in gold and silver, gained by means of his great traffic in merchandise, which he sends away by sea and land, than any one else in the world," despatched ships to Alexandria, Cairo, and Syria. Bruges held the rank of a city in the seventh century. It was the chief trading to\vn of the Nether- lands; the emporium of the Hanseatic League, and the centre of the overland German traffic, by which goods BRUGES.-/TS DECAY.-CIIEXT. T49 from the Mediterranean and the East were exchanged for the raw produce of England, Norway, Denmark, North Germany, and Russia. Treaties of commerce were signed between Bruges and Spain, Portugal, Scotland, England, the Hanse Towns, Venice, Genoa, and Barcelona. At the end of the thirteenth century its citizens numbered nearly two hundred thousand. Merchants were attracted to the city by the freedom of its markets and the humanity of its government. Shipwrecked mariners received kind attention, piracy was checked, and friendly relations were sought with all foreign states, especially with England. By these means the city flourished, and on occasions of state the citizens were able to display so great magnificence that the envy of sovereigns was aroused. Manufactures of lace, silks, muslins, damasks, and woollens employed the inhabitants, and these, together with corn, flax, and hemp, were the chief exports. Wool, cotton, timber, and wine constituted the bulk of their valu- able imports. The port of Bruges was at first Sluys, but in the twelfth century docks were constructed, capable of hold- ing a thousand sail, at the village of Damme, now a fertile plain not far from the sea. The immense trade and flourish- ing manufactures of Bruges declined through the altered and selfish policy of its rulers, guildmasters, and others, who bound down the different industries by so many restrictive dues and regulations that contentions often arose. Political contests with the reigning prince, Philip of Burgundy, hastened the decay, and during the war between Flanders and Germany, at the end of the fifteenth century, the harbour became silted up from neglect. Ghent was next in importance of the Flemish cities, though at one time as densely inhabited as Bruges and Antwerp, It is referred to as a city in the seventh century, and was of much importance in the twelfth as a manu- facturing centre. The course of its history resembles that of Bruges, both in the efforts made to trammel trade and in 1 50 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. its frequent intestine commotions. Its guild of weavers was forty thousand strong — the boldest trading corporation in Europe, and for the prosperity of the city ever too ready to test their strength. Other towns in the vicinity of the three great industrial centres just described partook of the same character. Such were Courtray and Ypres, in West Flanders ; Oudenarde, in East Flanders j Louvain, in South Brabant ; and Mechlin (Alalines), in Antwerp. Lille, or Ryssel, was distinguished for the lucrative character and magnitude of its industries. At a festival held by the Duke of Burgundy, in 1454, the lords of the chamber were dressed in silk, and the shield-bearers in satin of Lille make, while the citizens adorned themselves with robes of gold and silk, trimmed with costly furs. Antwerp existed as a small republic in the eleventh cen- tury. It succeeded to a good deal of the trade lost by Bruges, and attained a greater population. From its supe- rior facilities for reaching the sea by the estuary of the Scheldt, upon which it stands, it became a great commercial as well as a manufacturing city, so that the business of a month in Antwerp eventually doubled that of a year of the best days of Venice. Fabrics of flax, wool, and silk were manufactured, as well as carpets of a kind valued for their colours and fineness of texture ; weapons and cutlery, gold, silver, and bronze metal-work ranked high for quality ; the most eminent tanners and sugar refiners were also to be found here. Antwerp attracted commerce by easy customs dues, and obtained the name of the " Market of the World." Goods were borne to its shores from cast, west, north, and south, by land and by sea. CHAPTER IX. SCANDINAVIA. — RUSSIA. Sweden. — Sweden was in every respect tlie most im- portant of the three northern kingdoms inhabited by the Scandinavian race. A more extensive country than Nonvay and Denmark taken together, its power, both poUtical and commercial, in the Middle Ages was correspondingly great. Sweden had possessed herself of the shores of Courland and Esthonia, and planted there a line of Russian kings. In the ninth century Lake Malar was the site of so prosperous a trade that Biorko, one of the island cities, could equip an army of fourteen thousand burghers ready for the field, and easily able to contribute one hundred silver marks apiece towards the war. The Dutch traded with this city, bringing Hnen, cloth, and wine. Biorko was devastated by St. Olaf in 1008, but such was its extent and sohdity that its ruins are still to be found. A similar history attaches to Vineta, a city in the island of Usedom, on the coast of Pomerania. Wisby, in Gothland, flourished by the enterprise of merchants driven from Vineta, and for two hundred years was the chief emporium of the north. It was well placed on an island possessing good harbours, a soil productive of fruits and vegetables, a genial climate, and valuable resources for traffic in corn, lime, timber, pitch, and other forest pro- ducts. Wisby was a member of the Hanseatic League, and during that connection acquired such commercial greatness, that the " Maritime Law of Wisby" was accepted by most of the commercial nations of the north. These laws were probably a compilation from the earlier " Laws of Oleron," themselves derived from " II Consolato del Mare." The city ^52 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. was built of stone, and the houses were often strengthened with iron doors and adorned with gilded windows. There were sixteen churches and five monasteries, and within the walls of the town dwelt twelve thousand burgesses, while the labouring classes, contrary to modern custom, dwelt in the suburbs. Merchants took personally an active part in foreign trade, making voyages in their own vessels, in which, towards the end of the eleventh century, they had already ventured as far as Egypt and the Levant. Traders from all the Baluc provinces, and merchants even from Spain and Greece, were so numerous that special streets, with ware- houses and shops, were apportioned to the representatives of the different nations. With the decline of the Hanseatic League, Wisby decayed. Though fallen in magnificence, and containing only four thousand inhabitants, it is still one of the most remarkable places in the north of Europe, covering an extent of ground capable of housing forty or fifty thou- sand people. There are twelve churches remaining, the beautiful Gothic ruins of which cause them to be much visited by antiquarians. In 1368 the King of Sweden gave the citizens of Amsterdam a district in the island of Schouwen (/.(?., the extreme south of the Swedish peninsula), in order to facihtate direct traffic between the Netherlanders and his own subjects. The Swedes received salted fish, woven fabrics, wines, salt, drugs, and spices, in exchange for timber, iron, copper, tar, skins, and tallow. The comparative value of commodities indicative of the different resources of two neighbouring states is preserved in a record of barter, where the Swedes gave six quintals of iron for a barrel of herrings. Norway. — The industry and commerce of Norway have always been centred in Bergen, the ancient capital, which, from its convenient position for carrying on the prolific fisheries of the coast, was enlarged and regularly laid out by Olaf in. in 1070. A treaty of commerce between Bergen and England was signed in 1 2 1 7, and is interesting as the first record we possess of EngLsh foreign trade. Bergen, in NOR WA Y.—DEXMARK.-RUSSIA. 1 53 exchange for English goods, gave dried and salt fish, fish oils, tallow, and skins. The commerce of Bergen, however, attained no importance until the city joined the Hanseatic League, of which it formed, with London, Bruges, and Novgorod, one of the chief foreign emporiums. It then rose to opulence and grandeur, was adorned with thirty- churches and monasteries and many fine public buildings. Its commerce from that period belongs to the history of the Hanse Towns. Denmark. — The facilities for commerce enjoyed by Den- mark were very great. It possessed the key to the Baltic, and was, besides, favourably situated for intercourse with all the maritime states of Europe. It was the first of the Scan- dinavian kingdoms to engage in foreign trade. Roeskilde, on the island of Zealand, its ancient capital, founded as early as the fourth century, was in the Middle Ages a large town, containing a hundred thousand inhabitants and twenty- seven churches, and for more than a thousand years it con- tinued to be the abode of royalty. The presence of the court encouraged commerce, and till 1440, when the capital was removed to Copenhagen, scarcely another Danish town is mentioned in connection with trade. In the year 1150 a religious fraternity of mercantile warriors was founded, whose duty it was to proselytise as well as to trade. The " Roes- kilde Warriors," as they were called, were particularly enjoined to destroy the Wends of the east coast of the Baltic, whom they hated both as heathens and as rivals in trade. The other towns of Denmark noted in the Middle Ages for their trade were Aalborg, in the north of Jutland, which traded in grain and herrings ; Aarhuus, in North Jutland ; and Helsingor, or Elsinore, formerly the toll-gate of the Sound. Russia. — Russia was the last of the states of Europe to emerge from barbarism. In the ISIiddle Ages a great part of the country was barely known, and many districts now belonging to the empire had not then been conquered. The shores of the Black Sea were visited by Greeks, Byzan- 154 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. tines, Venetians, and Genoese, who successively competed for the exhaustless supphes of raw materials, such as forest products, furs, metals, and grain brought down to the mari- time depots situated in the Crimea and at the mouths of the Danube. The rude commerce was so restricted from various causes, that in order clearly to understand it we must learn something of the political history of the country. The name " Russians " included various tribes. The Russian monarchy was established (862) by Ruric, a daring free- booter of the Baltic. He and his brothers were chosen sovereigns over the Slavonian boyards and Finnish tribes, in order to appease their continual feuds. The brothers Inco and Truvor soon died, and left Ruric undisputed monarch. He was a chief of Varangia, a Norse or Scandi- navian kingdom founded by Ingvar the Great on the east coast of the Baltic. The Vikings or Varangians called them- selves Rusini, from the district of Sweden whence they were originally derived, and Ruric's subjects now adopted the same name, and designated their country Rils. Skira, son of Ingvar, had chosen Novgorod as his capital, and until 882 it was both the residence of the Russian sovereigns and the principal mart of the kingdom. Novgorod was the centre of an extensive traffic both with Europe and Asia in very early times, and the Greeks traded with the Crimea ; but this commercial intercourse never partook of a national character. Its chief trade was with Constantinople, and its natural advantages were a fertile soil, producing grain and fibres ; large forests supporting innumerable animals ; and navigable rivers flowing into the Euxine. Novgorod retained its commercial importance after the seat of government was removed to Kiev. Its population in the fourteenth and fif- teenth centuries fell not far short of half a milHon, of whom thirty thousand boasted that they were skilled in warlike horsemanship. Under Vladimir the Great, who married the daughter of the Greek Emperor Basil II., Novgorod became the emporium of a great commerce, conducted by the NOrCOROD.-MOSCO M'.—I scribing the phenomena of industrial Hfe in their native countries, and the prevalence of comforts and luxuries of which even the nobles of Russia had no conception. Twice he had seen at Archangel ships whose wonderful architecture, in his admiring eyes, was only equalled by their wonderful cargoes. His journey to Holland and England, in 1697, undertaken with a view to enlarge his knowledge, and particu- larly to acquire the art of ship-building; his labouring in the dockyards of both countries as a journeyman, are familiar and well-authenticated facts. Returning after an absence of two years, he brought with him a body of artizans and en- gineers, by whose means he improved handicraft, increased 2 94 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. the produce of the Siberian mines, built ships — not one vessel being owned by the Russians before his time — and weaned his country from its helpless dependence upon foreigners. The foundation of St. Petersburg, in 1703, was his proudest project, and he granted this great capital so many mercantile privileges that commerce was very soon attracted to the favoured spot. Before ten years had passed, St. Petersburg enjoyed a large and flourishing trade, and in a future reign Archangel was put on an equality with the Russian capital. The Czar, in a war with Sweden, obtained possession of Riga, another Baltic port, and, by treaty with Turkey, Azof also was ceded to him, thus giving him what he had long desired, a port on the Black Sea ; an advantage, however, which he soon lost. His ambition was to construct a fleet, and ere long Russian ships floated on the White and Baltic Seas, on the Euxine and the Caspian. He devised a great scheme of canals to connect these seas, a jDlan since completely carried out. Peter the Great extended his inland connections even to China, with which country he created a lucrative inter- course. He ruled over Russia from 1682 to 1725, a period of forty-three years. Though during a considerable part of this time he was engaged in war, yet in addition to what has been already recounted he found time to establish schools and hospitals, start printing-presses, and foster manufac- tures. As the result of his genius and indomitable will, a grand commercial city arose on the banks of the Neva, a navy and a mercantile marine floated on the Baltic, har- bours were turned to account wherever the frontiers ex- tended to an open sea, and Russia was raised from a condi- tion of semi-barbarism to a political level with the great European powers. Catherine, the widow of Peter, during a short reign of two years (1725 — 1727) pursued, with religious devotion, the policy of her husband. She carried out the construction of canals, despatched ships on voyages of discovery to the polar regions, both of Asia and America, RUSSIAN MARINE.— CATHERINE II. 295 maintained a fleet in the Black Sea corresponding with that in the Baltic, and re-established the ancient trade routes. The immediate successors of Peter and his consort did little to further the policy of their great predecessor. Nevertheless, the institutions he founded and the principles he inaugurated contained in themselves the germs of growth. Every year the demand from England, France, Spain, and Holland for the raw produce of Russia in- creased. As yet, Russia had but few ships compared with her maritime neighbours, and laboured under the disad- vantage of possessing but a small extent of coast available for commerce. This latter physical circumstance, indeed, forbids Russia from ever becoming a commercial country similar to Great Britain. Russian vessels were manned and officered by foreigners or by natives who had no taste for the dangers of the sea. The commerce was, therefore, still mainly in the hands of the English, who took their home and colonial produce to Russia. Holland shared in the Russian trade, as intermediary between Russia, France, and Spain. Catherine H., 1762 to 1796, gave to Russian polity that aggressive trait which has been distinctive of it ever since. Aggrandisement was her ruling passion. She Avould have Russia comprise the world, or be second to no empire in extent of territory, and the Russians foremost in point of wealth. Industry was promoted, but only as subsidiary to war. German artificers were induced to settle in the empire, and the manufacture of textile fabrics of linen, silks, and wool was encouraged. Potash and sugar, with many other products, were prepared, and that to so great an amount tlut much of the produce, together with iron and glass, reached even the distant regions of North America. Catherine, in 1774, regained the harbours of the Black Sea, declared them free ports, and offered many advantages to induce merchants to trade there. The intercourse already existing between Cherson and Constantinople was 296 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. now extended into the Mediterranean, and a commercial traffic was opened, especially with Spain and Italy. War broke out in 1787, and the Hellespont was closed to Russian ships ; thus this promising intercommunication ceased for a time. Folajid. — Poland, an independent nation until the latter part of the eighteenth century, possessed considerable com- merce, resembling in its character that of Russia. For two centuries it was the chief corn-producer of Europe, much of the country consisting of that same rich, black, fertile soil which is found in large districts of Russia. Timber was the export next in importance to com ; dye-plants, flax, and hemp from the vegetable kingdom ; wax, honey, hides, and wool from the animal kingdom, with talc to represent the mineral produce, were all important constituents of trade. These raw substances were sent to the ports of Riga and Dantzic, and, for the supply of South-Westem Europe, to those of the Black Sea. Debarred from a direct share in maritime industry by its inland position, Poland entrusted chiefly to the Dutch the sea transport from the Baltic. Coicrland and its Coloiiies. — The history of Courland, until 1795, when it became a province of Russia, is full of com- plications. Originally it was a dukedom under the Gennan Empire ; but, inasmuch as it was conquered by the knights of the Teutonic Order, the Pope was in some sense a con- current suzerain. The Reformation made it a Protestant country under the dukes of the Kettler family ; who held it as a Polish fief. The connection, however, was a loose one ; the Polish element in Courland being too unimportant. The peasants were Letts of the Lithuanian family, while the owners of the soil were Germans. "Wlien the line of Kettler died out, the Poles attempted to incorporate the duchy as an integral part of their kingdom. This being opposed both openly and by the underhand intrigues of Russia, a long period of uncertainty ensued. There was the original understanding that the Duchy should be incor- COURLAXD AXD ITS COLONIES. 297 ]''orated with Poland, but this the chief statesmen of Courland repudiated. Then there was the nomination of a duke by Poland, in which Russia refused to concur. There was the occupation of Courland by Russian troops, and there were intermarriages between the dukes and the royal family of Russia. The end was, that a mere personal favourite of the Empress Anne, the notorious Biren, was made duke. Nominated by Russia, he consented to go through certain formalities of investment at Warsaw. He afterwards fell into disgrace as a favourite, and though Duke of Courland, was banished to Siberia. Then he was recalled, and later they set up an anti-duke. Russia settled the matter finally by making Courland a Russian province in 1795. Miserable as was the condition of this country under the last dukes of the Kettler family, its commercial history under its earlier rulers indicates a spirit of adventure which, exhibited as it was when the country was scarcely known to the rest of Europe, commands our admiration. Duke James I. of Courland maintained for several years stations upon the river Gambia and Fort St. Andreas on the Ivory Coast. By James I. of England he was presented with the island of Tobago. This island had belonged successively to the English and the Dutch. By the Dutch it was called New Walcheren. An attack of the natives caused the loss of two hundred of the Dutch colonists. The settlement was thereby so much weakened that the Spaniards from Trinidad were able to drive out the remain- ing colonists. About one hundred Courlanders now esta- blished themselves upon the island, built a fortress for its defence, and founded the town of Jacobstadt. To secure themselves still more from the hostility of the Dutch, who viewed them with suspicion and tried to drive them away, they formed an alliance with Oliver Cromwell and with Louis XIV. Notwithstanding these alliances, the Dutch in 1654, under Adrian and Cornelius Lamprens, two mer- chants of Zealand, seized upon part of the colony ; and 298 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. four years later, taking advantage of the imprisonment of Duke James by the Swedes, took possession of the whole island. The colony was restored to the duke by the aid of the English, to whom the island became a place of commer- cial resort. This miniature colonial empire of Courland ended with the death of the duke, to whom it owed its existence and maintenance for a generation. Livojiia and Esthonia. — Western Livonia and Esthonia, like Courland during the time of its original paganism and barbarity, were occupied by the Letts ; the more remote population on the east being of the Finnish stock. Both Livonia, however, and Esthonia were conquered and con- verted by the knights of the Teutonic Order, thus making the dominant population German. The early history, how- ever, of both provinces is obscure, and the later a mere chronicle of battles and sieges and misery. From the reign of Gustavus Vasa to the death of Charles XII., the whole country, from the Gulf of Finland to the frontier of Cour- land, was little more than a battle-field for the Swedes and Russians, the latter taking possession of livonia and Esthonia by the peace of Nystadt, a.d. 1721. I CHAPTER VIT. SCANDINAVIA. I.—NORJVAYAXD SWEDEN. When the commercial power of the Hanse, by which the early trade of this peninsula was wholly conducted, decayed, the Dutch, and afterwards the English, filled their place, and the yearly business perceptibly increased. Bergen, the ancient factory of the Hanseatic League, retained its prestige, and did not indeed decline until the beginning of the eighteenth century. From the union of Calmar to the reign of Gustavus Vasa, the three kingdoms of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were under one king ; but, towards the latter part of this period, the tyranny of Denmark became insupportable in Sweden. Then the great event of the liberation of that country was effected by Gustavus, the first and, in some respects, the greatest of the Vasas. No liberation was effected for Nor- way, which country, though an integral part of the peninsula, continued to belong to Denmark, and its commerce became independent of that of Sweden. It carried on a trade with Iceland and Finland, of which the Copenhagen merchants obtained the control. Nonvegian commerce was of the simplest character, the natural resources of the country being few in number, but abundant in quantity. Timber was the chief export, the trade in which steadily increased. Iron was exported, though to a less extent than from Sweden. The fisheries were of ever-increasing value, espe- cially off the Lofoden Isles, to which fishermen from all parts resorted. 300 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Sweden owes to Gustavus Vasa and Charles IX, the commercial impulse which it received in the modern period of its history. In order to stimulate the industry of the Swedes, Gustavus Vasa decreed that none but manufactured iron should be sent out of the country. A wiser policy induced Charles IX, to invite skilled labourers to settle in Sweden, and to teach their handicrafts to his subjects. In 1 561 Esthonia was added to the kingdom, and the trade of Sweden materially increased. Gustavus Adolphus, the hero of the Thirty Years' War, who reigned from 161 1 to 1632, stimulated the commercial activity of the country by the reduction of Livonia and by other extensions of territory, as the result of his successful campaigns against Russia and Poland. His continuous foreign wars promoted the growth of a navy, which, by making Swedish power respected at sea, protected and therefore improved its commerce. Under the able chan- cellorship of Oxenstiern, the flag of Sweden was supreme in the Baltic. A company for trading to the South Seas was founded in 161 6, settlements were made in North America, which, however, had to be given up to the English in 1650, and trade relations were also entered into with other coun- tries. Domestic industry was extended. Dutch capital was borrowed to work the mines and for other industrial pur- poses. During this reign Sweden was the most powerful of the northern kingdoms, its territories exceeding those of France. Charles XI., who reigned from 1660 to 1697, was an able ruler. By him the finances of the country were improved ; a bank was erected, duties were imposed upon cloth and silk coming from abroad, in order to encourage home manufacture, and internal traffic was facilitated. He left the country strong in resources and wealth, and de- fended by a well-disciplined army ; but his son, Charles XII., "''the Madman of the North," by his reckless wars, the sole object of his ambition, put a stop to material pro- gress. He drew his soldiers from the plough and tlie loom, COMMERCIAL DECAY i'XDER CHARLES XII.— REVIVAL. 30 1 and while thus sappuig tlie foundations of wealth, his ruinous expenditure completed the exhaustion of the country. Money- became so scarce that copper took the place of gold and silver. Issues of paper money were made, which, while in- dustry suffered and commerce decayed, fell in value, — a sure indication of the loss of government credit. In the year of his death (171 8), his country had sunk into a state of decay as low as its prosperity under his father had been high. Sweden recovered by slow degrees. Linnaeus turned the minds of his countrymen to science, and agriculture began to improve. It was not, however, until the reign of Gus- tavus III., beginning in 1771, that its former prosperity was restored. Taking advantage of its neutrality during the American war, Sweden got into its hands a large part of the trade of the European hostile states. In the Mediter- ranean the Swedes almost entirely superseded the Dutch. I'hey carried on trade also with the East Indies and China, from which last country they brought tea to smuggle into England. In the West Indies, the possession of the island of St. Bartholomew, which they obtained in 1784, gave them facilities for an active trade. The subsequent history of Sweden reflected the wayward policy of its rulers. De- clining trade and disordered finances were the results of the war with Russia in 1789. The wars of the French Revo- lution afforded another opportunity for neutral commerce to the benefit of Sweden. The United States, which had by this time grown into a great maritime power, now divided with the Swedes the neutral trade. More iron, however, was demanded by England, and this called forth a com- pensatory increase of imports. II.— DENMARK. The kingdom of Denmark consists of an alluvial penin- sula, peculiar in trending northward, the opposite direction to that of almost all other peninsulas and of several 302 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OE COMMERCE, large contiguous islands, which block the entrance to the Baltic sea. During the modern period, Denmark ex- tended through five degrees of latitude, from 53° to 58° N., and from 8° to 13° E. longitude. The country forms a part of the great plain of Europe. Excepting in the south and in the larger islands, the surface is scarcely diversified by a hill, and much of the west coast is arti- ficially embanked against the irruptions of the sea, miles of sand-dunes elsewhere performing the same office. Al- though the peninsula in its widest part is one hundred miles broad, yet the coast is so indented, especially by the large inlet called the Lym Fiord, that no part is more than thirty-five miles from the sea. The soil of Jutland is generally poor, being composed of sand and clay. A great portion is waste land, especially a broad central strip running north and south, and the sands and marshes bordering the German Ocean. Lakes of small dimensions, but extremely numerous, are significant of a low-lying country and humid climate, the result of continuous vapours, which are but partially dispersed even in summer. Autumn is the only settled season, the winter being characterized by incessant snow and rain, and the spring by an alterna- tion of rain, frost, and storms. The land, notwithstanding, seldom suffers from an excessive temperature ; and although at intervals the Sound has been made a highway to Sweden by a thick coating of ice, for its latitude the climate may be called mild. Denmark was so excellently situated for commerce that its foreign trade was extensive in proportion to its scanty natural resources. Of mineral produce there is scarcely any. A good deal of jDottery was made, and a few foundries existed in Holstein. There is no coal, but an inexhaustible supply of peat made this want less felt. Marble and building stone were quarried in Bornholm, an island near to, and partaking of, the physical features of Sweden. It was from the vesretable and animal kingdom that Denmark drew the DANISH RESOURCES.-EXPORTS.-COLOXIES. 303 cliief part of its wealth. Although a fourth of the surface was covered either with brambles or marsh, other parts, espe- cially in Holstein, were very fertile. Great crops of rye and oats were grown for export. Potatoes throve, and rape was cultivated extensively. Forests once darkened the whole country, but were reduced to very few of small size, and Denmark was nearly treeless, and imported timber. The grazing and dairy-farms were the chief reliance of the husbandman. Green pastures fattened beeves and sheep, either for export or home consumption, and hides, skins, and wool expanded the list of exports. Hung-beef from Holstein, of high repute, and salted provisions, both beef and pork, were largely exported, as well as dairy produce of every kind, with tallow, lard, and corn-brandy. Danish horses were sought after for their strength and vigour, as well as the spotted carriage or Danish dog, of a breed peculiar to the country. The fauna has changed its character with the loss of forests, wild beasts having disappeared. Game and wild fowl still abounded, and possessed economic value, both as food and for their feathers. Domestic poultry was a source of great profit. The Danes prosecuted their fisheries with zeal and success. The western shores fur- nished oyster-beds, and the Cattegat abounded with lobsters. The Danes proper are of Teutonic origin, the Jutes and North Schleswigers belonging to the Scandinavian branch, the inhabitants of South Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauen- burg to the German branch of that great family. The Danish dominions were enlarged, but hardly enriched, by the possession of Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroes. A few islands in the West Indies, various settlements on the African coast, and one or two small stations in India, also belonged to the Danes. Great vicissitudes of fortune have attended the Danish monarchy. At one time the whole of Scandinavia, besides large German provinces and islands of the Baltic, owned its rule. Sweden was subdued in 1397, but recovered her 304 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. independence, after many contests, in 1523. Political changes have given a variable history to the development of the industry and commerce of Denmark. Love of the sea has descended to the Danish race from the ancient Vikings. Commercial intercourse with foreign nations has therefore always been considerable, and sometimes very great. Before the fall of the Hauseatic League, this com- merce might perhaps be fairly called piracy ; for domestic oppressions and broils between the king and his nobility prevented industry from flourishing, and drove swarms of the people to pursue a lawless life at sea. Christian IV. (1588 — 1648) tried to give a legitimate course to national enterprise, and though diverted from his plans by his wars with Sweden and with the German Empire, he succeeded in establishing a regular traffic with Iceland and Greenland, and in a first attempt at trade with the East Indies. Fre- derick III. pursued this policy still further, and enlarged the area of Danish commerce. Altona owes its foundation to this king, who also initiated a trade with South America. Christian V. increased the wealth of the country by atten- tion to its natural resources and manufactures. Corn, rape- seed, horses, oxen, butter, and cheese were exported, and the provinces of Jutland and Holstein especially were enriched by a flourishing agriculture. French exiles here, as in other countries, repaid the shelter afforded them by im- proving the weaving of textile fabrics. The number of colonies was also increased. St. John and St. Thomas, in the West Indies, were settled, the first being transferred by the English in 1671, and the latter occupied in 1719. In 1733, Santa Cruz was purchased from France for 738,000 livres, and a considerable trade sprung up, much of it, however, being contraband. A neutral carrying trade was developed during the American War, which brought great profit to Denmark. Sugar from the West Indies, tea, cotton, and silk from China and the East Indies, were brought in Danish instead of Dutch ships for the supply of NEUTRAL TRADE.-WAR WITH EXGLAXD.-COLOXIES. 305 Germany and other parts of Europe. Native horses were sent to France, and grain and timber to England. All the towns of Denmark were rendered more prosperous by this traffic. A taste for luxury was developed, and the energies of the people were still further directed towards foreign trade. Peace brought an immediate change. The East and West Indian trade largely reverted to their former pos- sessors. Nevertheless, a share of the lucrative branches of commerce was retained, while that with France remained unaffected. When the French Revolution broke out, and particularly when Holland was occupied by the French, the Danes by their neutral trade reached unprecedented pros- perity. Their fleet was powerful for war and numerous for trade. In resisting the right of search which England claimed, Denmark brought upon herself the hostility of that country, and lost her colonies and most of her marine. At a later date a new fleet was built, and the colonies were restored by treaty. To prevent the Danish fleet from falling into the hands of Napoleon, England demanded its sur- render, and on the refusal of Denmark to comply wath this demand, an English force appeared before Copenhagen for a second time, and compelled the Danes to submit. Colonies of Denmark. — In addition to the colonies al- ready named, the Danes found a field of enterprise in Africa, on the west coast of which continent they planted factories ; and in Asia, whe«e they obtained possession of Tranquebar, Serampore, and some of the Nicobar isles. A West India Company first monopolised the commerce with America, but managed so badiy that the state bought up the company's privileges for 9,900,000 livres, and threw the trade open. The Guinea settlements were not always prosperous. Four forts — Christiansburg, Fredericksburg, Konigstein, and Prinsenstein — defended fifty miles of coast, whence gold, ivory, and slaves were exported. Never of much value, the III u 3o6 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. African trade died out when, in 1792, a short term of eleven years was allowed for the extinction of the slave- trade, the most profitable branch of the business. The Danish East India Company was formed on the representations of Boschooer, a Dutch factor. This re- markable man had ingratiated himself with the King of Ceylon, in whose service he had risen to the rank of Admiral and President of the Council. Boschooer con- cluded a treaty of commerce with the king in favour of his native country, but the coolness with which his overtures were received by his fellow-countrymen in Ceylon induced him to visit Denmark, where a fleet of eighteen vessels was fitted out and placed at his disposal. His death on the return voyage interfered with the success of the enterprise ; nevertheless Tranquebar was ceded to the Danes for a rent of 2,000 pagodas a year. The Danish East India Company, unable to compete with the jealous monopoly of the Dutch in the Indian marts, surrendered their rights and privileges to the state, and after 1643 Danish ships ceased to visit Tranquebar. In 1669 the colony fell to pieces for want of support. It was successfully reinstated in 1731, and for many years held exclusive possession of the traffic from Cape Colony across to China. In 177 1 the state purchased the then prosperous colony for 170,000 rix-dollars. CHAPTER VIII. GERMANY. The commerce of Germany was bound up with that of the Hanseatic League, and suffered with the decHne of that great confederacy. When the Dutch and the Enghsh began to take an active share in trade, the League lost its best customers. The Spaniards made an effort to restore the trade of the Hanse, not out of any regard for the League, but through hatred of the Enghsh and Dutch. No pohtical combination, however, could prevent the sea from being the highway of commerce, and England from receiv- ing the full advantage of her favourable maritime position. Hamburg and Bremen, two of the first trading ports to join the League, were the last to be affected by its decay. They could not fail to possess large commerce, for, commanding the mouths of the Elbe and the Weser, they were the outlets of German produce and the inlets of foreign commodities. Many vessels belonging to these ports traded between Norway, England, the Netherlands, and France. With the transfer of trade from Italy to Portugal, the South German towns diminished in wealth. The rich houses of Augsburg and Niirnberg continued for some years their efforts to draw a share of the Portuguese commerce into Germany by way of Italy, but were in the end compelled to forego dealings in merchandise, and to confine themselves chiefly to the business of money-dealers, Erfurt and Brunswick were equally injured. The foreign commerce of Cologne sank into insignificance, and Aix-la-Chapelle was deserted by many of its citizens. Special local circumstances in some towns retarded or prevented decay. The great fairs of Leipsic 308 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. and Frankfort, for example, continued to render those towns prosperous. Elberfeld actually increased in consequence of the arrival of Protestant refugees from France, Avho erected factories and by their skill added to the industries of the town. Much German produce, which once found an outlet at Genoa and Venice, or down the Danube, now left the country by the northern ports. Van Arnim, a far-sighted Brandenburg nobleman, in 1554, brought into Saxony skilled labourers of every kind to work the mines, improve the husbandry and vine-dressing, and fabricate linen and woollen cloth. In addition to these operatives, many Flemish traders and artificers expelled from Ghent and Bruges were welcomed. The result was that Saxony flourished while surrounded by states whose prosperity had sunk to the lowest condition. German linen was much sought after. The Dutch bought up in an unfinished state all that Silesia could manufacture, and took it to Holland to bleach. Increased exports of linen to Holland followed quickly upon the diminished trade of Soest, Dortmund, and Osnabriick. Germany could com- pete with most countries in linen fabrics, its soil being more suitable for the growth of flax than that of the north and north-east of Europe. Ready markets were found for German linens in the Netherlands and England. Cotton cloth was still made in South Germany; but the finest varieties were superseded by French and Flemish fabrics. Hardware manufactures employed the inhabitants of West- phalia, especially in the town of Iserlohn. The century and a half succeeding the Spanish disco- veries witnessed the rise and growth of a taste for splendour, which reached its zenith in the reign of Charles V. His sumptuous court led the fashion in living and costume, not only in Spain but in Germany. From the princes and nobility down to the burghers, luxuries in food, dress, and furniture were indulged in. Even the northern states, where primitive manners remained longest, became at last leavened like the rest with a love for display. COMMERCIAL RESULTS OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 301/ At the end of this period the Thirty Years' War had pro- duced a very different condition of things. Germany had been ravaged with fire and sword. With the slaughter of her inhabitants and the destruction of their homes, the peaceful pursuits of industry were ruined. Fields lay un- tilled, and sheep and cattle gave place to vermin and wild animals. Manufactures had dwindled almost to nothing. Their famous woollen manufacture and their breweries were, in the course of a generation, as far behind those of their neighbours as once they were ahead. Commerce was almost extinguished, and instead of a surplus remaining for exchange, the produce of the country barely sufficed for the wants of the people. The balance of trade ran against Gennany for many years. A navy and a mercantile fleet being impossible, foreign trade was of necessity indirect, and was affected by every contention among the maritime powers. With Spain alone the export trade of Germany exceeded the import trade. In Portugal, German goods were undersold by English dealers. Commodities received from Holland and France were of so much greater value than the German produce given in exchange, that the coin sent out of Germany yearly was very considerable. As an example, French produce to the value of fourteen million florins was received in 1720 against nine millions' worth of German produce exported. Alike in character, though less in extent, was the commercial intercourse of Germany with Great Britain and Russia. The ancient Levant commerce shrank into trivial importance. Only by the subsidies of England and France could the German princes carry on the war in which they became involved. From 1750 to 1772 France advanced to them 137,000,000 livres, thus, chiefly, distributed, — Austria, 82,000,000 ; Saxony, 9,000,000; Wurtemburg, 7,000,000; Cologne, 7,000,000 ; the Palatinate, 1 1,000,000 ; Bavaria, 9,000,000. While the Seven Years' War lasted England spent in sub- sidising the German princes, apart from her own share of 310 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. the costs of the war, the sum of ;^2 1,000,000. We cannot well conceive a worse fate befalling Germany, despite these vast payments, than the disastrous results which ensued from these wars. Germany was less benefited than Holland and Eng- land by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes ; although many skilful exiles settled in the different capitals and established new industries. These, however, were mostly luxuries, such as tissues of gold and silver, and silk, together with glass and porcelain wares, while the inhabitants were in actual need of necessaries. It was therefore at the' courts of princes that these artisans looked for patrons, and there indeed they often resided. The raw materials employed were of foreign production and costly, such as fine wool, indigo, and logwood. The cost of production was enhanced by the difficulties of transport, the roads being few and bad. From these causes the centres of German manufactures, with the slow revival of prosperity, came suc- cessively nearer the sea. Here again the struggle was a losing one against the competition of England and France, whose Navigation Acts closed not only their own ports, but also those of their colonies against German commerce. Linen was almost the only product that found a market abroad, the other manufactures being wholly consumed in the country itself. It was not till the middle of the eighteenth century that indications of improvement appeared. War had injured the character and manners of the nobles and landowners. Life in camp and court had rendered them negligent of their estates, which were left to the management of stewards, whose rapacity did not always stop short of fraud. Signs of a new industrial life were seen first in North Germany and Saxony. Horses were bred in such numbers that it began to be possible to export some; and the Saxony fleece, by judicious crossings of breeds of sheep, surpassed in fine- ness and value the wool of Spain and England. South- COMMERCIAL IMPROVEMENT.— REFUGEES. 3H west Germany began to recover its trade. Swabia sent its linen to France and the Low Countries, and in smaller quantities to Italy. From the same region, and from Fran- conia, cattle were exported to France, and timber in large quantities to Holland. Many extensive districts of South-east Germany were not yet cultivated, even where the soil was most fertile. Monastic lands shared in the common neglect, and yielded a scanty produce. There were glass, metal, steel and iron works in Vienna, and Hungary was rich in natural resources, though the region laboured under many disadvantages. It was far from the great commercial marts, money was very scarce, and the navigation of the Elbe, the outlet to the North, was obstructed by tolls. Brandenburg and the Prussian provinces suffered se- verely from the devastations of war. Frederic William and Frederic I. repaired, in some measure, the neglect of hus- bandry which had diminished the flocks, and had com- pelled the weavers to remove to Saxony. They built cloth factories, invited weavers from Juliers, France, and Holland, and forbade the export of native wool. Refugees from France were welcomed, and received permission to settle where they pleased. Some of the exiles were of noble or high rank ; others were eminent as scholars ; and others, again, were manufacturers. Houses were erected for them; they were settled upon waste lands given to them for til- lage, and exempted from taxes for several years until their industry provided them with an adequate return. Protestant fugitives from Bohemia and Salzburg found a home here, as did also the Waldenses and many persecuted families from the Palatinate. Immigrations of skilled labourers were encouraged on a large scale by Frederic II., who, during a reign of forty-six years, settled 42,609 such families in 539 villages ; an achievement which entitles him to be called Great far more than all his conquests. Factories were erected in 312 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Berlin and Potsdam for the spinning of wool, and the weaving of hnen. Cotton works, also, and sugar refineries, tanneries, mining and metal works, were established in various places. Frederick encouraged production in every division of industry. He improved communication by the formation of canals and the construction of roads. He extended credit, and made capital available by the esta- blishment of banks, insurance companies, and kindred in- stitutions. His energy was such that every project of im- provement passed under his personal surveillance. Wastes were reclaimed, industry raised its head, and trade flourished. His schemes were carried out with too high a hand for constant success, but most of them were suggested by sound sense, and laid the foundations of the greatness and pros- perity of Prussia. In other instances by his policy he unwittingly crippled the very industries whose growth he was so anxious to promote. For the sake of getting money easily he farmed the taxes, a practice copied from France. A system of tolls upon all the frontiers of the kingdom was adopted, by which the linen and cloth manu- facturers reaped an advantage at the expense of every other industry. Saxony. — The natural resources of Saxony are so rich and varied, that it was among the last of the German states to feel the full extent of the miseries attendant upon war, and the first to recover from their effects. Manufactures of linen, cotton, wool, and silk were very important. Linen was exchanged for Spanish wool, through Hamburg, and was also sent to Poland. Leipsic fair was a commercial congress of all nations, and the centre of the trade of the country. The orchards were a perennial source of wealth. This prosperity was ruinously injured by the Seven Years' War, which left the country involved in debt, its people im- poverished, and their numbers greatly diminished. As late as the year 1790, the ruins of houses were still to be seen all over the land. A UCSBURG.-FRANKFORT-ON-THEMAIN.—COLOGNE. 3 I3 Brunswick. — Commerce in this duchy was centred in the great fair of Brunswick, established in 1671, The rearing of sheep and the cultivation of the fleece were even more successful than in Saxony, and sheep and wool were ex- ported. The yarn trade afforded employment for many hands, and the mineral resources of the country provided raw materials for hardware and glass manufactures. Bruns- wick partook of the fortunes of Saxony in the Seven Years' War, its industries and finances being prostrated, and the duchy partially depopulated. Augsburg. — This city declined in consequence of the diversion of the overland traffic through Venice. Its cotton manufactures outlasted those of other textile fabrics. Its trade was afterwards confined to banking and exchange operations. The exchange erected here was the first of its kind. Frankfort-on-the-Main. — This commercial city owed its prosperity to the excellence of its position. It was the medium of intercommunication between North and South Germany. English merchants transacted much business at Frankfort. Its wealth arose from intermediate profits, rather than from native resources. Cologne, one of the most wealthy and powerful cities of the Hanseatic League, might have survived the fall of the Confederation but for its own erroneous policy. Domestic broils, the harsh expulsion of the Jews, the emigration of the weavers through the wanton public destruction of their looms, and above all the closing of the Rhine, in the six- teenth century, by the Dutch, caused the trade of Cologne to decline rapidly — a condition from which it did not recover during the period under review. Niiremhurg, more properly Niiniberg, celebrated in the history of the Hanse for the numberless wares to which it gave its name, as well as its Oriental trade through Venice, declined with the Hanse, but suffered most severely from the Thirty Years' War. Its manufactures were ruined, 314 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. and its annual fair abandoned. When at length the pio- ductive fields of Bavaria were cultivated anew, Nurnberg industry once more revived. Articles in steel and brass, and every kind of hardware, were made ; turnery, miiTors, and musical instruments, glass, porcelain, watches, first called " Nurnberg eggs," tissues, and toys, found ready markets in Bavaria and other parts of Germany, and more distant markets in Spain, Holland, Portugal, Russia, and Turkey. Bohemia, from its great fertility, resumed soon after the war its former fruitful aspect, but its ancient manufactures took a long time to recover. Hamburg flourished while the commerce and industry of the other German towns decayed with the Hanse, or were destroyed by war. Conveniently situated as a depot, it became wealthy through the profits on the" supplies it fur- nished to the armies, and monetary exchanges. At the peace of Westphalia, 1648, Hamburg was wealthier and possessed a greater population than at the commencement cf the Thirty Years' War. This was owing to the influx of settlers driven from their homes by the ravages of war. No troops were quartered in Hamburg, which was the main reliance of the army as an emporium of stores. Its neutral flag did not, however, invariably protect its ships from being taken. During the war with France, from 1744 to 1748, the prizes taken at sea by the English were generally disposed of at Hamburg. Again, in the Seven Years' War, from 1756 to 1763, the utility of Hamburg to the army ensured the city the like good fortune. Trade ruined elsewhere centred here. Intercourse with England was much extended. Woollen manufactures and hardware from that country were exchanged for metals, timber, and linen. By the same route Silesian linen reached Spain and Portugal. The trade with France was in the luxuries rather than the neces- saries of life, and consisted chiefly of wines, colonial pro- duce, and commodities demanded by the fashion of the day. Its North American trade especially increased ; and BREMEN.— L UDECK.—DANTZIC. 3 1 5 this, together with that of the Dutch and Danish West Indian colonies, was now carried on directly in Hamburg vessels, instead of passing through England as an empo- rium. Rice and tobacco in particular, amongst other colonial produce, were thus procured. Bremen. — Bremen vessels, like those of Hamburg, were exempted from the provisions of the Navigation Act, and allowed to enter British ports. Both cities made a profit of their neutrality. Linens from Westphalia and Lower Saxony, and German wares, were exported from Bremen. This city was at a disadvantage in its harbour compared with Hamburg, and the Weser was not navigable so far inland as the Elbe, nevertheless the facilities of trade at both ports attracted merchants and merchandise, and foreigners freely received all the rights of burghership to induce them to settle there. The chief promoters of the Company of Merchant-Adventurers, inaugurated in the year 161 1, were foreigners, and exiles from Holland in 1619 instituted the Bank of Hamburg. Hamburg and Bremen trade was chiefly that of carrying, and was dependent upon the varying wants of the countries for whom they acted as agents. Liibeck, the capital of the Hanse, flourished for nearly four hundred years, but declined so much with the fall of the League, that the grass grew in its deserted streets. It retained a part of its trade with the northern kingdoms and with the south-west of Europe ; to which countries, however, it sent but little German produce, except com and wool. The annual fair, chiefly for the sale of wool, lost its former importance. Dantzic rose into eminence upon the dissolution of the Hanse. It was the chief grain port of the Baltic. Dutch merchants made this port their great resort for corn, and its storehouses held 500,000 quarters of com. Wool and timber, next to grain, were at first the jjrincipal constituents of its trade. As a free state Dantzic reaped great advantage 3l6 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. in purveying for the troops during the Seven Years' War. The city mixed itself up with the affairs, and partook of the fortunes, of Poland. It suffered many injuries to its trade by sieges, and still more by the policy of Prussia. In 1772 the state, along its whole extent, was hemmed in, and heavy duties were imposed which effectually stopped all inland trade with Germany. In 1793 Dantzic was compelled to accept a Prussian garrison and own allegiance to Prussia, when new havens arose, and a direct maritime commerce. Konigsberg, Elbing, Stettin, and Stralsund share with Dantzic and Liibeck the intermediate or freightage trade, once in the hands of the Dutch. Embden and Wismar at this period grew to importance as German trading towns. For a great part of the time embraced by the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, Germany itself, free from the distractions of war, administered to the wants of the belligerent nations. Trade and agriculture made rapid advances. Vast quantities of grain and timber produced in Poland, Prussia, and Germany were exported from German harbours. Butter, wool, and all kinds of cattle, the fruits of Mecklenburg husbandry, gave value and importance to the commerce of the port of Rostock. England and her colonies received Silesian and Westpha- lian linen. Flourishing manufactures of cotton sprang up in various states. Cotton goods, broadcloths, linens, and the mineral produce of Saxony became renowned through- out Europe. Lower Silesia entered upon new branches of manufacturing industry, and Upper Silesia worked new mines. The looms of Prussia in 1776-7 manufactured for the Russian market alone cloths to the value of 6,500,000 thalers. From the Mark of Brandenburg, and from Elber- feld, goods were sent to America. Customers from all quarters came to the Brunswick and Leipsic fairs. An active commerce was established in Prussia by Frederic the Great. A USTRIAN STA 7ES.-BA VAR/A.— WUR TEMBURG. 3 I 7 South and South-eastern States ; Austria. — The fruits of the commercial and industrial policy of Maria-Theresa and Joseph II. were gathered after their deaths rather than during their reigns. Austrian commerce was chiefly con- fined to interchange with Russia. Some trade nevertheless was pursued with America and the Indies, but none with Africa. Austrian linen, glass, and other manufactures came into use during the American War. Bavaria remained in a backward condition longer than the rest of Germany, but felt at length the industrial in- fluences of the period. Handicraft and husbandry improved, silk cultivation was introduced, and numberless mulberry trees were planted. Wurtenilmrg, one of the most productive regions of Germany, reco\'ered from the ravages of the war, and became the seat of varied if not extensive industries, of which the linen manufacture was the chief. Vegetable and animal produce left a surplus for export. Tobacco took the lead in value, but the exports of timber increased year by year. The production of wines on the contrary decreased. Neat cattle were sent to France in large numbers. At the date of the French Revolution the exports of Germany consisted of linen and linen yarn, flax and hemp, and wool and woollen cloth, calicoes and lace, raw silk and silk stuffs ; grain, timber, and staves ; Rhenish and Hungarian wines, tobacco, leather, Parmesan cheese, mineral produce, as copper, lime, and salt ; glass, porcelain, and pottery, Polish wool, wax, potash, pitch, tar, anise, dye stuffs, and Levant goods. The imports consisted of colonial and West Indian produce, spices, cacao, cochineal, tobacco, rice, Brazilian sugar, southern fruits, grain, flax, soda and potash, wine and brandy, paper, sailcloth, woollen cloths, furs, peltry, butter and cheese, bricks, talc, iron and other metals. These imports supplied the materials for new and improved manufactures in gold and silver thread, stockings, 31 8 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. cotton and woollen cloths, and cotton-printing. The manufacture of tobacco, sugar-refining, and brass and copper works also employed the people. SUMMARY OF THE HISTORY OF MODERN COMMERCE. The term Renaissance, used in art to designate a revival of taste and skill distinctive of the sixteenth century, would apply at that period to every department of human intelli- gence. After the long gestation of the Middle Ages, civiH- sation entered upon a career of wider range. Inventions reached their fruition ; enterprise went hand in hand with knowledge ; for to know spurred men on to dare. Mari- time discovery, and the circumnavigation of the earth by Magellan, were fatal to ecclesiastical prescription. The labours of Kepler, Galileo, and Newton, aided by the application of the telescope, finally demonstrated the theory of the earth's rotundity, as well as of its axial and orbital revolutions. In summarising these advances and their consequences, we are led to observe the general breaking up of old tra- ditions, and an incessant struggle amongst civilised states to obtain possession of their share, then first available, of the full heritage of the world. For instance, it is at this time that we see the commencement of national commerce as distinct from municipal. Kingdoms border- ing upon the ocean were more advantageously situated than Venice and the other Mediterranean states, whose maritime traffic was always partial and intermediate. Al- though comparatively few nations could be regarded as commercial during the period between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, nevertheless the region of interchange was vastly extended. With the decline of Venice the link between the Hanse ) THE HANSEA TIC LEAGUE. 3 I 9 and India was loosened, and its main commerce was diverted at the source. Various causes direct and in- direct combined to curtail the duration of the league. The direct ones inherent in the institution itself may be summed up thus : — ist. The accomplishment of the pur- pose for which the league had been instituted. 2nd. The want of a principle of nationality, 3rd. The confined sphere of its action, as compared with the new areas and routes opened up in the course of maritime discovery. The Hanseatic League arose when semi-barbarism pre- vailed throughout much of Europe, and when the right of the strongest was law. In promoting commerce and in increasing wealth, the league acted as a great civilising agency ; but gradually the evil against which it had been an international safeguard seemed no longer to exist. Na- tions had grown prosperous and powerful, and law and order had become respected. Labour became organized, and traders could travel by sea or land, without fear of pirates or freebooters. The great bond of union, mutual defence, had become unnecessary ; and the members of the league, being no longer coherent, fell asunder. The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, felt that they could stand alone. Russia would not brook the preten- sions of the imperious leaguers, and drove them from Novgorod, and transferred the Russian trade to other hands. Successive restrictions of Hanse privileges were put in force ; the Tudors encouraged national commerce in English vessels ; and Elizabeth almost put an end to intercourse with the Hanseates by the imposition of ex- cessive tariffs. Another blow was the revolt of Bruges, one of the chief Hanse cities, which ended in the harbour being filled up with sand, and the trade and Hanse bank being removed to Antwerp. WJien this city was in its turn destroyed, the trade left for Amsterdam. Again, the Hanseates were of no one country. Tlie members joined for their own advantages, and fought to 320 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. defend themselves. There was no loyalty to the league itself as an institution. If the private interest of any town could be better served by severance from the league, there was no spirit of fellowship to prevent a secession, and in consequence, as the various states grew settled and wealthy, and therefore powerful, they threw off their allegiance. Lastly, with the opening up of new fields for enterprise by the discoveries of Vasco de Gama and Columbus, another epoch was inaugurated. Minor causes of decay had their origin in faults of policy and conduct. The league abused its power. From the defence it proceeded to the monopoly of trade. The commerce of the east and north-east of Europe was virtually in its hands. It compelled foreign merchants to trade in Hanseatic ships, and destroyed any vessels in the Baltic belonging to nations outside the confederation. In order to suppress all interference with its sources of gain, it waged long and costly wars to crush the trade and mari- time power of its rivals. It not only drove the flag of the Netherlands from the Baltic, but made Norway and Sweden succumb, while its contests with Denmark were almost con- tinuous. The disturbed condition of the Levantine states, after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, operated power- fully in favour of the newly-discovered sea passage. Bag- dad, the capital of the Saracen empire, and the representative of the splendour and trade of ancient Babylon, had greatly declined, its trade having been nearly ruined by the pre- valence of predatory bands in its vicinity, and the rest diverted to Constantinople ; which, by the fatal lethargy of its possessors, was now cut off from the rest of the world. At the peace of Utrecht, in 17 13, Hamburg, Liibeck, and Bremen were the only remaining representatives of this union. The Dutch superseded the Hanse merchants as in- termediaries for the distribution of Indian goods throughout Europe, and were themselves gradually outstripped in the race by the growing vigour of the English. SPAIN AND FOR TUGAL. 3 2 I But of all indirect causes of decline, those that arose from the unprecedented mental activity of the period were of the greatest consequence. Germany for many years was in the throes of the Great Reformation, the origin of religious and bitter wars, in which the Hanse took sides, and paid the penalty in its ruin. For a hundred years Spain and Portugal reaped the reward of their naval enterprise in an exclusive possession of the treasure and merchandise arriving from the New World and from India. Colonies of Spaniards were esta- blished in Central and South America, wherever gold and silver were to be procured. Brazil was settled by the Portuguese, who also established a commercial dominion over the whole of India. Folly and perversity on the part of both the Iberian kingdoms, however, destroyed the fruits of empire faster than these matured. Indolence and selfishness consumed treasure without limit. Instead of blessing the Peninsula, gold enriched the more vigorous neighbouring states, and provided the capital which they, provoked by envy and ill-treatment, expended in hostilities against those very states to whom they owed the sinews of war. The indisposition of the conquerors of America to manual labour, combined with their greed of gold, made them cruel tyrants towards the unoffending Indians, who were heart- lessly enslaved, and goaded, and scourged to make them work in the mines, for which they were utterly unfitted by constitution. A remedy as bad as the disease, though approved of at first by Church and State, was inaugurated in fraud, and, under the designation of the negro slave trade, entailed momentous results upon America. Of those who contended with the Spaniards and Portu- guese for a share in the profits of commerce, the most formidable were the Dutch, who, as the chief carriers of Europe, were already skilful seamen, and were able by the beginning of the seventeenth century to supplant the Portu- III X 122 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. guese in India, and to deprive them temporarily of Bra/,il, This was the age of Dutch commercial supremacy. The Eighty Years' War was a civil contest, the Low Countries at its commencement being subject to Spain. The Dutch, however, in the end achieved their indepen- dence. The South Netherlands remained longer under Spanish rule. Dutch enterprise, which had triumphed at home over climate, soil, and sea, showed the proud monar- chies of Portugal and Spain that all Europe would not stand by and see them appropriate and misuse the two great continents of Asia and America. Holland in its turn yielded to English ascendancy, the influence of which had begun to be felt in the days of Elizabeth. Our colonial empire, now so vast in its propor- tions, dates its origin from the discoveries of the intrepid mariners of this period. The influx of the precious metals into Europe during the sixteenth century increased the amount of specie in circula- tion, and facilitated the operations of interchange. Its first effect, however, was to derange values, and ultimately it led to the raising of the prices or money values of all commodities. Facilities for commerce multiplied fast. Numerous new commodities swelled the list of articles of trade. Means of rapid communication and correspondence came into use. Credit was extended, and systems of in- demnity became common. These strides in modern civilisa- tion were exemplified in the great fairs of Leipsic and Brunswick; in the increase of insurance companies, first instituted in Florence ; in the construction of canals and military roads ; the establishment of the Antwerp, London, and Amsterdam exchanges; the general prevalence of banks and post-offices, and the negotiation of commercial treaties, of whicli that between England and Russia was one of the earliest. Industrial arts received a powerful impetus from commerce. The streams of raw produce now flowing into Europe accumulated a store of capital, drawing EUROPE A X CO.VFL/CrS. 323 forth the intelligence and skill of man, and providing sub- sistence for increasing millions of people. Linen and cloth- weaving flourished in the Netherlands. Silk stuffs became a staple manufacture of Lyons and Tours, and Saxony pro- duced the finest lace. The eighteenth century was distinguished by wars which devastated the Continent, and which fell with particular severity upon Holland and Germany. The Thirty Years' War was a religious contest. The German States, though sadly impoverished by it, revived with peace. War in these times, indeed, was slow and monotonous ; the besieging of fortresses and an occasional pitched battle occupied the summer, the v/inter being employed in negotiations. Not- withstanding frequent and protracted hostilities, compara- tively little change was made in the boundaries of the European states. Russia and Prussia, however, were ag- grandised, and Sweden and Poland were in a measure dismembered. Russia is interesting as being the last of the great powers to assume its place among commercial states, and in recall- ing the story of the foundation of ancient sites of com- merce, in the new capital which Peter the Great reared on the Neva. St. Petersburg, like Constantinople and Alexandria, sprang into existence by the fiat of royal will. Novgorod Vdiki, the ancient Bank of the Hanseatic League, revived. So obvious were its advantages for trade that Peter thought of making it his capital. In the course of a few years Nijnii Novgorod, at the confluence of the Oka and the Volga, became :he scene of the largest cosmopolitan fair the world has ever seen. Connected with European conflicts were claims to the newly-discovered or recently-settled foreign districts, and in extent of outlying territory, England, whose soil was always Iree from foreign foes, profited by^ the opportunity and gradually rose to the front rank amongst commercial nations. The groundwork of commercial success had been 3^4 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. laid in the previous century, when, stimulated by the great naval discoveries, and encouraged by the sovereigns of the House of Tudor, domestic industry and commerce had expanded, colonies had been founded, geographical explora tions undertaken, and a naval power created whose prowess was relied upon, and not in vain, to meet the Invincible Armada. The Navigation Laws of the time of Cromwell took from the Dutch a vast trade which was thenceforth conducted by the English themselves. The active commerce of the United States took its rise in the troublous times of the American and the French Revolutions. The partial suspension of British commerce, and of the colonial trade of North America, favoured the West Indian settlements of the other European states. Cuba increased its production of sugar to such an extent that there was a surplus for foreign markets even when Spain had been supplied. A like stimulus promoted an increase of production in the French islands of Guadaloupe and Martinique. The profits of planting tempted the smuggling fraternity of St. Croix to raise sugar ; while the colonists of St. Thomas took advantage of the Dutch being drawn into the war, in 17S1, to engage in the contraband trade. So eagerly coveted were the West Indian Islands, that every maritime stale in Europe eventually secured settlements there, the British, Spanish, French, and Dutch. While the buccaneers remained and made the islands their retreat, neither peace nor industry could prevail. It at length became a common object to put them down, and they were either exterminated or compelled to resort to more honest modes of getting a livelihood. The matchless fertility of the islands showed itself in due course, and coffee, sugar, tobacco, and other tropical produce enriched the planters. Towards the end of the eighteenth century the islands were the abode of wealth, except where the blighting influence of Spain re- mained, as in Cuba. Spanish fatality attended this island, which, a generation previously, was the most productive pos- f EFFECTS OF SCIENTIFIC AIDS. 325 session of Spain, but now only raised unimportant quantities of cotton, sugar, cocoa, and tobacco. Yet even the Spaniards could not wholly ruin the productive power of the " Queen of the Antilles." When the separation of the colonies from the mother- country was completed, England transferred to Canada the privilege of colonial trade. As the Canadians traded with the United States, the same commodities still reached the West Indies, but were made dearer by taking a circuitous route. The loss to England of the United States was more than counterbalanced by the new acquisitions of the East India Company, which developed into a vast empire. Maritime adventure, though in the magnitude of its results surpassed by the new hemisphere recently discovered, made known the thousand palm-clad coral reefs of the Pacific, the great continent of Australia, and the ice-bound confines of both the poles. The various states of Europe began to be rated in wealth and consequence in the order in which they promoted commerce, by their facilities for transport, their naval resources and colonial dependencies, the security they afforded to life and property, the equity of their laws, the increase in number and size of their towns, the establish- ment of markets, and of standards of weights and measures. Inventions as wonderful as those with which the era of modern commerce opened, closed the period and ushered in that in which we live. Steam began to be used as a motive power, and increased the wealth of the world. Immense beds of coal were wrought in aid of machinery ; science and art were enlisted in productive industry; the resources of all civilised nations were called forth in an unexampled manner; population rapidly increased, and myriads of people, who under former conditions could not have found the simplest elements of subsistence, were enabled to live in comfort. Phenomena of a corresponding character were observable in urban handicrafts. There was a general disintegration of 326 THE GROWTH ASD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. guilds and close corporations, which, however necessary in preceding ages for mutual protection, now only interfered with the freedom of labour. The produce of the soil also was added to by the stores coming from the New World. Science was called in to the aid of agriculture. Improved implements were fabricated and used ; the nature of the soil and the rotation of crops were made subjects of careful study. As knowledge brought new factors into play, human labour was more and more emancipated from drudgery, the (orces of nature were called upon to relieve muscular toil, and mind, more than ever before, triumphed over matter. THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. WITH STATISTICAL SUPPLEMENTS. {From lygo-iSSj.) PART IV. CHAPTER I. PORTUGAL AND THE PORTUGUESE EMPIRE FROM 179O-1885. /. TEMPORARY PROSPERITY.— NAPOLEONIC ERA.— SUBSEQUENT HISTORY. A CONCURRENCE of circumstances gave to Portugal a tem- porary prosperity about the period of the French Revolu- tion. Brazil was becoming an important source of revenue owing to the increasing demand for Brazilian sugar in Europe. This demand had received a new impetus from the insurrection in St. Domingo, which devastated the plan- tations, and stopped the supplies from that island. At the same time, through the distractions in Spain, it devolved upon Portugal to supply the Spanish colonies with many commodities previously obtained from their mother country ; and owing to the rapidly-growing wealth of England, the wine trade of Oporto was increasing. This comparatively flourishing period came to an end upon the refusal of the Regent, in 1807, to seize British merchandise at the bidding of France, The kingdom was then invaded, the king fled to the Brazils, Napoleon declared the throne vacant, and 3^8 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Portugal was treated as a conquered country. Brazil now found new markets for her produce, particularly in the United States ; and Portugal lost almost all share in a com- merce which she once monopolised. England upheld the independence of the kingdom, from 1809 to 1814, by arms and by subsidies, amounting altogether to ;!^i 9,000,000. This kept the languishing branches of industry alive, and stimulated the production of commodities for exportation. The value of the consignments to England between 181 1 and 1815 amounted to ^^5, 000,000. With the downfall of Napoleon, English aid ceased. The king continued to reside in Brazil. Husbandry was paralysed for want of implements and roads, and manufactures were depressed. Foreign trade was not merely carried on in English ships, but was conducted by English merchants, who had houses of business in Lisbon and Oporto, and English goods formed the staple of exchange, only a trifling intercourse being con- tinued with Germany, France, Italy, and Brazil. The Great Lagune of Setubal supplied the material for a trade in salt. St. Michael oranges were exported in large quantities from the Azores; but the trade in fruits had, with this exception, much diminished. The policy of Portugal towards her dependencies was narrow and ill-advised ; the slightest approach to self-government was denied them. They were regarded solely as commercial stations. The crown claimed the first-fruits of colonial enterprise, and encumbered the colonists with irksome regulations, till the bonds of allegiance were irrevocably severed. Poli- tical conflicts distracted the country from 1820 to 1S35, during which period the independence of Brazil was for- mally recognised, and from being an appanage of Portugal, this splendid territory became the refuge of the House of Braganza. This was a serious blow to Portuguese commerce, for the exclusive claims to Brazilian produce were for ever done away with. A resident sovereign was once more established on the Portuguese throne, but the subsequent history of the kingdom is one of painful debasement. " An I TRADE WITH UNITED KINGDOM. 329 attempt was made, in 1837, to encourage native manufac- tures by imposing heavier duties upon imported goods, and in 1 841 they were burdened with further imposts, but the home industries whicli it was intended thus to benefit have since suffered from lack of raw materials and want of capital. The customs dues, nine-tenths of which are collected at Oporto and Lisbon, being levied according to weight, coarse and cheap goods, which are most in demand, can only be obtained at an excessive addition to their value, the increase varying from 25 to 133 per cent, on the prime cost. Fine goods, which Portugal is in too backward a state to fabricate, are almost' altogether withheld from the inhabitants, or are obtained only by smuggling." . Trade with the United Kingdom scarcely progressed, owing partly to the excessive contraband traffic across the Spanish- frontiers. The aggregate value of the British trade with Portugal amounted in 1870 to less than ;^5, 000.000, of which under ;;^2, 000,000 was the value of the imported Eritish produce and manufactures. Manufactures of woollen and cotton goods, paper, and tobacco, employed many per- sons in Lisbon, and the printing of cotton goods, imported from England, practically put a stop to the trade in English printed goods. Between Oporto and Great Britain inter- change was chiefly confined to wines and cottons, the value of each of which, in 1870, was under ;!^i, 000,000. Besides wine, the staple exports were wool, cork, fruits, oils, cotton, salt, and the ores of copper and lead, minor exports being orchil and wax, cattle, potatoes, and onions, with minerals. These products, under a better system of legislation, might be much increased. England continued to send to Portu- gal cottons, woollens, hardware, salt fish, and other commo- dities. The slow progress of commerce can be exemplified by comparing the returns of commercial intercourse between Portugal and the United Kingdom with other countries similarly trading ; the total exports atid imports at the end of the period now being considered, amounted in round 330 THE GROWTH AND y/CISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. numbers to only about five millions sterling. The conse- quence was that the intolerance of the Portuguese commercial law drove the few people possessed of fortune away from their native land to live abroad, where they could enjoy the advantages of a higher civilisation. Portuguese colonies were in the same state of exhaustion as the kingdom to which they belonged. No revenues ac- crued from them, yet they were jealously held by the mother country. An offer made by England to buy the settlements of Goa, Diu, Damas (between Surat and Bombay), Macao, and part of Timor, the sole relics of the Indian greatness of Portugal, was proudly declined. The collapse of the slave- trade too deprived the African settlements of their value. A few commodities, such as hardware and wine, were sent to the coast of Congo, and, in return, were received small quantities of the once-extensive exports of gold-dust, ivory, hides, horns, tortoiseshell, feathers, wax, gums, and palm- oil. Most of the colonial trade with Africa, and the whole of that with Asia, soon fell into the hands of the English, and the part afterwards taken by Portugal in the commerce of the world was insignificant. IL— PORTUGUESE EMPIRE IN AMERICA.— BRAZIL. When Napoleon dethroned the reigning king of Portugal his authority was still recognised in Brazil, and eventually an independent empire was established there. A sentiment of loyalty united the Brazilian colonists, and as none of the disasters of an unsettled executive prevailed, the government was able from the first to devote its energies to the develop- ment of the resources of the country. The consequence was that Brazilian commerce assumed proportions it had never before reached, and soon ranked in the New World only next to the United States in wealth and extent of commerce. Its vast area of fertile soil furnished manifold useful products from the three kingdoms of nature. Both slavery and the slave-trade were continued after their suppression in the RESOURCES OF BRAZIL. 33I British West Indies, and thus Brazil, like Cuba, appeared to possess advantages for the promotion of agricultural in- dustry and commerce, and accumulation of wealth, as a result of the continued exercise of inhumanity. No longer compelled by law to send all her produce to the mother country, her planters and merchants soon found more desirable markets. Improvements in husbandry were made ; the revenues, formerly claimed by the Portuguese government, were devoted to domestic advancement, high- ways began to be constructed to connect the principal towns of the empire. Gold raining had long been very productive, and many new mines were opened, as well as others for iron. The state monopoly of searching for the diamonds, which abound in the rivers of Brazil more than in the mines of Golconda, was abandoned. Subsistence for ten thousand people was provided in this direction alone, and the produce greatly multiplied. The cultivation of coffee, sugar, and cotton soon greatly extended. Brazilian sugar competed with that of the West Indies, and supplied a great part of Europe, although pro- hibited in England because it was slave-grown. Coffee rose to be the staple export, but in cotton-growing, Brazil found a rival in the Southern States of North America, whose soil was better suited for the cultivation. Rio de Janeiro and Bahia, the commercial marts of the empire, were the two chief ports of South America. Bahia in the eighteenth century was the metropolis of Brazilian trade, but Rio de Janeiro, being the capital of the new govern- ment, made more rapid progress, and now stood first, both commercially and politically. Pernambuco, the third port, had a flourishing trade, especially with Liverpool, the chief firms in the city being themselves British. In 1800 sugar was exported to the amount of 44,000,000 lbs. In 1837 this had increased to 264,000,000 lbs., and in 1868 the exports were nearly 2,500,000 cwts. Brazilian coffee, com- peting with that of Java, declined in price during this inter- 333 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. val, but the produce was multiplied sixfold. Still more rapid progress has since been made. The export of coffee in 1867 amounted to 3,771,000 cwts., valued at just over ;^8,775,ooo. In 1822 the quantity was only 150,000 bags. Cotton cultivation received a great impetus during the American war. In 1868 we find 826,688 cwts. shipped from Brazil, nearly the whole being consigned to the United King- dom ; salted and dried hides, tapioca, tobacco, India-rubber, cabinet and dye-woods, flour, honey, ipecacuanha, cocoa, rum, and molasses, being the other principal products exported. Immense herds of horned cattle and horses furnished, in addition to hides, the minor animal products of "jerked" beef {charqid), bones, horns, horsehair, and tallow. Turtle eggs reduced to an oily preparation, and preserved in large jars, provided more than 1,000,000 lbs. weight of food for consumption. The rivers, which teem with fish, remain a source of great profit. " Brazil is, notwithstanding these advances, an almost un- cultivated field of wealth. Its available produce consists entirely of raw substances. For manufactured goods, for which the exports of Brazil are more than sufficient to pay, she chiefly depends upon Europe, more especially on Great Britain and France. More than one-third the export trade of Brazil is with our own country, and averaged in the five years ending 1870 the annual value of twelve and a half millions sterling." The imports from England and France to Brazil together exceeded the gross imports of the whole of the Spanish colonies. Woollen goods, soap, hardware, and coal came from England, and olive-oil, lamp-oil, and tim- ber from France. Germany sent linen, iron-work, and arms. The United States, also, tea, flour, coarse woollens, and cottons. Iron from Sweden, and wines from Spain and Portugal, completed the list of imports. Trade was also facilitated by the construction of railroads and by steam navigation ; and the Brazilian government showed some progress towards forming a navy and mercantile marine. COMMERCIAL POLICY. Ill Wonderfully as Brazil advanced in this period, various circumstances still retarded her progress. She still suffered from a paucity of population, which no influx of emigrants appreciably increased ; and slave labour only in a small measure remedied this drawback. Brazil has been kept back above all by the faults of policy derived from Portu- guese tradition, and has never been able to understand the principle of unrestricted trade. Europeans, especially Ger- mans, have been invited to settle, but legal interferences with the liberty of the colonists have driven them away again. An impolitic tariff furnished nearly the whole re- venue of the crown, imports being charged with duties, amounting to more than a third of their value. This in a country without manufactures, not only denied to the people goods which they greatly wanted, but checked the development of their own resources. Another detriment to trade was an abuse of the system of credit Payment for exports was formerly required in advance, even before the crop was gathered, and the greatest confidence did not go beyond cash on delivery. Upon imports, on the con- trary, credit extending over twelve months was demanded. Great risks were thus thrown upon foreign merchants, and not accepted by the merchants of Brazil. Heavy losses were in consequence sustained by foreigners, through the failure of Brazilian firms, and foreign houses now restrict their credit generally to bills at sixty or ninety days, or execute orders only for cash. It must be mentioned, in favour of Brazil as compared with various states of the American Union, that no public debt has ever been repudi- ated, nor has payment of the interest been delayed. The reigning Emperor of Brazil, an enlightened sove- reign, made, with the view of applying to his government the wisdom gained from experience and travel, an exhaus- tive and careful tour of Europe, diligently investigating the causes, both social and commercial, of the well-being of the various European states. CHAPTER II. SPAIN AND SPANISH COLONIES FROM 1790-1885. L— SPAIN. Spain played a double part during the wars of the French Revolution and the Empire. In 1795 the government with- drew from the coalition against France, and made peace with that country, and in the following year was coerced into declaring war against England. A terrible penalty was exacted by the British. The battle of St. Vincent, in 1797, crippled the Spanish navy, and left the South American settlements open to attack. Spain lost ships, treasure, and colonies, the last, however, being restored by the treaty of Amiens in 1802. The naval power of Spain, as well as that of France, was annihilated by Nelson at Trafalgar, in 1805. Napoleon invaded Spain in 1807 with a view to the subjugation of the Peninsula. English arms and gold maintained the contest until the French were driven back across the Pyrenees. A far severer calamity than even the devastations of the French, was the rebellion of Mexico, Columbia, Peru, Chili, and La Plata, against Spanish rule. Abetted by the democratic Junta at Cadiz, these colonies declared themselves free, and Spain was powerless to pre- vent their establishment as independent republics. Of its American possessions, Cuba and Porto Rico alone remained faithful to the mother country. Thus the narrow policy of thwarting colonial industry to maintain a state of depen- dence upon the home government confuted itself. Peace ensued upon the capitulation of Paris in 1814, but without prosperity. An excess of expenditure over revenue added TRADE WITH UNITED KINGDOM. 335 yearly to the national debt, while the strength to bear it was continually lessened. The rich mineral resources of the country were neglected, manufacturing industry almost died out, and agriculture alone furnished a few scanty exports. In 1S33 Isabella 11., by the will of the late king, was crowned Queen of Spain. This violation of the Salic Law was the cause of a civil war which lasted seven years. The revenue now no longer sufficed to pay the interest on the national debt, and public credit was destroyed. Money was raised by pledging the revenues of Cuba, Porto Rico, and Manilla. Church lands were sold, and stock was created at a considerable disadvantage. No attempt was made to pay off some of these obligations, and Spanish bonds remained at a heavy discount on all the exchanges of Europe, and Spain retrograded actually as well as relatively. Among more recent events in the history of Spain were the deposition of Queen Isabella, and the election of an Italian prince to the vacant throne. For a few years pre- viously there had appeared a tendency towards improvement, both in trade and political administration, as well as in agriculture and manufactures. The national defences had been put on a better footing, and the finances had been so far regulated, that a war in i860 with Morocco was carried through without deranging the budget The 1866-7 revolu- tion, with its political, ecclesiastical, and commercial freedom, gave some hope of further improvement. But as yet the only manufactures of any importance were cotton, iron, and earthenware. The exports much exceeded imports in tonnage and value, evincing, in the face of a protective tariff, how unwisely Spain cuts herself off from the enjoy- ment of foreign commodities. The British Trade Returns illustrate this, for the total exports together with imports, which should be very much larger with such resources as Spain has at command, amounted only to some eight and a half millions sterling. Up to this period of the century the lawful commerce between Spain and England had year by 336 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. year lessened, owing in a great measure to the extensive contraband trade with France, which the old government was too weak to arrest, either by altering the tariff, or by enforcing the law. Commerce, placed chiefly in the hands of foreigners, showed signs of rising again under native enterprise. Shipbuilding revived, the vessels en- gaged, even those of native ownership, having been hitherto almost invariably built abroad ; and an effort was soon made to reconstruct a navy. The implements of hus- bandry and the tools of the artisans, had likewise been of foreign make, usually British. The mineral resources of the country are very far from being exhausted, although inade- quately wrought. The chief are gold and silver, and, in greater abundance, iron, lead, copper, cinnabar, the ore of quicksilver, and salt; severalofwhichareabundant enough for exportation. Other exports comprised wool (in which hardly more than one-tenth of the olden trade is done), wines, fruits, oHve-oil, esparto grass for paper-making, cork, and cattle. The imports were colonial produce, woollen, cotton, linen, and silk fabrics, flax and hemp, spices, Peruvian bark, works of art, cabinet-work, hardware, glass, tin, and copper; timber, salted and dried fish, salted meat, butter, cheese, poultry, swine, and mules ; these last from France. Railways, introduced to some extent into Spain, soon reanimated many of the towns, but none so completely as the important seaport of Bilbao, on the north-east coast. The trade of Madrid consisted almost entirely of imports from the provinces, and from France and England. Barce- lona was the commercial capital of Spain. It is the chief city of Catalonia, a provincial centre of the cotton manufactur- ing interests, and the fear of the insurrectionary tendencies of the Catalans up to this time prevented any modification of the heavy duties. Barcelona sent iron, copper, fruits, wines, and cork to America and England, receiving in ex- change cotton, timber, hardware, dried fish, and wax. Cadiz remained the port for the great trade in sherry, which was r. I SPAXISH iVINE TRADE. 337 principally consumed in the United Kingdom and in Russia. The average value of the wine exported annually from Cadiz, taking it at ;^3o a butt, was more than ^2,300,000, and 78,000 butts were shipped in 187 1. Sherry is named from Xeres, where the vineyard has gained such great celebrity that there prevails a common belief in the inferiority of every other site of wine cultivation. This idea is not well founded, for the merchants of Xeres purchase " must " from adjoining, and even distant vineyards, and high-class wines are also made at Port St. Mary. Malaga and Valencia completed the list of important Spanish ports. The export of wine somewhat fluctuated and declined during the later years of this period. IL—SPANJSH COLONIES. Cuba, the "Queen of the Antilles," is the most im- portant Spanish colony. It has been viewed by many nadons with longing eyes, and offers to buy it have been made by the United States ; but the Spaniards, even when overwhelmed with debt, have resisted the temptation. Early in the present century the revenues of Cuba were the mainstay of Spanish credit, The advance of the colony since 1820 has been rapid. Its exports from that date down to 1840 were chiefly silver in greater quantities than from any other colony, coffee exceeding in value all that obtained from the rest of the West Indies, and tobacco. In return there was a great demand in Cuba for European goods. The prosperity of the island received an impetus from the immigration which set in from J^Iexico and South America, when the Spanish dependencies threw off their allegiance, and many wealthy Spaniards settled in Havannah. To these colonists the island owes the cultivation of the sugar-cane, and an extension of the growth of tobacco. The tobacco of Cuba is the finest produced, and, with sugar, became the staple of the plantations. There were several ports, of which Havannah and Matanr.as were the principal. The exports 111 Y 338 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. from each consisted of sugar, molasses, and tobacco. The total produce of the sugar-cane exported from the island in 1S67 was 724,112 tons. England, France, and the United States were the largest buyers of Havannah tobacco, of which, in 1867, there were exported nearly 668,900 cwts., besides 199,027 thousands of cigars. Honey, wax, rum, coffee, silver, and copper were valuable, although minor, items of produce. British cargoes alone, outwards and in- wards, entered, in 1864, at the two ports of Havannah and Matanzas, were worth ^7,500,000. Besides textile fabrics, especially cotton and linens, the imports into Havannah consisted of cod fish, jerked beef, and lard ; flour and rice, wines, olive-oil, whale oil, and coal. Hamburg and Bremen, and to a less extent Holland and Belgium, held commercial intercourse with Cuba. Forto i^/V(?.— -'The resources of this colony resemble those of Cuba. The chief productions are sugar, molasses, cotton, tobacco, coffee, rum, and hides. The West Indies com- pete with the East Indies in supplying the European demand for tropical produce. Sugar and tobacco, for which the soil and climate are more suitable, were introduced successfully, in preference to coffee, which grows better elsewhere. To the produce of these staples, if skilfully cultivated, there seems no practical limit. The principal part of Spanish commerce remained in the possession of foreigners. It is better, however, that the profits should be thus distributed than that none should be made, for the world generally is benefited, and the colonies in particular. It is better even for Spain, for without native merchants it is only by this means that she can be supplied with the productions of her own colonies." The trade of Porto Rico was, however, monopolised by a few wealthy Spanish and American firms, who, as far as possible, prevented British interference. COMPARISON OF THE TRADE OF PORTO RICO, While the value of the imports in 1862 was ;!£"i, 839,821, YIELD OF PRECIOUS METALS. 339 and of the exports ;!{^i, 158,792, in 1867 the imports had risen in value to ;!^3, 000,000 and the exports to ^2,000,000; for further statistics and growth of trade, see Supplement. III.— SPANISH POSSESSIONS ON THE MAINLAND. The territories on the Spanish Main continued to be under the dominion of Spain until the earlier portion of the present commercial epoch, when they shook off the Spanish yoke and became independent republics. Whilst under the power of Spain, the precious metals and gems were almost the only productions sought, and they continue to be the most important. The following summary of the yield of precious metals will account for the neglect of agriculture on the Spanish Main, many years after the West Indian Islands were in a flourishing state of cultivation : — SUMMARY. FROM THE YEAR 170I TO THE YEAR 18:9. T, • Value of Metals, in Total. ITovince. ^ Spanish Piastres. Spanish Piastres. Mexico — coined in the Mint . . . . 1,216,160,000 ,, not entering Royal Treasury . 243,000,000 1,459,160,000 Peru 400,000,000 Bolivia or Upper Peru 385,000,000 Chili 78,500,000 New Granada 229,000,000 1,092,500,000 2,551,660,000 This gives an annual average for loB years of about 2,360,000 piastres, or somewhat less than half a million sterling. IV.— LA PLATA OR BUENOS AYRES.— ARGENTINE REPUBLIC. While under Spanish rule maritime commerce with Buenos Ayres was inconsiderable. The trade was chiefly in hides, wool, and other products derived from the sheep and cattle, which had descended from animals originally 34^ THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. introduced by the Spaniards. Argentine commerce, for the time under notice, comprised exports of skins, grease, tallow, horsehair, horns, bones, bone-ash, salted meat, and still more recently charqui (jerked or sun-dried beef), which was first sent to the West Indies, and, with the extract of meat, at length found a market in Europe. Many attempts had been made to utilise the flesh of the South American and other cattle, without much success ; but the progress of scientific experiment promised a good hope that at no remote date the object might be attained of preserving meat in a fresh state during a voyage. The hides of La Plata fetched a higher price than those of Europe, owing, probably, to the climatic conditions which improve the drying. Some proprietors possessed herds of cattle, numbering 20,000 head. There were, however, but i&\N dairy farms. The number of animals at this period reared in the united provinces of the Republic exceeded 17,000,000 of horned stock, 72,000,000 sheep, and about 3,500,000 horses and mules. Wool had hitherto been an unimportant product, but efforts having been made to improve both its quality and quantity, by the introduction of Saxony sheep, the exports to Great Britain and France now grew considerably. The cultivation of wheat was, formerly, of little account, and much had to be imported from Nonh America, but enough has since been raised for home consumption. The immigration of P'rench and English settlers, too, greatly increased the commercial intercourse between their adopted and their native homes. England forwarded textile fabrics, mostly cotton and woollen, and ready-made clothes, iron, ship stores, hardware, tinned plates, coal, and beer. France sent silks and wines. Buenos Ayres, in later years, much increased its trade with Europe and the United States. The total value of its foreign trade in 1866 was not far short of ^11,000,000, of which the imports were about half a million more than the exports. More commo- dities were imported from Great Britain than from any other TRADE OF SPA NISH A ME RICA . 3 4 1 country ; the average annual value of the exports to Great Britain was ;^i, 5 00,000 and of the British goods and manu- factures taken in return ^{^"2, 400, 000. Uruguay. — The commerce of this pastoral and agricul- tural district was centred in Monte Video. The live stock reached 8,500,000 head of cattle, 5,000,000 sheep, and 2,000,000 of other kinds. Its exports were like those of La Plata, but the hides were regarded as inferior, and seal-skins were added to the list. Vast natural resources were yet un- developed, owing to intestine commotions, from winch the country failed to free itself since it achieved its independ- ence. British goods formed the bulk of the imports. They consisted of cottons especially, and of fine and coarse pottery, hardware and cutlery, painters' colours, beer, and coal. Out of the total population of 126,000 in IMonte Video in I S70, more than half were English, Italians, and other fo- reigners, and there has since been a large Spanish immigra- tion. The average value of the exports of produce to Great Britain in the five years ending with 1870 was about ^1,250.000 and of the imports of British goods nearly ;^i, 000,000. France carried on a large trade witli this republic, as also the United States, the Netherlands, Ham- burg, and Bremen, and its commercial importance increased, despite poUtical drawbacks. The exports to the United States, in 1866, were valued at more than one and a half millions sterling, having doubled in four years. Chili. — In the struggle for independence this republic obtained the advantage of a settled government several years before the other South American States. Its com- merce increased after separation from Spain. Europeans were attracted to the country, and large stores of goods arrived at Valparaiso, which became an emporium, whence they were re-shipped to Lima and the ports of Mexico, or sent overland to Bolivia. English capital assisted in devel- oping the resources of the country, and a suburb on the heights of Valparaiso was inhabited solely by English, North 342 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Americans and French, in whose hands the foreign trade al- most exclusively lay. Only nine vessels entered the harbour of Valparaiso in 1809. In these later years they exceeded two thousand annually. Of the products of Chili, England received chiefly copper ore and regulus (or the ore refined), hides, and saltpetre. The produce received in England in 1870 was of a value little short of _;^3,ooo.ooo. Besides the commodities named, exports consisted of cereals, guano, wool, tallow, also silver and tin ore, cotton, timber, indigo, fruits, vegetables, and sarsaparilla. Against these were im- ported European manufactures and colonial produce. Tea and silk from China were at one time imported, but the former had to give place to 7nate or Paraguay tea. The silver mines were neglected during the years of insurrection, and when, after 1820, they were re-opened, the scarcity and high price of the quicksilver, used in extracting the silver from the ore, rendered the workings unprofitable. New sources of quicksilver again directed attention ta the mines of Chili, which became systematically worked. Chili furnished enough grain to supply Peru and Brazil. The discovery of the gold-fields of California and Australia promoted the industry and trade of Chili, whose geographi- cal position renders it a convenient emporium for those rich and important regions, to which it has exported provi- sions and vegetables in large quantities. Chilian horses are in high esteem. Some were shipped in 1842 to England and Hamburg, but the experiment was not sufficiently suc- cessful to create a traffic. Valparaiso is a victualling station for ships sailing to the Pacific ports. A railway also con- nects it with Santiago, the capital of the Republic. Ship- yards and bonded warehouses were soon erected, and a regular steam service was established with Callao and other ports on the Pacific. The government began constructing a navy, and the Chilians to assume an active share in their own foreign trade. Fern. — Peru possessed above a thousand mines of gold RESOURCES OF PERU. 343 \ and silver. Its fertile soil was well suited for the operations of the farmer, and especially for the rearing of cattle and sheep. The country, nevertheless, depended upon its supply of guano — the accumulated excreta of myriacis of sea-birds — for the maintenance of an extensive foreign commerce. Much of Europe has been fertilised with this guano, while Peru itself yet lies nearly wild and waste. Agricultural imple- ments remained but partially used, a rude and scanty tillage being unaccompanied with the use of manure, while heaps of refuse in the towns infected the air. Manufactures, even if they deserve the name, were of the coarsest description, and none could be called national. Mining was abandoned in 1820, and although British enterprise partially revived this industry, the circumstances of the country prevented its success. Peru was a loyal possession of the crown of Spain, but was forced to become independent, and the sub- sequent quarrels between rival factions almost ruined the country. " Domestic slavery still lingers in Lima, but the old spirit of servitude has decayed. A trivial yield of cotton, sugar, and coffee remains as a relic of the industry of the eighteenth century." Nevertheless, some progress, at this time, existed. Guano proved a source of wealth to Peru, and the riches derived therefrom seemed to inspire the inhabitants with the desire for improvement. From 1845 to 1870, Great Britain alone imported four million tons of guano, chiefly from the Peruvian islands, valued at nearly ;^47, 000,000. Industry thus foreshadowed the re- vival of trade. The rich mines of Pasco now yielded a greater amount of silver, and others began to be again opened. Quicksilver, tin, copper, iron, lead, cobalt, and sulphur were obtained in various places. Saltpetre was found along the Pacific shores, and salt collected from the salinas, or salt- ponds, near Callao. The alpaca was bred for its wool, which, with the wool of the llama and the sheep, as well as their skins, formed, next to guano, the most valuable export from Peru. The vast forests yielded cinchona or Peruvian bark, 344 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. sarsaparilla, copaiba, caoutchouc, resin, and gum ; cedar and mahogany, and the bark of the latter with Brazil wood, logwood, and annatto for dyes, while cotton, rice, maize, tobacco, chinchilla furs, cochineal, and spirits, were less im- portant items of export. Sugar was sent to Mexico, New Granada, Ecuador, and Chili. The value of the exports to the United Kingdom in 1870 was nearly ;^5, 000,000, an increase of more than ;^3, 000,000 over their value in 1802. The export of British produce to Peru in 1870 was of the value of ^1,760,000. The aggregate value of the import and export trade of Peru in 1866 was about ;^i2, 000,000 ; and more than two thousand vessels entered and left the port of Callao yearly. Bolivia or Upper Feru, thus named in honour of its pre- sident, Bolivar, obtained its independence in 1821. Its prosperity sank rapidly during the years of insurrection, and frequent revolutions conspired to cause continued injury. Potosi, which still possesses the richest deposit of silver in the world, declined in population from one hundred and thirty thousand to less than ten thousand inliabitants. English capitalists tried in vain to revive the mining works, the proprietors of which had been driven from their property by the persecutions of successive governments. Scarce a forge was at work of the many scores which were busy before the revolution. Nature too denied to the Republic the faciHties of commerce in cutting off the habitable parts of the country from the sea-coast, by a line of precipitous mountains and a sterile desert. Difficulties which in many states would have been met and overcome, were only in- creased by the bad policy of the Bolivians, who thus aUowed their name to disappear from the markets of the world. The resources of Bolivia resemble those of Peru. Cocoa, sarsaparilla, vanilla, copaiba balsam, caoutchouc, and a kind of cinnamon grow spontaneously. Cotton, rice, tobacco, indigo, and drugs also grow with little labour. Fine timber for shipbuilding and every economic purpose abounds in RESOURCES OF BOLIVIA AXD PARAGUAY. 345 the forests which reach down to the river banks, whence are also obtained products from which aromatic and medi- cinal principles are distilled. The dried leaf of the coca {Erythroxylofi coca) is universally chewed. A twelfth part of the revenues of Bolivia are drawn from the impost upon this leaf, of which ten million pounds are said to be pre- pared every year. Gold grains are abundantly carried down by the mountain streams, and there are many silver mines besides those of Potosi. In the high mountains, at a distance from the coast, are found 1-arge masses of virgin copper, which the difficulties of transit render useless. Ores of lead and tin are common, as well as saltpetre, sulphur, and salt. Self-debarred from interchange, the Bolivians were obliged to manufacture their own clothing. Coarse, strong textures of cotton were made by the Indians, and the llama, alpaca, and vicuna furnished wool for cloths and hats. The exports were limited to the precious metals, nitre, cotton, the woollens and wool of the vicuna, alpaca, and llama. The trade was conducted almost exclusively by Germans, the English being shut out from any direct interchange, except at the port of Cobija. Our imports from Bolivia were necessarily of very small value, being only a little over ;!^i 20,000 a year. Paraguay. — The republic of Paraguay gives a name to one commodity, its most important export, viz., Paraguay tea, or mat^,* which is extensively used throughout South America. Paraguay was early independent, but under the absolute dictatorship of Dr. Francia, who governed the republic from 1814 to 1840, commercial intercourse was put an end to, and an exclusiveness maintained more jealous than that of China, and more rigorous than the continental system of Napoleon. Before this period the chief exports were mate, timber, sugar, cotton, tobacco, and hides. To Buenos Ayres there were sent eight million pounds of mat^ and one million pounds of tobacco, besides cotton, sugar, molasses, 346 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. and rum. These substances, besides coffee, cocoa, maize, rice, indigo, and manioc, yet form (or until a near period have formed) the chief natural resources of the country. With security to life and property Paraguay might become wealthy and prosperous. Prior to the war of 1865 the government was in the hands of President Lopez, but the subjugation of the country after a protracted struggle by the united forces of Pirazil and the Argentine Republic, seemed to be complete. Then it was impossible to foresee with any certainty what would be the results of this contest in a commercial point of view, but it appeared that the opening of the great rivers Paraguay and Parana, by which the territory of Paraguay is enclosed on either side, would not be long delayed. The forests of Paraguay supply valuable timber, dye stuffs, drugs, resins, and gums, and within their retreats innumerable wild bees furnish honey and wax. Fine rivers form the highways of communication with Bolivia and Brazil, The mineral resources continue unknown, but appear to be scanty. Colombia or New Granada. — When the vice-royalty of New Granada separated from Spain in 181 9, it assumed the name of Colombia. After varied political fortunes the State resolved itself into the three Republics of New Granada, Venezuela, and Ecuador or Quito. The first named of these, formed at this tmie a confederation of States, ten in number, known as the United States of Colombia, or the Confederation of New Granada. Revolution did not- spare these States any more than the rest of South America. Their industry and trade took long to recover from the shock which in a few years destroyed almost all the capital of the country, but in later years New Granada and Vene- zuela began to give evidence of a commercial revival. A considerable quantity of silver and a fair amount of gold were formerly obtained from these regions, and some reports in reference to Venezuela showed that this produce might even yet be relied upon with assurance of profit. The pro- COLOMBIA OR NEW CRAXADA. 347 ductions of New Granada are very varied, owing to the diver- sity of its soil and climate. Progress, however, has ahvays been rendered difficult by physical obstacles and a sparse population. Impassable marshes, and mountains so rugged that merchandise can only be carried on the backs of men, separate the productive parts of the country from the sea- ports. The marshes are pestilential, so that colonists fear to settle, although offered many inducements to do so by the government Before 1800 cacao, indigo, and tobacco were cultivated for export, and were exchanged for pro- visions, soap, and candles from the United States, and for cotton and linen stuffs, chielly from England and France. Trade fluctuated as a consequence of these drawbacks, but the immense natural resources of these States gave promise of ultimate success, and at this period signs were not wanting of a revival that might be conducive to permanent prosperity. Balsam of Peru, cascarilla and Peruvian barks, caoutchouc, cocoa, coffee, cotton, divi-divi, fustic, straw hats, hides, indigo, logwood, Nicaragua wood, sarsaparilla, corozo or vegetable ivory, orchil, and tobacco were the most important constituents of this commerce from the vegetable kingdom ; cochineal, mother-of-pearl, shells, tor- toiseshell, sheep and alpaca wool, from the animal kingdom, while copper and silver ore were the chief minerals. The British goods sent in exchange consisted of malt liquors, candles, coal, cottons, earthenware, glass, hardware, gun- powder, iron, linen, machinery, plate, jewellery, silk, soap, and woollen goods. Since 1862 the development of the country has been rapid, and the value of its commerce has become increased. With a settled government and a judi- cious tariff these regions would become prosperous. Be- sides the minerals already exported, there are vast unworked stores of gold, platinum, cinnabar, copper, lead, iron, and rock-salt. Grain and sugar, objects of culture introduced by Europeans, grow with a vigour in some cases greater than in their native habitat. 34S THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Central America. — There is a large trade across the isthmus, between the ports of Colon-Aspinwall and Panama. The canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would be a boon to most commercial nations, and especially so to Nicaragua. Engineering difficulties, and questions of expense, as well as of state rights between England and the United States, however, long kept this project in abeyance. The natural resources of the five republics constituting Central America are very considerable. Various metals abound in the mountains, whose diversities of elevation allow of the growth of plants of every zone. Central America exports sugar, coffee, cotton, soda, cochineal, and indigo ; of the first-named commodity, although not introduced till the year 181 1, it soon became a considerable source of American supply. The value of the exports to the United Kingdom in 1S70 was a little over ^1,000,000, of which the two chief articles were coffee and indigo. The value of the British exports to that quarter Avas a trifle more than ;^ 360,000. {See Sup- plement.) Mexico. — Mexico, the most important of the Spanish pos- sessions, had well-conducted manufactures and a flourishing commerce before the revolution, but since that event con- tinuous political convulsions much disorganised industry. Owing to bad government the country remained infested for many years with hordes of robbers, till the inhabitants quite lost all sense of security. INIany rich mine-owners and manufacturers therefore removed their capital and skill to Cuba and Porto Rico. Mining was very much neglected, and every division of industry received a check. With gold and silver, copper, iron, lead, tin, antimony, and zinc, only awaiting the working in order to fill the treasury of a mighty state — with carbonate of soda and mercury at hand to facilitate the separation of the silver ore, Mexico remained nevertheless deeply in debt. Every effort of the English to improve the working of the mines was always thwarted. The MEXICO-TEXAS. 349 miners were compelled to work armed with revolvers, and a government convoy of foot and horse with artillery, was required to protect the gold in its transit to the coast. In the opinion of Humboldt all the plants that will grow between the poles and the equator can attain perfection in Mexico. In the disturbed state of the country, however, the produce for export experienced great reductioa When capital had disappeared the government levied high duties upon im- ports, and the result, as might have been foreseen, was that the country suffered a double deprivation, in a diminished home demand for imports, and necessarily of foreign de- mand for exports in exchange. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the maritime commerce of Mexico had reached an annual value of between seven and eight millions sterling. Fluctuations both in exports and imports have since taken place with the varying fortunes of the country, the exports being the most affected. The whole commerce with the United Kingdom in 1865, when the country gave some hope of settlement under the short-lived rule of Maxi- milian, was valued at about five millions sterling. In 1866 it fell to a million and a half. The exports from Mexico accounted for this difference, being over three millions in 1865, but with the return of anarchy, only about a quarter of a million in i866. Our aggregate trade imports and exports with Mexico were scarcely more than a miUion in 1870. Seven-eighths in value of the exports of Mexico consisted of gold and silver; the other constituents being fustic, logwood, Nicaragua and other dye woods, indigo, mahogany and other furniture woods, hemp, jalap, sarsa- parilla, vanilla, tobacco, hides, cochineal, and salt meat. Commerce was carried on in foreign bottoms belonging to the United States, England, France, Bremen, and Ham- burg. Texas became one of the United States of America in the year 1846. Prior to this date it was nominally a part of Mexico, of which republic it had, however, declared itself 350 THE GROIVTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. independent in 1836. Texas occupies a varied surface of mountain and prairie equal to tlie combined area of France and the British Islands. Many colonists from the United States have settled in the country, and cotton has since been the principal product raised, forty thousand bales having been shipped for exportation in 1840, and one hundred thousand in 1865, of a quality little inferior to that of Sea Island. The country is thickly timbered, and cattle breed- ing and sheep raising have greatly increased, its pasturage being the finest in the world, wheat, Indian corn, and sugar being also largely produced. Texas is believed to be rich in the useful minerals. Hides and horns are the chief contributions from the animal world towards its commerce, which at this period was only in an incipient condition, yet increased very promisingly. CHAPTER III. THE NETHERLANDS FROM 179O TO 1SS5. The wars of the French Revolution form a disastrous era in Dutch history. Holland was subject to France from 1795 to 18 13. At first organised as the Batavian Republic, its constitution was changed in 1806 to that of a subordinate kingdom, and in 18 10 it was incorporated with France. During the whole period, the inhabitants were subjected to the most exacting levies, and their commerce was the prey of all the enemies of France. England took possession of both their commerce and their colonies. Home industries decayed for want of capital, and credit departed. Grass grew in the streets of Amsterdam, and its harbour was empty. English men-of-war blockaded the island of Texel. The East India Company lost its ships and its trade, and was dissolved, and the National Bank closed its doors. Many merchants withdrew their wealth and connections from their native land to places abroad, where they could trade in peace. Government securities sank low in value, while the prices of food and of all the necessaries of life were augmented. We may justly ascribe these sufferings to the forced connection with France, as there was little that was unsound in the Dutch commercial system. By the treaty of Amiens, in 1802, the Dutch settlements in the East and West Indies and Africa were restored, with the exception of Ceylon, which was retained by the English. The peace, short as it was, stirred up a busy trade. Dutch ships again sailed on every sea, and Amsterdam was filled with foreign goods. During the one year of peace, 3548 352 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. vessels entered the port, while 1786 anchored in the Maas. An observer of the period speaks of the development of industry as incredible, and of the resources of the republic as gigantic, and beyond expectation. Even the herring- fishery, which had drooped for many years, was partially revived ; as many as one hundred and sixty-eight boats being engaged in it that year. War between Great Britain and France began again in 1803, and again Holland had to pay the penalty of alliance with her powerful neighbour. Dutch merchantmen in the English harbours were seized, and the Indian cargoes from the east and west reached European waters only to be captured. The bright hopes of returning prosperity were destroyed. Holland was left with a trivial commerce, carried on in neutral bottoms, which, while it brought the Dutch only small and secondary profits, laid open their foreign trade to the knowledge of neutral shipowners. Napoleon put an end to even this relic of commerce by his Berlin and Milan decrees (1806 and 1807). Independence was restored to Holland in 1814, under a Prince of the House of Orange. By the Treaty of Vienna, the Belgic provinces were united with the Batavian into a single kingdom, and once more the Dutch regained the best of their eastern colonies. England, however, kept possession of Cape Colony, Berbice, Essequibo, and De- merara ; but as a compensation, paid the cost of a line of fortifications, which defined the boundaries of the North and South Netherlands. Unfortunately, the interests of the two divisions of the new kingdom were found to be antagonistic. Manufac- tures formed the basis of Belgian wealth, while Holland trusted mainly to commerce. Dutch commerce was essen- tially free and unrestricted : Belgian manufacturers favoured the principle of protection. Compromises were tried, which carried fut neither principle completel}', and consequently satisfied neither interest. On the occurrence of temporary AXTAGONISM OF THE DUTCH AND BELGIANS. 353 depression in the trade of Belgium, a new tariff was de- vised imposing heavy duties upon foreign manufactures. This measure was of doubtful advantage to Belgium, but it materially lessened the profits of the Dutch, The Flemish Provinces had benefited by union with France, for, as a part of the Empire, their manufactures had been fostered by the government, and had been allowed to enter France free of duty. Now this community of interest was de- stroyed. France, the great customer for Flemish products, was again a foreign power with distinct interests of her own, and with a disposition to protect her own manufac- tures. Union with Holland was not, therefore, satisfactory to Belgium, nor indeed had the wishes of the Belgian Provinces been much considered in the alliance. Holland, nevertheless, endeavoured to conciliate her new subjects. The King set the example of investing liberal sums in Flemish industries, encouraging his Dutch subjects to do the same. Capital flowed into Belgium, and various manu- factures were greatly developed. A market for cottons, linens, woollens, coal, iron, metals, and leather was found in Holland, and the increased demands made by the colo- nists for European manufactures gave a further impetus to the Flemish looms and mines. Commerce again flourished at Antwerp, and Ostend became a busy seaport. By the year 1824 every division of labour had obtained prosperity, and separation from France was in a commercial sense more than counterbalanced. Holland in comparison throve less rapidly. Commercial relations abroad had been severed for so many years that they were difficult to renevv, many having been permanently transferred to England, especially those with the Indies. Customers for Indian commodities were never wanting, but the profitable cinnamon trade of Ceylon was lost, and the produce of coffee, sugar, and spices was also, for some time, very small. By the loss of her marine, Holland was no longer the great carrier of Europe, and many of the III z 354 '^^^ GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. States of Europe, even Russia and Spain, were now employ- ing their own ships. The growing importance of Ostend and Antwerp retarded the progress of Amsterdam and Rot- terdam. Hamburg and Bremen, too, had acquired a large share of the commerce lost by the Dutch. After all the Dutch had suffered, there still remained rich men in the kingdom, who readily embarked their capital in any enter- prise which promised profit. Traffic with various parts of Germany sprang up, and new openings for trade were sought elsewhere. In the year 1824 the Dutch Commercial Asso- ciation (Nederlandsche Handels Maatschappij) was founded for the restoration of commerce, navigation, and manufac- tures. Its statutes were revised in 1827, when its capital was reduced from thirty-seven to twenty-four million guil- ders. This corporation was under the management of five directors and twenty-seven commissaries or inspectors. Its chief success was in the market it made in India for Flemish manufactures, but it struggled at a disadvantage against the competition of the English. In the tea trade with China it met with large losses, and its early success was considerably checked; but by the year 1830 it had made its beneficial influence felt both in home industry and colonial trade. In this year calicoes to the value of ;^55S,ooo, and other home manufactures in proportion, were purchased by the Associa- tion for export to India. The union between the North and South Netherlands lasted only fifteen years. The latter revolted in 1830, and became an independent kingdom, under the title of Bel- gium, a name derived from that of the ancient inhabitants of Flanders and Northern Gaul. For convenience, the designation of Belgium has been used previously, but it properly dates only from this period. The Dutch had yielded much to their neighbours, even to the sacrifice of their old commercial principles of freedom. Belgium had profited by the union more than Holland, but discordant elements, both commercial and religious, were always I POLICY OF THE KING OF HOLLAND. 355 at work, and they jarred the more with every compro- mise. To William I, the King of Holland, is chiefly due the prosperity attained by the Netherlands while they were united. By personal efforts and by legislation he raised the fallen industry of his people. His accurate knowledge of the nature and laws of wealth enabled him to foresee results, so that his policy enriched his subjects, and left them a productive inheritance. He furnished directly or indirectly the capital which gave new hopes to Flemish manufacturers, constructed new canals to facihtate com- munication, and guaranteed the interest of the Commercial Association without which that body would have succumbed under its early difficulties. He did these things at a time when the Indian colonies were a burden rather than a profit. His Indian policy is worthy of all praise, for by the introduction of a system of plantation-culture, he gave rise to that abundance of colonial produce which has since formed a large item in Dutch commerce. In pursuit of this object he expended large sums annually from his own income, without any reward beyond the confidence that the next generation would reap the benefit. HOLLAND AFTER THE SEPARATION. The commercial history of Holland since 1830 bears chiefly upon colonial policy, and the system of plantation- culture which has made Java a most important possession. Previously to 1830, the native chiefs had exclusive rights of cultivation. They sold the produce to the Dutch, who merely acted as factors for the European markets. Ex- change between the planters and the merchants was effected for the most part by native middlemen who obtained a con- siderable part of the profits. The arrangement was compli- cated, and added so much to the cost of production that 356 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. neither Java nor Holland reaped the full advantages of the trade. Java, like many other of the Indian possessions of Holland, was deeply in debt ; and at the same time it was difficult to incite the Javanese to improve their cultivation or to teach them the principles and use of the Dutch imple- ments of husbandry. Governor Van den Bosch assumed a more active share than had been customary in the adminis- tration of this fertile island. He conciliated the inhabitants by securing their rights to the produce of their lands, and by lessening the levies made upon them by their own chiefs. He required in return that one-fifth part of the soil should be devoted to the growth of commercial commodities, and that the yield should be increased by improved methods of cultivation. He originated an industrial organisation of the villages, whereby a certain number of the natives were set apart to cultivate the. government lands, while another portion attended to the transit of the produce to the shipping ports. This produce contributed the main revenue of the colonial administration, and was accepted in lieu of the former imposts of land, rent and taxes. In 1831 he planted fifty million additional coffee-trees. Sugar and indigo, the cultivation of which, especially of the former, required large capital, were also fostered. European and Chinese capi- talists readily invested their money in these enterprises, and their confidence in the governor was well placed, as may be seen by the results of the first ten years : — EXPORTS FROM JAVA. 1S29. Coffee, 375 cwts. 1839. 1,000,000 cwts. 1869. 1,102,953 cwts. ,, Sugar, 98,500 ,, ,, 1,000,000 ,, ,, 3,299,000 ,, ,, Indigo, 46,369 lbs. ,, 850,000 lbs. ,, 577,163153. Van den Bosch employed the natives as overseers of the plantations, the Dutch as instructors only. Thus while conferring a benefit upon the Javanese, whose services he was utilising, he made it their interest to improve in skill and industry, and to increase the resources of the island. PLANTATION CULTURE. 357 His care to avoid wounding their honour, or rousing their jealousy, was as admirable as it was judicious, when we consider that the Dutch numbered only twenty thousand to about twelve millions of natives. The policy inaugurated by Van den Bosch was pursued by successive administrators. Many Chinese traders visited the ports of Batavia and Samarang, with the raw produce and coarse manufactures of their country, in order to obtain the pepper, betel-nut, beeswax, edible birds' nests (built by a kind of swallow, Hirundo esci/lenta), sharks' fins, rhinoceros and buffalo horns, and hides, of Java. The presence of the Chinese led to the cultivation of the tea-plant, which succeeded, and very soon furnished large consignments to Holland. This introduction of tea into Java is an example of the extension of a growth which had been long entirely local. Owing to similar extensions, Ceylon lost its exclusive possession of the cinnamon, and the Moluccas that of cloves and nutmegs. Success followed also the introduction into Java of cinchona or Peruvian bark, from which the valuable drug quinine is extracted. The rearing of silk-worms resulted in a large produce of silk, and cochineal for dyeing became a regular export, but was soon abandoned by government as unprofit- able. Java produced likewise tobacco, rice, and pepper, arrack or rice-spirit, and the minor products of ginger, cardamoms, cubebs, turmeric, caoutchouc, cajeput oil, rattans, and teak timber, all of these commodities of much value and importance to Holland and to Europe generally. Batavia was also an emporium where the produce of other East India islands was warehoused before trans-shipment to Europe. Java was no mean rival to Brazil in supplying the European markets with sugar and coffee. The indigo and silk went chiefly to the German manufactories. Javanese exports show a remarkable increase during the period under review. In 1831 the total exports were valued at 14,500,000 guilders; in 1836, at 41,000,000; 358 THE GROWTH A.VD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. and in 1869, at more than 76,000,000. The English imports, which were small compared with the Dutch, equalled, in 1866, the total exports from Java in 1831 ; and the Dutch imports in 185 1 equalled in value the whole of the Javanese exports in 1836. Trade would have shown even greater results, had it not been hampered by jealous restrictions, which were in contrast to the general freedom of Dutch trade. The direct trade of the United Kingdom with Java was only about ;^i,ooo,ooo annually. This branch of Eastern trade imparted vigour to every department of Dutch industry. Rotterdam and Amsterdam soon took the lead of Bremen and Hamburg, and Dutch ships could scarcely be built fast enough to keep pace with the increase of commerce. Such activity had not been known in the Dutch dockyards and harbours for many years. Holland again became the em- porium of European produce for export to the East, and the wealth thus accumulating spread over the country. The dairy farms and luxuriant pastures felt its influences, and blessed the land with abundance. Belgium had shut her- self out from these advantages, although some portion of her manufactures went to Holland, such as cloth, linen, and leather. Factories were built in Holland for cotton-spinning and weaving. These manufactures, however, have never really thriven, and have been influenced adversely by every depression in trade, and been slow to recover. If we picture the previous condition of Holland, the vastness of this social change may be better appreciated. Large sums had been spent in the conflict with Belgium. ]\Ioney grew scarce, and the rate of interest rose high. All the necessaries of life were abnormally dear. Tradesmen and manufacturers were impoverished, and the labouring classes, with wages nominally higher than in the nations around, obtained fewer necessaries for them. The war imposed new burdens on the country, already overburdened with heavy taxes. The amount of the national debt was for a long while kept secret. When it was made known the I RE^ENUJES FROM J A VA. 359 Dutch were appalled at its magnitude, and saw no possi- bility of keeping faith with the public creditor. In 1844, a patriotic loan of 127,000,000 guilders at 3 per cent, saved the credit of the nation, just at the moment when there appeared no alternative but to suspend payment of the interest of the debt. This was the state of affairs when Van den Bosch increased so greatly the profits of the East Indian trade, the growth of which dispelled financial fears, relieved the mother country of contributions for the support of Java, produced a surplus revenue that cancelled the colonial debt, and also assisted the home finances. It further provided 100,000,000 guilders for the construction of a complete system of rail- ways, a mode of communication with which Belgium and other states were already provided. Under these happy auguries the national debt, since 1850, very sensibly di- minished. Although the Javanese ports were opened to the ships of all nations, the tariff and port dues were made to favour the Dutch. The Netherlands Trading Association ruled the markets, and chartered their competitors' ships in order to keep the fleet exclusively Dutch. It therefore be- came profitable in Holland to build ships for the purpose of letting them out for hire, especially as only Dutch-built vessels were allowed in the fleet. The Dutch mercantile marine soon increased in number and tonnage, commensu- rately with the growth of this splendid trade. No industrial efforts could furnish home manufactures enough to supply the demand of Java for European goods. The Netherlands Trading Company, therefore, collected in the ports of Hol- land fabrics from foreign sources for transmission to Ja\ia, and protected their intercourse with the island by differen- tial duties in favour of goods brought in Dutch ships, which would otherwise soon be driven from the field. The value of the export trade to Java may be estimated by the per- centage it bore to the whole commerce of Holland. Of cotton goods 97 per cent, were sent to the Indies; of linen 3()0 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE 62 per cent., while in value the Dutch supplied the Javanese with 9,000,000 florins' worth of cotton fabrics as against 12,000,000 by other commercial nations. In the collection of revenue the Dutch rulers had not unfrequently been grasping, and therefore unpopular. Native risings had been frequent, and costly forces, therefore, required to keep the island in subjection. Plantation culture, too, was not con- tinued with the justness contemplated by its originator. Regents, as the native superintendents are called, often proved tyrants, and collusion between them and the " Residents " (or Europeans, whose duty it is to advise), resulted in the frequent oppression of the natives without the knowledge of the Governor-General. In fact, the system of compulsory labour needed, according to Dutch ideas, in a semi-barbarous country, was but a modified form of slavery, which even if merely provisional, could not prevent inherent tendencies to abuse. The Netherlands Company soon be- came a rich corporation, through its monopoly. How exclu- sively its privileges were maintained may be judged from the fact that while Java received from the United Kingdom, in 1866, goods to the amount of ;^i, 730,997, the canes, caoutchouc, hides, pepper, rice, and sugar sent in exchange only reached the sum of ;^8i52. There were two parties in Holland holding opposite views regarding the policy to be pursued in the government of Java. " Dutch free-traders wish to abolish forced labour in the colony. They demand that more harbours shall be thrown open to trade, and that the system of differential duties, through which the Dutch commerce is favoured at the expense of foreign traders, shall cease ; and that colonial, shall be as unrestricted as home, commerce. They finally desire that the company shall be deprived of its monopoly of Javanese produce. Dutch protectionists at home would gladly put an end to forced labour and the oppressive power of the Regents; but to invite foreign merchants into the Javanese ports appears to them an unwarranted CONFLICTING COMMERCIAL POLICIES. 36 I extension of duty to one's neighbours." It would be loving them better than ourselves, they say, for we should lose our trade, and ruin both the colony and the mother country for the benefit of foreigners. " Great suc- cess has resulted from the present system of exclusiveness, and the natural repugnance to change from a certainty to an uncertainty is difficult to overcome by any amount of reason and argument. The Dutch nevertheless are con- sidered to be shrewd, impassive bargainers, and there seems no reason why they should be beaten in their ports abroad. They do not suffer in their ports at home, for they have already gained advantages over other nations better favoured by nature, and acquitted themselves well in free competi- tion." The Dutch settlements in America (Surinam, &:c.) had decayed from their former importance. Self-government was granted to them, and the emancipation of slaves carried through ; but those colonies were unprofitable and expensive possessions for the mother country. The Dutch possessions on the coast of Guinea were a burden for Holland, yet an association for commerce on the western coast of Africa throve. About this time the authority of the Dutch over several stations on the West Coast was transferred to Great Britain, not, however, without some vehement opposition in the legislatures of both countries. The decimal system of weights and measures introduced by the French was continued after 1814, and in 1870 the use of the systematic denominations became imperative. In 1844 the old Dutch coinage was withdrawn from cir- culation, and a simpler system introduced with a silver standard. Holland, who, in order to appease Belgium, had given up her ancient free-trade principles without strengthening the bond between the two countries, was at liberty after 1830 to revert to her former policy. The revenues derived from Java diverted attention for a time from the amend- 362 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. ment of domestic commerce ; but revisions of the tariff took place in 1845, in 1850, and 1854. Each of these revisions was more liberal than the preceding. Tonnage dues were lowered, and the tolls and navigation dues upon the Yssel and Rhine were repealed. Every nation ready to act on similar principles was placed on a footing of equality with the Dutch themselves. The ruin which, according to some, threatened Dutch prosperity, has not yet arrived. Holland survived the monetary crisis of 1866, when con- fidence was lost throughout Europe, and the interest of money was 8 per cent, in Amsterdam ; when shipbuilding was brought to a standstill, and colonial trade collapsed ; when war was raging in Germany, and the scourges of cholera and cattle plague were afflicting man and beast. Holland emerged from these calamities with credit unim- paired, and without the heavy losses which befel England. Except for this brief period, the progress of the Dutch as a separate nation had been continuous, and their commerce extended to its former world-wide dimensions. Husbandry, handicraft, and commerce reacted upon each other, and were all flourishing. "The depth of the alluvial soil and the excellence of the system of tillage render Dutch farms ex- tremely productive. Butter and cheese are the chief pro- ducts of husbandry. Cereals (especially oats) with pulse, potatoes, and madder are largely grown. Prodigious quan- tities of dairy produce, and also cattle in great numbers, are sent to England and elsewhere." Every variety of raw material from foreign and colonial sources, with wrought fabrics and metal works, chiefly from England, filled the warehouses of Amsterdam. Much of this was for exporta- tion, as, for example, sugar, which in 1866, apart from that entered for home consumption, was reshipped to the extent of over eighty-two millions of pounds. The aggregate bur- den of the vessels required to carry on the import trade of Amsterdam exceeded four hundred thousand tons in the year 1866, and about the same tonnage was needed for the CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DUTCH. 363 exports. Dutch steamers were employed in the trade with all foreign states, except that with Grtat Britain, which was carried on almost exclusively by British vessels. Manufac- turers were in various instances able to compete with those of the most favoured countries. " Dutch rope and sail-cloth are highly esteemed, and employ many of the inhabitants of the provinces of both North and South Holland, Schiedam is computed to use one hundred and fifty thousand quarters of grain yearly in its great distilleries. Manufactures of paper, sugar, and tobacco, the last chiefly for Germany and Switzerland, constitute a very important item of wealth. Nevertheless Holland ranks higher in its commerce and agriculture than it does in its manufactures, many of which are specially protected for the trade to the East Indies." Industry is the good genius of Holland. " There are few criminals and no beggars," is the general observation of travellers. With fewer advantages, the Dutch, from the earliest periods of history, have done more than any other nation for the development of every division of labour, the civilising interchange that flows therefrom, and the spread of the true principles upon which human prosperity is founded. " Nowhere is long-established political and reli- gious freedom more highly prized, popular education more nearly universal, regard for law and order more profound, the rewards of industry more widely shared, the necessaries of life more abundantly secured, and the blessings of civi- lisation more equally diffused than among the self-reliant children of Europe's Netherlands."* • "Industrial History of tlie Dutch." F.y \V. Torrens M'Cullagh. 364 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. BELGIUM. The severance of the two Netherlands in 1830 was sought by Belgium, against the will of Holland. The union had been brought about by the great powers, without sufificient regard to the little community of sentiment which existed between the Dutch and the Flemings. Free trade was from the first an instinctive principle with the Dutch, The Bel- gians craved protection for their native wares. To widen the difference, the Dutch were chiefly Protestants, while the Bel- gians were Roman Catholics. Politically, there were strong reasons for Belgium to desire union ; but sentiment over- powered the sense of material advantage. Short as was the war of the Revolution, Belgium suffered severely and long from its effects. Antwerp was bombarded, and property destroyed to the value of 8,000,000 guilders. The Dutch struck a severe blow at the trade of Belgium by closing the mouths of the Scheldt and the Maas, the two principal rivers of the seceded provinces, but whose estuaries were in Holland. This especially injured Antwerp, whose pro- gress during the union had been so rapid as to threaten to outstrip Rotterdam and even Amsterdam. Antwerp was thus, until the peace in 1839, cut off from all direct river communication with the sea, but has since shared in the steady improvement which has marked the kingdom of Belgium since its establishment. Dissevered from Holland, the new kingdom strangely took for its device " L'Union fait la Force." Secession from Holland brought also in its train the loss of commercial intercourse with the colonies which were exclusively Dutch, and to which Belgium had once exported vast quantities of wrought cottons and other goods. Many of the shippers assumed the Dutch flag for the sake of this trade, and a number of manufacturers of Ghent, the great seat of cotton industry, transferred their capital to Holland. The resentment of the Dutch for many EFFECTS OF SECESSION. 365 years interposed an additional barrier to friendly dealings. The capital invested in Belgian enterprise was withdrawn, and much of the trade between the two countries entirely ceased. Such was the case with coal, which the Dutch formerly obtained from Belgium, but now received from Germany, Belgium had also to assume a considerable portion of the Dutch debt, amounting to 83,000,000 guilders, and an annual contribution of 400,000 guilders. Thrown on its own resources, the little kingdom did not despond. It possessed many countervailing advantages. It had the densest population in Europe, so closely packed that Philip II. once exclaimed of the country, "This is but one great town." Its roads and canals were admirable and numerous, and rendered carriage everywhere easy. To these means of communication was added a well-devised railway system, carried out with skill and economy, under the control of the government, at a time when England was wasting enormous sums over railway schemes devised on no regular plan. The people were happy in their king and government, for although there could be little national feeling amongst races that differed in their origin and language, and had been governed by foreign powers for several hundred years, yet the new constitution was well administered, and the reigning prince devoted himself to the prosperity of his adopted kingdom. The sentiment of loyalty implanted by the king has taken root, and the people remain as proud of being Belgians as once of being inhabitants of Bruges and Ghent. To meet the deficiency of capital, the government instituted a society (Socie'te G^nerale de Commerce), with powers to make advances for carrying out industrial objects ; they also founded a national bank. By these means new undertakings and manufactures, some of an extensive nature, were encouraged and sustained. A series of reverses occurred in the years 1837 and 1838. Numerous mercantile failures took place, a brief panic ensued, and the Belgian Bank suspended payment. The 366 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. resources of Belgium were happily too sound and certain for the national prosperity to be permanently injured. The crisis stimulated the people to seek new routes for trade. Commercial intercourse with France was gradually resumed, and in the course of a few years this trade was nearly equivalent to all the rest of the foreign traffic of the country. Commercial intercourse arose with Austria, the shipments being chiefly cloth to the port of Trieste, for further con- signment. Belgian vessels visited the distant empire of Brazil, and the English settlement of Singapore ; but very little profit appears to have resulted from these ventures, as a commercial treaty with Brazil was not considered worth renewing in 1841, and the intercourse with Singapore also fell off. Time soothed the ill-feeling between Belgium and Hol- land, and a renewal of commercial intercourse benefited both kingdoms. Cloth, coal, iron, metals, glass, and furni- ture, were taken by the Dutch ; the Scheldt was again opened to vessels of Antwerp; and a treaty of commerce was concluded between the two kingdoms, whose relations continued to be altogether amicable. In husbandry and its connected manufactures, the culti- vation of flax and the making of linen ranked first in importance. To increase the growth of the fibre and to seek the most improved modes of its manufacture, were objects of solicitude with the government. Extensive mills with the newest inventions in machinery for spinning flax, were erected as early as 1834, and the industry expanded every year, till 40,000,000 lbs. of the fibre, of the value of 25,000,000 florins, were soon produced annually. Three- fourths of this quantity kept the national spinning mills and looms in activity, while 10,000,000 lbs. supplied the foreign demand for yarn. Brussels, the industrial as well as political capital of Belgium, produced a variety of fabrics, of which its lace and tulle were unsurpassed. Lace-making in particular has for BELGIAN INDUSTRIES. 367 many generations been a costly and beautiful art, to which the taste for luxury in dress, prevailing throughout Europe, and created by the rapid accumulation of wealth, gave an extraordinary impetus. Wool and woollens formed an- other important industry in Belgium. Fine cloths used to be amongst the most eagerly sought-for products of Flemish skill. The long period of Spanish oppression reduced this manufacture to its lowest point, but with freedom it again rose to be second only to that of linen. Neighbouring countries had, however, in the meanwhile so improved their woollen cloths, that Belgium found it difficult to resume its former place in the markets of the world. A large quantity of cloths were sent, notwithstanding, to France, and also to the United States. Cotton manufactures, in consequence of the fibre being imported from England, advanced slowly at first, but soon they became of even more importance than the flax and woollen industries. Metal working was the next great manufacturing industry of Belgium. This was facilitated by the great stores of coal, which, excepting those of England, are the most abundant in Europe. On account of the almost vertical tilt of the strata, the coal is obtained from a continually greater depth, and not laterally, as in Knglish mines. The mineral resources of Belgium appear to be without limit, and the skill exercised was such that some of the English iron trade went over thither, and England herself has been supplied with locomotives from Lidge, a town sometimes called, from its iron works, the continental Birmingham. Belgium also made unavailing efforts to plant colonial settlements. The reigning king, when Duke of Brabant, showed great interest in such designs, and continued to favour them. Even without colonies the kingdom held commercial relations with every country in the world. Its chief trade was with France. In 1865 this had risen to the value of nearly ;^i8,ooo,ooo, imports and exports combined, or between thirty and forty per cent, more than it was in 368 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. 1861. With Great Britain, in 1866, the value of the com- merce, including transit, was about ;^ 14, 000,000, a steady increase over preceding years. The Belgian trade with Holland, Russia, Germany, and the two Americas was like- wise very extensive, and showed signs of increasing steadily. Belgium exported to France cattle, coal, linen, and woollen fabrics, and received in return cereals, wines, flax, silks, and wool. The chief imports from England were cotton and yarns, besides many miscellaneous articles. Amongst the exports to England were those contained in the following table : — In 1870 Belgium supplied — Cattle, sheep, and swine .... 146,000 head. Meat, and pouhry, and game . . . 3,092 tons. Eggs 15,000,000 Fruit 11,470 tons. The provision trade declined during this time, although the general trade of Belgium with England largely increased. The value of exports to England in 1870 was ;£i 1,247,864, and of imports of British produce and manufactures ^^4,481, 079. In July, 1863, an agreement was made between Belgium and the chief maritime powers of Europe, by which the Scheldt dues were abolished, on compensation being made by the consenting powers. England paid ;;^i75,65o as her share of this compensation. The Scheldt was declared free on the 3rd of August in that year. By this measure a great impulse was given to the trade of Antwerp, the value of which increased in each succeeding year, especially in the article of wool. Antwerp received great benefit from the railway system of Belgium, which connected it with the chief manufacturing districts, and gave it almost a monopoly of the trade of West Germany, until the lines were com- pleted to the ports of Rotterdam, Bremen, Hamburg, and Havre. Nearly one half of the tonnage of the port of RESEMBLANCES TO ENGLAND, 369 Antwerp was British. The business of the seaport of Ostend could not be compared with that of Antwerp ; but it had con- siderable manufactures of lace, worsted, cotton stuffs, and leather, and was the centre of the Belgian fisheries, especi- ally the summer fishery for cod on the Great Dogger Bank, in the North Sea. Belgium abounded in busy seats of industry, and in her political institutions and material prosperity so closely re- sembles England, that the intercourse between the two nations continued of the most intimate and friendly character. in 2 A CHAPTER IV. SWITZERLAND FROM 1790-1885. Switzerland is one of the most recent aspirants to a place amongst commercial nations. Before the French Revolu- tion its industrial progress had been steady, without reach- ing any great magnitude. Various towns were the scenes of distinctive industries as far back as the Middle Ages. Geneva had been famed for clocks and watches from the time when the use of such instruments began to be common. Basle possessed silk manufactures in the sixteenth century. St. Gallen made linen, its staple manufacture, during the eighteenth century. In Zurich the staple was cotton. Manufactures had been necessitated by the same con- ditions that made the pastoral division of agriculture the main reliance of the Swiss. When their patches of land had received the needful attention they took to spinning and weaving, the primitive industries, and those most closely allied to husbandry. Switzerland, in conjunction with Eng- land, Holland, and Brandenburg, afforded a refuge to the French Huguenots in 1685. Emigrants continued to arrive up to the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, for persecution in France virtually lasted as long as the old regime. These pious and skilful operatives improved the native industries, introduced others, and gave importance to the economic history of Switzerland. Manufactures were quickly developed, and Swiss fabrics found a way into all the European states. Weaving of silk ribbons, plain and figured, an industry of French birth, soon began to take precedence among Swiss handicrafts. Calico- Siy/SS IXDUSTRIES AFFECTED BY FRANCE. 3 7 I printing was carried on with great success at St. Gallen, and had a special run of prosperity from 1756 to 1763. The kindred art of dyeing soon reached such perfection that no- where were more brilUant colours produced, and Switzer- land, which at one time sent its textures to France to be dyed, now received undyed silks and other tissues from that country. In obtaining raw produce, whether for the loom or the forge, free trade was of great consequence to Swit- zerland, inasmuch as foreign competitors ran Swiss goods very close in the European markets, Switzerland was long encircled by States whose policy was to impose heavy cus- toms. In the face of such obstructions, the Swiss carried on intercourse with Europe through the ports of Trieste and Genoa, and by every route where the restrictions were the least rigid. This small and busy state reflected the policy of Europe as sensitively as a barometer indicates the state of the atmosphere. A rude shock was given to Swiss prosperity by the French Revolution. For the first three years of the nineteenth century the frugal moun- taineers struggled hard for their independence against the immense power of France. Napoleon's policy pressed heavily upon them; English intercourse, which had been their main reliance for supplies of raw material, and for the disposal of manufactured goods, was interrupted, but the loss was in some measure compensated for by the transit trade attracted by the excellent roads, as well as by the central position of the country. From 1807 to 1813 the Swiss encouraged contraband trade in English wares which came over their mountain paths by way of Austria, and passed the opposite frontiers into the French and German states. After the battle of Leipzig, in 1813, the Swiss allowed the allies to pass through on their route to France. In retaliation, the emperor put upon their trade an em- bargo so stringent, that in 1S14 not even cheese and coffee were allowed to cross the boundaries. The peace in 181 5 did not bring immediate prosperity. 37^ THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. In order to raise revenues and to protect native industry, the states of Europe imposed heavy duties upon foreign productions, and especially upon those corresponding with home manufactures. Under this system it was generally believed that native industry would rapidly recover from the devastation of war, but to Switzerland every market was soon closed. The social habits and character of the Swiss came to their aid. The vocations of the craftsman and grazier being often combined, when one source of livelihood failed the other was available. Their manners and customs being simple and frugal, they were able to live upon less and to produce at a cheaper rate than other handicraftsmen. Another resource was open. It had long been the practice of the Swiss to travel, and for a time to settle in other lands, either as soldiers or artisans. The straitened circumstances of the country during the earlier years of peace caused more than an average number of young men to leave their native land. Their residence abroad kept the communication open between Switzerland and its former customers, and oftentimes they were, by others, entrusted with capital which set them up in busi- ness and eventually enabled them to return home with considerable gains. As the spirit of freedom gradually imbued economic legislation, so Swiss industry revived. Wherever trade was free, or tending to freedom, Swiss goods made their way. A kindred feeling with Holland promoted an intercourse between the two countries, which was of especial value to Switzerland, and which made it worth while for Swiss traders to pay the heavy customs dues levied by the inter- vening states. Steam-power was introduced, and factories of unusual dimensions were erected. Commerce reached its greatest extent in this more recent period of Swiss history, English free-trade having created a large demand for Swiss goods. Their value cannot be correctly ascertained, inasmuch as they were SILKS^CO TTONS—iyA TCHES. 373 consigned tlirough France and Germany, and thus figured amongst the exports of those countries. Activity was also given to trade* by the Hberal provisions of the French and other commercial treaties. Thirty per cent, of the ribbons exported as French were said to come from the canton of Basle. The largest ribbon factory in the world existed in the town of Basle, and the canton furnished half the silk goods of the republic; France, taking lo per cent, of the whole of the siik produce, Germany 38 per cent, the United Kingdom and North America 44 per cent. Many cotton fabrics were produced at Zurich. The energy, skill, and thrift of the Swiss manufacturers enabled them to maintain their prosperity in spite of the competing communities of France, Great Britain, and Germany, by the side of whose giant industries those of this small re- public shrank into comparative insignificance. Geneva and Neufchatel remained noted for their trade in jewellery and watches. The extent of the latter branch may be seen from the fact that between 1850 and 1S61 Geneva exported seven hundred and twenty thousand watches, for the most part gold ; and this was but a fifth part of the number of watches, chiefly silver, made in the canton of Neufchatel. Agents for the sale of these watches were established in every European town, in Turkey, Egypt, India, and North and South America. Geneva watches, properly so called, were superior to those of Neufchatel in workmanship as well as material ; hence they commanded a higher value, and were more sought for, many passing for French watches, and such was their excellence that they forced their way into France and England, despite all restrictions. Swiss clocks have also been extensively exported of late years. An incidenial source of trade also sprang up from the numer- ous tourists and temporary foreign residents in Switzer- land. The transit trade between Germany, Italy, Austria, and France increased in proportion as its expense, from the ruggedness of the country, was diminished by the use 374 ^^^ GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. of railways. Basle, Soleure, Geneva, Zurich, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, St. Gallen, Lugano, were the towns most enriched by this traffic at this period of the century. The exports of Switzerland comprised silks, cotton, lace in various conditions of manufacture ; watches, jewellery, straw-plait, iron-work, skins and hides, cattle, cheese, wine and liqueurs ; — the imports embraced grain and raw stuffs from Italy, raw silk from Austria and Hungary, wool from Hungary, wheat from South Germany, with cotton, hemp, and flax ; rice, sugar, coffee, leather, drugs, dyes, and other produce from the Dutch and British colonies ; metals and hardware ; salt, nitre, and timber ; soap, oil, spirits, wine, beer, and tobacco. CHAPTER V. ITALY FROM 1790-1885. MODERN DECADENCE AND RECENT REVIVAL. The Italian cities, when they lost the Indian trade, pos- sessed such an accumulation of capital that their importance, as commercial centres, changed in character and direction, but could not readily die out. Municipal decay in Italy was not complete till the eighteenth century, from which date, with the exception of raw silk and olive oil, the exports of the country became few and of little value. In the pre- vious centuries works of art, silk stuffs, glass wares, and paper were important industries, and the large reserves of money found profitable employment in banking and ex- changes. The revival of Italian unity has been favourable to commerce. In spite of violent political commotions, interchange with the United Kingdom continued steadily to increase. The value of the imports from England, consist- ing of apparel, textile fabrics, metals, hardware, machinery, and colonial produce, and the Italian exports to England, consisting chiefly of raw produce in endless variety, might be roughly taken as about ^^9,000,000 sterling. The trade with France, if not exceeding, was equal to that with Great Britain, and next in order stood Austria and Switzerland. The principal home industry consisted of the production of raw silk, of which one-fifth was exported, France taking one-half of this quantity, and the rest finding its way to Switzerland and the Rhine Provinces, England, Russia, Portugal, Spain, and Holland. Italy remained behindhand in the art of weaving and dyeing, though un- 376 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. excelled in producing and throwing raw silk. Much atten- tion was given later in Italy to cotton cultivation and the wine manufacture. Sardinia and the Sardinian States, Tuscany, Naples, Sicily, the Adriatic port of Ancona, the Romagna and Venetia, all traded more or less with the United Kingdom. Each of these provinces had its special exports, yet in the main the produce was similar. The chief ports were Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Messina, and Palermo ; and Milan, though not a port, was a centre of trade and manufactures. Genoa, while forming a part of the kingdom of Sardinia, shared in the profitable intercourse established with France. " Since the consolidation of Italy, the wealth of Genoa has been still further promoted. The exports are raw materials, including olive-oil, rice, hemp, metals, and ores ; and manufactured products, including vermicelli, cottons, iron goods, and ships. Genoa velvets and silks are prized everywhere. This city has attained a prosperity almost equalling what it enjoyed in the Middle Ages.* Genoa, with the rest of Italy, was injured at the period of the Revolution by the aggressions of the French. Her mercantile marine and an efficient navy were swept from the sea, and her trade destroyed by the English — the costly honour of annexation to France being her only compensa- tion. When peace was restored the citizens again engaged in active enterprise. The port became the inlet for French cotton, wool, silk stuffs, and general produce into northern Italy. Sardinian commerce centred in the city, which ranked only next to Leghorn as an Italian port, and it was, besides, the channel of the Swiss foreign trade. An inter- change of commodities takes place between Genoa and insular Sardinia, metals, woven-stuffs, wood, fish, and paper * During the war the British Consul reported that no failure of any importance had taken place in May, June, and July 1866 ; and when Italian securities were low, about ^ 12,000,000 nominal capital, or ;^5, 000,000 cash, had been invested in rentes by the Genoese mer- cliants. TRADE OF GENOA AND VENICE. 377 being sent to the island in return for corals, olive-oil, grain, hides, wine, and salt." (Second edition.) Genoa held commercial relations with France, Belgium, Great Britain, and Austria, and a home trade with Italy. A tendency prevailed to favour French and Belgian in pre- ference to British merchants. An active trade was carried on with the Russian ports of the Euxine, for wool and grain, and with the Levant. The city built bonded ware- houses, wherein goods were retained for re-export, and in this way many of the constituents of commerce appear in official lists both as exports and imports. In 1835, the trade was valued at ^^8,250,000; in 1862, when some- what inflated by the American civil war, it exceeded ;^i6,ooo,ooo ; in 1867 it was about ^£"14,000,000, more than one-fourth of which was with the United Kingdom. VeJiice, from being the "Safeguard of the West," sank into insignificance. Her fortunes became dependent upon the will of other nations, and her history until recent years has been but the record of revolutions, mercilessly sup- pressed. In 18 1 5, Venice fell by treaty to Austria. At that time this city was in a miserable condition, impoverished by war, and with half its inhabitants paupers. Her submission to Austria was ever sullen. Subjection to a conqueror rankled in the proud Italian mind, and Austria could not conciliate her Venetian subjects, even when sincere in her attempts to restore the trade of the " City of Song." Trieste had arisen in the neighbourhood as a rival port, and its trade was already three times that of Venice. Trieste took possession of the Odessa grain trade, once conducted by the Venetians, and that of the Levant was mainly assumed by France and England. With all these drawbacks the mercantile spirit of Venice was not quite dead. Whenever circumstances were favourable, signs of activity appeared, promise of growth was given. Her most valuable com- merce was with the rest of Italy. A smaller trade was carried on with France, and some intercourse was main- 378 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. tained even with Norway and Sweden. Olive-oil, fish, wine, and colonial produce were received in Venice in exchange for her diminished but still excellent manufac- tures of glass, porcelain, mosaic, enamels, and leather. A new era opened for Venice in its incorporation with the Italian Kingdom, effected in 1S66. It then remained a question whether commerce, so long diverted from the lagoons of the Adriatic, could be restored. The union of Venice with Italy created a traffic between that city and the United Kingdom, which was at first of small proportions, but could hardly be said to have existed at all before the war. In 1865 and 1S66 we sent to Venice coal, coke, coffee, cocoa, cotton, linen, woollens, oils, metals, hardware, earthenware, and nitre, in exchange for hemp (valued at ;^346,8o6 in 1866), cereals, seeds, beads, wood, rags, wool, sumach, and whisks. The trade with England was but a fifth of that with Austria, and Holland followed England. The inland and river traffic of Venice, aided by the recent construction of railways, showed great promise of profit. Many branches of ancient industry and art also gave signs of revival, among which, the manufacture of stained and coloured glass and glass-ware deserves special notice. The official declared value of the trade of Venice in 1867 was a little over one hundred and twelve miUions of Italian livres. Leghorn (Italian name Livorno) was a commercial port of European importance. Grain from the countries around the Black Sea, English cottons, hardware, and salt fish, Brazilian sugar, coffee, and tropical produce, constituted its imports ; while its exports were oil, silks, fruits, lamb and kid skins, potash, timber, cork, marble and alabaster, Elba iron, borax, alum, sulphur, anchovies, coral, straw-plait, hemp, and dyes. Much of the former trade of Leghorn had been lost, as many commercial states now carried on a direct trade with the Levant. The convenience, neverthe- less, of Leghorn for the Levant trade, combined with low PAPAL STATES. — THE TIVO SICILIES. 379 tariff and port dues, and facilities for unlading without quarantine, then gave her the precedence of Genoa, and made her the emporium for the supply of foreign produc- tions to Northern and Central Italy. States of the Church. — Prior to i860 the greater part of these States, now forming an integral portion of the King- dom of Italy, possessed no claim to notice for their trade and industry. The converse of the principle Laborare est orare, actuated the inhabitants. Beggars abounded, and armed brigands roved about the country. Agriculture was in a wretched condition, and the darkest ignorance pre- vailed. About a quarter of the Bolognese were employed in the silk manufacture, and in 1835 there were from fifteen thousand to eighteen thousand weavers. Rome only pro- duced a few coarse woollens, cottons, and linens, and in one or two places ironworks, supplied with ore from Elba, were established. Olive-oil was the sole export of any im- portance. Naples and Sicily are naturally favoured districts, abound- ing in resources, which generations of bad government and priestly tyranny have allowed to remain undeveloped. Since the incubus of despotism has been removed commerce has taken a wonderful stride. In 1864 there were 3984 vessels under the Italian flag engaged in trade with Naples, and over seven hundred foreign vessels, chiefly French and British. The shipping of Sicily was more extensive, and in 1866 numbered 8970 vessels, and the value of her trade was more than ^£"5, 500,000, being an increase of 1630 vessels in a single year. Manufactures on the mainland were numerous but of inferior quality, everything of fine quality being imported, although interchange was much checkw^d by prohibitions. England, France, Austria, Greece, Holland, Sweden, and Norway ranked in the order enume- rated for the extent of their commercial relations with Naples. More than one generation must pass away before the neglect induced by sloth, superstition, and ignorance 380 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. can be replaced by that spirit of industry and intelligence which freedom should inspire. Production remained in a low state compared with the capabilities of the country, and confined external trade within narrow bounds. Little effort, too, was yet made to work the deposits of rock-salt, coal, and other minerals, which abound on the mainland, but sulphur had long been an important export both of Sicily and Naples. Its use was of vast importance to England in those arts and manufactures which require the use of sul- phuric acid, and in the manufacture of gunpowder. The supply from Sicily was the subject of treaty between the Sicilian Government and our own, when by an arbitrary arrangement of the king, in 1838, a monopoly of the workings was granted to a French company, on condition that the yield should be limited to a certain quantity, the object being to raise the price, which had fallen, owing to the employment of more economical and extensive methods of production. This compact, so injurious to British in- terests, led to a protest of the English Government, and to the blockade of Sicily by an English fleet. It was not till after the seizure of many Sicilian vessels that the king was induced to cancel this obnoxious arrangement. " The exports from Naples and Sicily are nearly similar, and con- sist of olive-oil, silk, flax and hemp, wool, wine, corn, lin- seed, rags, macaroni, cream of tartar, skins, liquorice, succulent fruits, figs, almonds, sumach, starch, manna, dried raisins and currants, grain, madder, jewellery, leather, and many minor products. The imports comprise fabrics of every kind, especially of cotton, hardware, and various manufactures ; iron and other metals ; machinery, clocks and watches ; coffee, sugar, and rum ; cod-fish and pil- chards ; indigo and dye stuffs ; pepper, spices, canvas, skins and hides." Agriculture began to improve in Sicily and the Neapoli- tan Provinces, rice, flax, and cotton being the staple pro- ducts. It was more advanced in Tuscany and in Lombardy, REVIVISG WELL-BEISG OF ITALY. 38 1 where the soil, favoured by a perfect system of irrigation, produced the finest and heaviest crops in Europe. Time will show whether Italian unity has imparted to the people greater industry. Nature has done everything for the king- dom ; man has allowed it to sink beneath the level of the poorest soil in Europe. Silk was the only industrial pro- duct of universal culture. Lombardy here again took the lead. If the rest of Italy had produced silk to a proportion- ate extent, five times the quantity would have been available for home manufacture and for export. Silk production in a descending order of importance, was carried on in Pied- mont, Tuscany, Calabria, Emilia, the Marches, and Apulia. Another reviving industry was the iron trade. With an abundance of ore, Italy supplied only a fifth of her own wants, and remained in a backward state with regard to machinery and arms of defence. Some of the Lombard iron used for cannon-founding was better than the best Swedish. The use of charcoal in smelting limited the quan- tity produced, but for most purposes it improved the quality of the metal. Italy might, with judicious management, and probably will, in time, supply the whole of her wants with native iron, at a much less cost than the present importa- tions. Now the rails, turn-tables, and chairs, and other ironwork used in the construction of the railways, were, for the sake of cheapness, obtained from England and Belgium. An incidental resource enjoyed by Italy, in common with Switzerland, was the attractiveness of its climate to foreigners from all countries of Europe and even from America. The wealth distributed by this means influenced the productive labour of the kingdom in an appreciable and favourable degree, {See Supplement.) CHAPTER VI. I. FRANCE BEFORE 1815. CONTINENTAL SYSTEM.— BERLIN AND MILAN DECREES.— ORDERS IN COUNCIL. In the year 17S6, a treaty of reciprocal trade was entered into between France and England, and a prospect of pro- fitable interchange was opened. This treaty originated with Mr. Pitt, and in some respects it was the prototype of the more recent Cobden treaty. The Eden treaty, as it was called, from the family name of its negotiator, Lord Auckland, was ended by the Revolution. Peaceful commerce could not exist during a reign of anarchy. The disappearance of money and the confused state of the finances, owing to wasteful expenditure and neglect of labour, were attributed by the French people to the machination of the English minister Pitt. The erroneous principle was advocated that, cutting oneself off from the produce of neighbouring states is more profitable than interdependence. Besides this the man- ner of the negotiation had been offensive to the French manu- facturers, whose voice was not heard in the matter, until, in answer to their inquiries, they were told that it was too late, for the treaty was signed. Rouen, Rheims, Rennes, and Lyons were bitter in the expression of their discontent, and although Bordeaux, whose trade in wine was much increased by the treaty, applauded it without reserve, yet the old restrictive tariff was re-established in 1791, and the promise of peaceful intercourse was checked by a long war. So scarce had coin become in the first year of the Revo- lution, that four issues of paper assignats, successively in- creasing in amount from three hundred to eight hundred ISSUES OP ASS/GNATS. 383 millions of livres, and secured upon the state lands, had already been made. This flood of paper wealth inundated the kingdom, and there seemed no limit to riches so easily created. The experiment was often repeated, frequent and large issues of assignats proportionately depreciated the security, and ominous signs appeared, that scattering paper broadcast did not increase the real wealth of France. It was made a capital crime not to receive the assignats at par ; but foreigners were not bound by the statute, and took from the country all the gold and silver that was not hoarded. The paper-money sank lower and lower in real as distin- guished from nominal value. In 1790 assignats stood at 90 per cent. ; in 1791, at 63 per cent.; in 1794, at 23 per cent. In the year 1795, in the face of this depreciation, the almost incredible amount of 40,000,000,000 of livres were issued. An issue of assignats for the purchase of meat, bread, and clothing, did not, however, increase the scanty stores of food and cloth in the country, or even render their purchase easier. At length a pair of boots cost in assignats from 8,000 to 10,000 francs, and a pound of butter could not be bought for less than 700 or 800. The paper issues chased the precious metals out of the kingdom, for no decree of the legislature could persuade the holders of coin to change, it for assignats, while they could change it for foreign merchandise. As a sequence to these economic eiTors, gold and silver were interdicted from exportation. The new republic knew not how to use its freedom. A mania seized the people, and the " Law of Suspect " kept the guillotine busy upon the necks of friend and foe alike. Terror made property insecure, and the wealthy fled from the country. Internal trade was prostrated, and the foreign trade was annihilated by the cruisers of England. The fugitive rich took away what capital they could. All fiscal burdens and feudal services had been removed from the cultivators 384 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. of the soil, but a legion of vexatious regulations had been imposed upon trade, by a National Convention unused to rule, and urged by an ignorant and impoverished people. It was declared a crime, with the penalty of death, for a dealer to accumulate or to hold back from sale, at a fixed price, any merchandise amongst the first necessaries of life. Dealers thus denounced as monopolists, and seeing their capital diminish, were discouraged, and fell out of the ranks of purveyors, and less than ever was brought to market. The fallacious policy of the Convention was crowned by the Law of Maximum, which classified commodities into thirty-nine lists, and fixed the scale of prices one-third higher than the current value of 1790, and the wages of the fabricants at double the rate of the same year. Erroneous principle could go no further; the evil results were soon displayed ] such a system could only be administered im- perfectly and maintained by terror. Dreadful scenes occurred, for which not the time itself, but the past misrule, a con- tinuance of which would only have brought matters to a worse pass, must be chiefly held accountable. The Law of Maximum lasted till the fall of Robespierre, when its utter failure was evident to all, and freedom of commerce was re-established. In 1802 the insincere truce, called the peace of Amiens, was concluded. A more embittered war broke out between the contracting parties in 1803. The war lasted with but little interruption until the final downfall of Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo, in 18 15. In 1806 Napoleon's famous Continental System was launched against England, and an era of legislative reprisals ensued between the two countries, in which France suffered most. The French Emperor endeavoured to destroy British commerce by sealing the ports of the entire Continent against English vessels, a measure which was intended to coerce England, but was fraught with ruin to the rest of Europe. His Berlin Decree was issued when, after the BERLIN DECREE— ORDERS IN COUNCIL. 385 battle of Jena, in 1806, the French entered the Prussian capital. By it, he interdicted all commercial intercourse with Great Britain, declared the British Islands to be in a state of blockade, and seized as prisoners of war all English- men found on any part of the Continent, over which he then possessed military jurisdiction. England met the Berlin Decree by the no less celebrated Orders in Council, published in 1807, and lasting, to the serious detriment of industry, until 1814. These reprisals prohibited intercourse with any port occupied by the French ; and Napoleon retaliated by the still sterner decrees of Milan, which reduced his Continental System to a code. The ports of Europe for several years presented the strange spectacle of not daring to admit English vessels for fear of Napoleon's decrees, and as little daring to let their own vessels leave their moorings for dread of the British cruisers. The mercantile fleet of France was captured, and her navy defeated. With an assertion of power which he could no longer enforce, Napoleon required neutrals to carry a French license to trade. England in reply seized the French colonies, effectively blockaded France, and declared prizes all neutral vessels carrying French papers. While England ruled the sea, Napoleon's policy was futile and his ordinances were useless. Navigation ceased wherever he could enforce compliance with his will. France, which had been the purveyor of sugar and coffee for European con- sumption, was compelled to look to other states for her own supply, and at last the enactments of her ruler cut her off from every source. Meanwhile the profits of a vast smug- gling traffic which had arisen all over Europe, together with the growing trade between England and the United States, enabled English commerce to endure this trial with little loss ; in the end, indeed, with positive gain. Except the Enghsh, there were soon no merchantmen in Europe, and England was called upon to act as universal agent and carrier. British fabrics and colonial produce were so III 2 B 386 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. desirable that they were still purveyed, although surrep- titiously and at greatly enhanced cost. Thus, by an unintentional and strange concurrence of events, the world's commerce came into the possession of England, after a short effort of the Americans and the neutral nations conjointly to share it. So strict v/as the enforcement of the blockade that the Americans were taught to respect it by the ruinous loss of their marine, made prizes of by the English. Such an effect was as un- satisfactory to the author of the Continental System as could well be imagined. In 1809 Havannah was made a free port, another source of profit to British enterprise. Other new marts were also sought and secured during the war, which were not relinquished when the old ones were resumed. Being unable to annihilate our trade. Napoleon conceived the thought of concurring in it, against his own principles, and of making it pay the costs of the war. " Not many months after the Berlin Decree, a lucrative source of revenue was opened in France by the sale of licenses, under the emperor's hand, for the importation of British goods. The example was followed in Britain by similar exemptions from the Orders in Council. While British goods were burnt in the market-places of continental cities, and unhappy wretches were shot for conniving at their introduction ; while the British Admiralty Court was condemning ships daily for contravening the Orders in Council, both governments were openly violating the very decrees to which they required implicit obedience. The sale of licenses became a principal source of all the private revenue of the emperor, and was carried to such a pitch that in 1812 the vaults of the Tuileries contained 400,000,000 francs, or ;^ 16,000,000, in cash, derived almost wholly from this source. This vast sum did not appear in the public accounts, but from it were chiefly derived the means for the stand against combined Europe in 1813 and 1814." * • Abridged from Alison's History of Europe. NAPOLEOrrS COMMERCIAL PRINCIPLES. 3S7 Thus the Continental system stands condemned for its dishonesty as well as its impolicy. It crushed many of the free-born industries of Europe, and promoted a few un- suitable departments of labour, which were not maintained without flagrant immorality, and could not be afterwards diverted without injustice to individuals. Cruel penalties were inflicted when the law was evaded, while every license issued was a wTong done to the industry which the law pro- fessed to foster. Napoleon laid down the principle that France should be self-sustaining in the production of all that was necessary for her maintenance, so that the loss of foreign supplies in war-time should not be felt. He had prepared the French in some measure to submit to industrial burdens, by restoring the imposts upon wood and salt, and making the tobacco- trade a government monopoly. As chief consul he had also re-established several of the old trade corporations, and as emperor he had carried this further, by surrounding various divisions of industry with inquisitive and superfluous regu- lations. Trade marks were rigorously protected, in the interest, it was thought, of the consumer, who was certified of the quality of the goods; but this made government surveillance necessary through the whole process of manu- facture, until the proportion of alloy in jewellery, the number of threads in an inch of cloth, the size of every tissue, and the colours of their selvages, with officers and juries to verify these things, all became subjects of legislation. That such a policy was false in its essence, — "All Nature cries aloud through all her works." Nations cannot be independent of each other, and yet be progressive, any more than individuals. Physical conditions are against it. Were it by law good for France to produce all she needed, it ought to be good for other countries to do so; Holland, for example, whose existence depends upon interchange, the very piles by means of which, in the terms 38S THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. of her national motto, she " strives to keep her head above water," being of foreign growth. Commerce is founded upon industrial produce. Cut off commerce, and you take away the great incentive to industry, the fountain-head of wealth. Thrown back upon its own resources, France or any other country must finally sink into a state of semi- barbarism, or Chinese stagnation. Without imports, a surplus for exchange would cease to be produced. If a nation were at war with all the rest of the world at once, there would be a show of reason in this fatal policy. Even then, the best preparation would be by accumulating wealth, which forms the sinews of war, beforehand. Napoleon's policy was afterwards imitated upon the Continent, and even in Russia, where its disastrous effects were so severely felt that the military prestige of France could not prevent its infraction ; but Russian industry has ever since been pro- tected and her commerce shackled with fiscal fetters un- known to Peter the Great, by which the development of her natural resources has been much impeded. Austria, in like manner, has continued a rigid protective system, although she felt with ruinous severity the evils of Napoleon's policy, which destroyed the all-important na- tional cotton industry. At the time of the downfall of the French Emperor, England and the United States had sup- planted Austria, and furnished foreign markets with com- modities formerly supplied by her industry. English machinery had increased production, and reduced the cost of fabrics so greatly that the use of English cottons became increasingly common, and influenced also the linen trade ; and Austria suffered for many years not merely a relative but an absolute decrease of manufactures. Germany, like France, under the Continental System, had to extort from the soil what had been previously better obtained from abroad. Improved modes of tillage were adopted, and many waste tracts were brought into cultiva- tion. Necessity proved again the mother of invention. SUBSTITUTES FOR FOREJCX PRODUCE. 3S9 The exclusion of foreign tobacco led to its culture at home. Beetroot v/as made to do service for the sugar-cane, chicory became a substitute, though a poor one, for coftee, and rape-seed took the place of the whale and the seal for the supply of oil. Manufactures were confined to home trade, but not having to compete with cheap foreign imports, there was an industrial activity which, at a superficial glance, seemed to prove the wisdom of exclusive laws. Cotton, linen, and woollen textures had never before so much engaged the people's energies. The manufacturers were busy, but clothing was neither good, cheap, nor abundant. A limited class profited, but the community suft'ered. Like results followed in every branch of industry forced upon the people against their genius, and unsuited to the soil and climate. Labourers were withdrawn from pursuits which their intelligence and experience had pointed out as the most productive, and directed to other pursuits. Many of the comforts and necessaries of life were raised above the reach of millions who had formerly enjoyed them, while grain, the great export of Germany, having no outlet, remained upon the farmer's hands, or was sold at a ruinously low price. In the interior, as well as at the trading ports, great injury was inflicted, all the more fatal because disguised under the semblance of progress in various industries forced into artificial life. With all the power that could be brought to bear upon production, the Continental System never compensated Germany and Austria for the total loss which it caused of their foreign trade. On the other hand, every European country, while learning to furnish its ovvn require- ments, was pursuing industry under difficulties, which imperatively demanded economy and skill, and laid the foundations of the continental reaction, si?ice very plainly manifested. In spite of its futility, the emperor still pursued his policy. Chemistry and other sciences were called into 39° THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. action, to find substitutes for the colonial produce that could no longer be obtained in Europe. Numerous experiments were tried, many of which were failures, while some of them permanently influenced the national industry. No beverage could be devised to take the place of the Frenchman's fragrant coffee. Roasted beans and chicory could not, with all the appliances of the chemist, be impregnated with the aroma of the Mocha berry. Success, however, attended the extraction of sugar from the beetroot. This process was sedulously fostered by Napoleon, but at the best only sugar worse than could be imported was obtainable, and this with greater labour and at a higher cost. Experience, however, so improved the manufacture that beet sugar almost ap- proached in quality that produced from the sugar-cane. Its cultivation rapidly increased, and was pursued chiefly in the northern provinces. It had not wholly superseded colonial sugar, nor for many years could it equal in quantity the supply from the West Indies. The continual increase in production has been remark- ably illustrated in France, which, in 1827, had, according to Mr. William Crookes, F.R.S., 39 factories, making 1,218,000 kilogrammes of sugar; in i860 there were 336 factories, making 126,180,000 kilogrammes; and in 1866, 422, making 292,761,000 kilogrammes. The imports of colonial sugar were, in 1831, 81,750,000 kilogrammes; in 1837, 60,832,634 kilogrammes; in 1868, 69,104,714 kilogrammes. The decline in the quantity of colonial sugar imported was compensated for in the growth of the beetroot sugar industry, for although up to the period now under consi- deration the yield was very small, yet we find such rapid strides during the next half century, that the following com- parison may not be out of place : in 1828, the yield was about a little over two million and a half kilogrammes, in 1852 it had risen to nearly seventy-five and a half million kilogrammes, and in 1870 to three times this quantity, namely, two hundred and forty-three and a half million kilogrammes. SULLY, COLBERT, AND NAPOLEON CONTRASTED. 39 1 The French home-grown sugar trade would probably be destroyed if cane sugar were admitted duty free, but it main- tains its ground by high protective duties, and affects so many individuals, that for two-thirds of a century the consumers of France have contributed to support an industry which now lays claim to prescriptive rights. No more conclusive proof could be needed, that the pursuit ought never to have been encouraged by legislation. The cultivation of indigo was also persevered in, but wiih indifferent results, if not with complete failure. One successful substitute of a native for a foreign product was that of soda for potash ; the most useful acids and salts were likewise produced by new and improved means, and bleaching, dyeing, tanning, distilling, and other arts de- pendent upon chemistry were greatly promoted. The industrial legislation of the empire, with serious faults, which the diversities of counsels and the circumstances of the government were not enough to palliate, nevertheless marked some new progress in the destinies of industry. To Napoleon is due the creation of Chambers of Commerce and Manufactures; of the Conseils de Prudhommes or mixed juries of the most skilful operatives and masters, for settling industrial disputes, workmen's certificates, the insti- tution of a property in trade marks, and the formation of a code of commerce; all of which still remained. In his own words, he had made the glory of his reign to consist in changing the face of his empire, in the execution of great works as necessary to the interests of his people as to his own satisfaction, including 3,400 leagues of roads con- structed or repaired ; mountains were crossed by highways worthy of the Romans, rivers rendered more navigable, bridges built, canals excavated, and Paris beautified. Sully, Colbert, and Napoleon — three of the prominent in- dustrial legislators of France — each countenanced the system of excluding foreign products, and protecting or encouraging home resources. Colbert, however, always had in view the 392 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. commercial prosperity of his country, not war, and en- couraged the supply of raw materials of all kinds to nourish the home manufactures. Napoleon I., in the endeavour to injure England, departed from this reasonable rule, and in prohibiting raw materials, lost even the approbation of the home manufacturers, and created discontent. He multiplied rigorous edicts in vain, for smuggling flourished through the borders of all the states under his power, from the Baltic to Constantinople. Sully, Colbert, and Napoleon alike could see a present difficulty and an immediate result ; they alike failed in carrying their view far into the distant consequences. Measures, based on false principles, even- tually aggravated the evil they were meant to overcome. The prestige of these names blinded France to the de- pressing eftects of the system upon general industry. When the French frontiers extended beyond the Rhine, the ex- clusive system produced some favourable effects upon the internal trade of France ; but over a smaller area it would have proved utterly impracticable. Machinery on the English models had been in use some years, and while European ports were closed to British manufactures, the overawed states had no alternative but to buy the fabrics of France. In the years 1814 and 18 15 the old communications between Bordeaux and Bayonne on the one hand, and Germany and North-Eastern Europe on the other, were renewed. Since the peace of 181 5, strin- gent fiscal ordinances and attempts to return to the system of minute disciplinary rules, engendered by private interests and sustained by prejudice, have been far more frequent than those of a liberal tendency. FRANCE. 393 II. France from 1S15 to 1S85. It \vas confidently expected, with the return of the Bourbons, that the French colonial trade would revive, especially in the West Indies. Many circumstances pre- vented the realisation of this hope. San Domingo was no longer a French colony. Martmique and Guadaloupe were too small to be commercially important, and Bourbon or Reunion was deprived of its value as a settlement, by the English occupation of the neighbouring isle of Mauritius. At home the harvests were bad for several years in succes- sion. There were likewise levied upon the people immense contributions to meet the expenses of the late wars. At the first abdication of Napoleon the allies refrained from retaliating upon France, beyond limiting the frontiers of the kingdom to their former bounds. The country was now, on the contrary, invaded by 800,000 men, and 150,000 remained in occupation of all the frontier fortresses to secure the repayment of the outlay of the allies. These levies, exclusive of the cost of maintaining the army of occupation, amounted to the enormous sum of ;^6i, 500,000, thus distributed : — Expenses of the war .... ^'28,000,000 Indemnity for injury to various of the larger States of Europe . . . 29,500,000 Minor States ..... 4,000,000 Total . . . ;^6 1, 500,000 These circumstances combined, diminished trade, and 394 "^^^ GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. gave little lustre to the restoration of the Bourbons. Ex- ports sank to a value below what they had reached in the years 1785-7, when the average was 525,357,000 francs. In 181 7, the value was only 394,787,000 francs, about ;^i5>79i.ooo sterling. Foreign trade, moreover, had so long been lost, that it had to be re-created ; and its growth was slow, for other nations had obtained possession of the markets from which France had been shut out. Machinery had greatly improved in England in the interval, and its exportation being strictly prohibited, England was enabled to undersell France. Against such disadvantages, the French sought to dis- tinguish their wares by excellence of quality, and pursued their national industries with much vigour. By the year 1825, many divisions of industry were abreast, and some were in advance, of the corresponding industries of England. Capital had returned to the kingdom, and was increasing ; the influx of travellers also added sensibly to the national wealth. It has been computed that in 1828 no continental state, and not even England, possessed so large an amount of specie as France, an improvement partly owing to the repeal, in 1825, of the prohibitions against the export of British machinery. The French were thus enabled to copy the English models, and to erect their own mills. This was the year when rash speculations in England, incited by the prospect of unrestricted trade with the South American republics, resulted in a monetary panic, while France, acting with commercial caution, was only partially afi'ected. The desire for industrial improvement united all ranks, and capital was readily found for enter- prises of a sound and substantial character. Bleaching and dyeing far surpassed the same arts in England, being con- ducted more scientifically. The silk and cotton goods were remarkably brilliant in colour, and fetched high prices. Weaving, paper-making, carpet-making, tanning, and the kindred arts, all became prosperous. AGRICULTURE.— TENURE OF LAND. 395 " The manufacturing and agricultural industries of France are closely interlinked. Although corn stands at the head of the produce of French husbandry, yet the fruit of the vine is only next in value, and the cultivation of the white mulberry, the beet-root, hemp and flax, madder and other dye-stuffs, supports manufactures of national dimensions. Notwith- standing these facts, the history of French agriculture pos- sesses little of a cheerful or profitable character. From the days of Sully, agriculture has been the plaything and experi- ment of inconsistent legislation. Commercial laws affecting corn, which, to be at all justifiable, ought to be founded upon the wants, and the means for supplying the wants, of consumers, had been subordinated to regal profusion, well- meaning ignorance, and political influences. The markets were reserved for those who made the laws, and the country suffered for the interest of a class." At the period of the Revolution, a radical change took place in the tenure of land. A great grievance had pre- vailed in the enormous estates held by the aristocracy. It was therefore ordained that estates should be equally shared by all the children of a proprietor. The soil in a short time was divided into numerous small allotments. Farms not larger than ten, twenty, or thirty acres proved, however, from want of capital, as difficult to work, and the too minute division of land, as little conducive, perhaps, to economic cultivation, as the large estates of former times. The first emperor, though anxious for improvement, was too much occupied in his ambitious wars to construct or repair canals for irrigation. Neither under Charles X., nor under Louis Philippe, was there any marked advance. The former had little hold upon the country beyond his legitimate descent. Louis Philippe favoured the trading and manufacturing classes, to whom he owed his throne, more than the agricultural. Husbandry continued to be neglected, and fell short of that of less favoured countries. Even the breeding and rearing of horses, upon which France prided herself, and for the 396 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. improvement of which Henry IV. had founded the " Royal Studs," went back, and cattle rearing was in no better pUght. Such a neglect of husbandry seems inexplicable, when we remember that 53 per cent, of the French people depended upon the cultivation of the soil for their subsistence. Wooden ploughshares, harrows with wooden teeth, and, in the southern provinces, the Oriental mode of oxen treading out the corn, still partially remained in use, and thrashing and winnowing machines had not even been heard of. The reign of Napoleon III. was beneficial to agri- cultural industry. By fostering exhibitions and giving prizes, by encouraging co-operation and disseminating a knowledge of the best itnplements and methods, he attracted capital to the tillage of the land, and raised agriculture to a position better befitting the dignity of the empire. In the affairs of commerce Napoleon III. was equally enlightened, and promoted the general well-being by enlarging the area of interchange. The use of foreign produce did not appear to him, — as to the sovereigns before him, — prejudicial to national industries, but rather a most effective stimulant. Especially were industrial exhibitions, both national and international, popularised. These successful means of stimu- lating agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, by bringing together for comparison the best examples of raw produce and the masterpieces of art, may claim a French origin. As early as 1789 an exhibition had been held in the Champ de Mars at Paris, for the purpose of measuring annually the pro- gress accompHshed. War prevented its renewal until 1802; it was repeated in 1803, and again in 1806, with greater splendour ; and during the period of the Restoration, exhi- bitions were frequent and varied- These gave the initiative to the Universal Exhibitions, which will remain as distinc- tive features of the second half of the nineteenth century. France too held the first rank along with England in these peaceful contests, and her example has been copied by most civilised States. The benefits arising therefrom are manifold ; iriNES. 397 producers display their goods, and obtain the pubh'city they desire; consumers improve their tastes, and better satisfy their wants by the richness of choice oflered them. In- dustrial exhibitions may now be regarded as permanent agencies of civilisation. France was the chief wine producer of the world, its vintages being unapproached by those of any other country for quality, variety, and abundance. So large a surface in the south was covered with vineyards, that corn had to be imported from the north. At one time wine and brandy took, the lead of the exports, but the system of protec- tion adopted by some states on account of its apparent success in France, and by others in retaliation, to pro- tect theffiselves against French goods, made these invaluable gifts of nature for many years of little importance in commerce. England imposed high duties upon French wines, and favoured the strongly brandied wines of Portugal and Spain, till it was a common belief that French wines were naturally our aversion, and port and sherry our taste. North America imported large quantities of French goods, but followed English policy with respect to wine. Austria fostered the culture of the vine in her own territories. Prussia likewise improved the growth of her Rhenish vines. Brandy began to be produced in many parts of the Continent. All these circumstances told adversely upon this special branch of French industry, and for a century and a half before the advent to power of Napoleon III. the value of the wine annually exported from France, ranged between the narrow limits of one and two millions sterling. During the four years previous to the reduction of the wane duty, the con- sumption of French wines in this country was under 601,000 gallons; at this period it exceeded 4,500,000 gallons. The self-sustaining policy of the First Empire, fallacious as it was in principle, affected for many years the imports into France. The demand for sugar and coffee was diminished, and tea had always been an unimportant item of trade. 39S THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. 1787. Value of Sugar imported, 140,000,000 livres. 1839. „ „ 34,800,000 „ 1822. Value of Coffee imported, 20,000,000 francs. 1839. „ „ 16,500,000 „ Of wool, cochineal, cotton, indigo, hides, and other substances entering into the domestic industry, yet not indigenous, there were visibly increased imports. Timber and olive-oil, produced to some extent at home, were sup- plemented by foreign consignments. The introduction and rapid extension of the use of machinery in France brought about changes in the social habits of the people. Industrial processes became cen- tralised in great factories instead of being dispersed amongst cottiers ; and crowded towns arose with their attendant evils as well as advantages. The government has for the last two centuries done much to advance French industry, by the construction of canals and roads, and by the creation of a governmental depart- ment, specially charged with the supervision of the means of communication. These judicious measures have facili- tated interchange, and have encouraged very many travellers and residents from abroad to visit and reside in the country. France devoted much attention to manufactures in metals. Mines of copper, lead, and still more important ones of iron, were worked before the Revolution, but not to any important extent. The demand for arms then became very great, and their fabrication was carried to an unrivalled perfection. Metal working afterwards increased in conse- quence of the general use of steam machinery and the con- struction of railroads. Though produced from inferior ore, the French iron was, in consequence of skilful manipulation, of very good quality. High protective duties were levied upon foreign iron in order to encourage native production, by which means the whole kingdom was taxed to profit the raining interest, a system carried out in good faith, for the highest personages in the realm invested sums in iron works. IRON AND SILK INDUSTRIES.— J ACQUARD. 399 The iron industry in 1835 was equal in value to a fourth of that of the cotton trade, and to a third of that of the woollen trade. The average home production for some years was worth over 100,000,000 francs, but no legislative stimulus could render it capable of supplying the whole demand of France, and importation was indispensable. Coal, like iron, is found in France, but of an inferior quality and in small dispersed beds. The hot blast in the smelting furnace made this common coal available, and helped to keep France abreast of other countries in her manufactures. As an article of luxury the demand for silk is depen- dent upon fashion and wealth. Among French industries, therefore, the silk manufacture is one of the first to suffer from political or social disturbances. In the revolution of 1789 it was paralyzed, and when in 1793 Lyons was taken by the republican forces, and a great number of its inhabitants massacred, the manufacture temporarily perished. Napoleon gave an impetus to silk weaving by requiring official costumes to be made extensively of this fabric. But neither fashion nor imperial decrees developed the capabiHties of the silk manufacture one hundredth part so much as the use of the Jacquard loom, so named after its inventor, and soon employed in further improved forms, not only for silk, but for all kinds of figured tissues. Jacquard was ill-treated at first, his looms were destroyed, and he was exiled, but he lived to be regarded as the father of modern French industry. There were in 1875 more than twenty thousand looms in Lyons, giving rise to a secondary, but very important trade, in the construction of their machinery. A prosperous period for the silk trade began with 1822, when the exportations to England and the United States were of the annual value of 99,000,000 francs. From 1846 to 1852 the home produce of raw silk amounted on an average to twenty-four thousand tons of cocoons, }'ielding two thousand tons of silk, worth 120,000,000 francs. An 400 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. epidemic afterwards prevailed amongst the silkworms, so tliat, in 1865, the produce was reduced to a fifth of its former extent, and seed or grain, as the silkworms' eggs are called, had to be brought from distant countries to renovate the species and supply the deficiency. Syria, Persia, Bengal, China, Japan, were placed under contribution for this " grain." Silk fabrics then rose in value, though not so much as might have been expected ; nor did the silk trade retrograde as a whole. The following sumtnary shows that in the face of serious drawbacks the exportations of silk tissues were trebled within twenty years. Thus, in 1845 the exports were valued at 140,000,000 francs; in 1847, at 165,000,000 francs ; in 1849, ^^ 181,000,000 francs ; in 1866, at 490,000,000 francs. It was computed that one-third of the manufactured silk remained in France. The progress of this manufacture was the more remarkable, inasmuch as Germany, Russia, and Switzerland, once customers of France, began to manufacture silk for themselves. North America discouraged importation by the imposition of heavy customs, and promoted the cultivation of the mulberry as a means of establishing a native silk industry. Finally, England extended its silk manufacture till its importance ranked next to that of cotton and wool. Besides fabricated silks, the production of the raw material was also very extensively pursued, until but little was imported, and that chiefly from Italy, while the exportation of home-produced raw silk in- creased every year. Much Italian raw silk, however, con- tinued to pass through France in course of transit to England and other countries. The woollen manufacture in France was of great import- ance before those of silk and cotton were introduced. Its value was increased by its smaller sensibility to the changes of fashion. For a long time the home supply of wool was ample enough to meet every requirement. But during the latter part of this period the imports of wool grew fast, not that the home supply was less, but that the weaving of cloth WOOLLEN AND LINEN MANUFACTURES. 40 1 was much more extensive. The imports of wool in the year 1865 amounted to eighty thousand tons, two-sevenths of which came from AustraUa. French cloths were valued for their durability, brightness, and delicacy of dye. Cash- mere shawls, and other textures of long-combed wool, ex- ceeding in beauty the fabrics of India, had long been made at Rheims and Amiens. At Sedan and Louviers only merino wool was used, and the finest quality of cloth was woven ; Elboeuf and Aumale, likewise, produced excellent cloths. Coarser goods were made in Languedoc, where great flocks of sheep roam over the mountains and supply the peasantry with wool for spinning and weaving in the intervals of pastoral labour. The woollen manufacture was not influenced, like that of silk, by the Revolution, except in the exportation being stopped ; but the chief market for cloth was always at home, and the exports, though considerable, were but a small part of the produce. Towards the close of the first empire the exports had resumed their former dimensions. This progress of the woollen industry may be seen by the following : — In 17 88 the exports of woollens were valued at 24,235,000 francs; in 1838 they rose to 80 millions, and in 1865 to 396 millions; while the imports of raw wool were in 1855, 68 million francs, and in 1865, 247 millions. " French linens are of high repute. Hemp and flax have for three centuries formed part of the crops of almost every farmer and peasant, especially in Normandy and Brittany, where the women employ much of their spare time in spinning yarn. Brittany chiefly grows hemp, and manu- factures sacking, canvas, and other coarse fabrics, but also furnishes the Laval linen, a very superior fabric. In French Flanders and all north-east France, as well as in Dauphin^, the manufacture of fine linens is still actively pursued, form- ing the chief occupation of many large towns. Cambray has given its name to cambric, and linen thread, gauze, lawn, printed linens, and other varieties of the manufac- III 2 C 4C2 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. ture, are also made at Cambray, Douai, Channey, and Guise. Lace remains a general industry, that of Valen- ciennes taking the lead in public estimation and value. Linen manufactures have long been among the chief ex- ports of France, and before 1789 they were exported even to the West Indies. They suffered with the rest at the Revolution, and it was not until the peace of 1815 that the trade gave signs of revival. The demand for linen had then lessened, as cotton goods had come into general use, and machinery had been invented in England for spinning the yarn, which so much diminished the cost of production that English linens found their way into France, where hand spinning continued to be employed. As a consequence, both the spinning and weaving of linen suffered a compa- rative decline. There was an outcry against the Cobden treaty from those engaged in the trade that it would prove their ruin ; a fear, happily, not borne out by results, as shown by the subjoined figures : — EXPORTS OF LINEN YARNS. Date. Value. 1859 (year before the treaty) . . 15,400,000 francs. 1864 24,500,000 ,, Increase . . . 9,100,000 The increase in the export of linen and hempen yarns is even more marked : — EXPORTS OF HEMP AND FLAX YARNS. 1859 ....... 1,000,000 francs. 1864 .,,.... 21,000,000 ,, 1808 53,000,000 ,, Compared with cotton and woollen yarns, this rapid growth is still more noticeable : — EXPORTS OF COTTON AND WOOLLEN YARNS. 1859 6,900,000 francs. 1864 21,600,000 „ 1868 27,200,000 „ PROGRESS OF COTTON MANUFACTURE. 403 These remarkable results, however, were chiefly brought about by the American war." The cotton industry of France, which is divided into the three branches of spun thread, calicoes, and prints, is of modern introduction, dating from 1770. It was not till the French imitated the improved machinery of the English that this manufacture became of importance, and an exten- sion of it took place in 181 5. The chief source whence the raw- material was obtained at that time was not, as later, America, but Egypt and the Levant. Most of the towns mentioned in connection with linen weaving were occupied also in the manufacture of cotton. We find Rouen in Nor- mandy, the Manchester of France, was the metropolis of the trade, and Havre, at the mouth of the Seine, representing Liverpool, the depot for the raw material and the place of export for the manufactured article. The kindred arts of dyeing and printing were pursued in the province of Nor- mandy and elsewhere. Cotton, however, was manufactured under disadvantages in France — machinery and coal were much dearer than in England, the cost of the latter being double what it was in Lancashire. England was then con- sequently able to undersell France in foreign markets. At various times the supply from the French looms has been in advance of the demand, and the stocks have had to be cleared at a loss. Yet between 18 15 and 1840 the manu- facture increased threefold, and under Napoleon IIL it made rapid progress. Machinery for spinning soon largely superseded manual labour, and hand-weaving was only practised for the thinnest gauzes, and for fabrics meeting the temporary demands of fasliion. It is reckoned there were no fewer than two hundred thousand hand-looms working in 1870, and the power-looms numbered eighty thousand. The cotton trade provided employment for six hundred thousand people, of whom one-third worked at home. Cotton cloths were not formerly manufactured for exportation so much as to supply the home consumption. 404 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. and the manufacture was fostered by protective duties in order to accomplish this object. The cessation of supplies of the raw material owing to the American civil war, brought much distress upon the operatives, and caused the attention of manufacturers to be turned to India, China, Egypt, the Mediterranean coasts, and the Brazils. The commercial treaty having introduced iron into France at a much lower cost than it could be produced from the native mines, placed the country more on an equality with England in the con- struction of machinery for her manufactures. So far have the effects of this treaty counterbalanced the drawbacks to progress, that from 1859 to 1864 the exports of cottons to the United Kingdom, the chief home of the trade in all its branches, advanced more than 100 per cent. Other interest- ing facts may be gleaned from a few miscellaneous statistics selected from the trade returns : — EXPORTS OF COTTONS FROM FRANCE. Date. Value. 1836 66,500,000 francs. 1837 94,000,000 „ 1838 114,000,000 ,, 1850 165,000,000 ,, 1866 177,100,000 ,, The value of the exports to Britain alone between 1859 and 1864 rose from 5,700,000 to 12,670,000 francs. In con- sequence of the civil war in the United States, the importa- tions of the staple fell in 1862 to a third of what they were in 1 86 1. In 1866 they had again risen, from varied sources, to an amount nearly equal to that before the war, reaching 513,515 bales, equal to 120,000 tons of raw cotton, and valued at 420,000,000 francs. In the same year the woven textures and yarns were estimated to be worth 800,000,000 francs. Of these a fifth part was exported. Woven good« alone were exported in 1859 to the value of 67,200,000 francs, while, in despite of the war, their value had reached 93,700,000 francs in the year 1864. Of the porcelain and glass-ware manufactures, which have PORCELAIN, GLASS, PAPER. 4C5 been famed for centuries, Paris and Limoges were the chief seats. Government favoured the beautiful artistic products in porcelain of Sevres, some of them being reserved as special presents to princes. The establishment was carried on by a charge upon the revenue. Paris likewise manufac- tured many tasteful articles in china, for v*hich there was a large foreign demand. Still the porcelain manufacture did not advance so fast as the textile manufactures, owing to the inability of France to compete with England and Germany, where every branch of this industry was carried to perfec- tion. The glass of France now almost equalled that of Eng- land, and in purity of material and in chasteness of design was thought to bear away the palm. This industry, like earthen- ware, has had to withstand rivalry of a formidable character from Bohemia, as well as from England. Its most flourish- ing period was in the early years of Louis Philippe's reign. In fancy glass of a cheap character no stand could be made against the products of Bohemia, but in mirrors and the finest cut glass, Paris, the principal seat of this division of industry, maintained its ground against the competition of the world. From 1831 to 1833 the exports of porcelain advanced in value from 3,000,000 to 4,500,000 francs, and of glass from 5,500,000 to 7,000.000 francs. The value of the earthenware exported in 1868 was 36,800,000 francs. Paper and paper hangings were made in Paris and in many of the smaller towns ; we find French paper of the finest kinds was in great demand in England, both for writing and for house-decoration, and its importation was much enlarged, under the tariff settled by the treaty of i860. It owed its superiority to the artistic care with which it was prepared. This branch of industry received an impulse from the application of chlorine in bleaching and from the use of vegetable instead of animal size. In 1827 the exports of I)aper were valued at 3,700,000 francs. In 1833 they reached 5,237,000 francs. Including books, the progress 4C6 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. from 1S37 to 1838 was from 13,400,000 to 15,200,000 francs. In 186S it had risen to 41,600,000 francs, and the tendency has been throughout to increase. Faris itself must have special mention as the capital of the French empire, industrially as well as politically. More varied employments engaged its vast population of nearly 2,000,000 inhabitants than that of any other French town, perhaps even than that of London. Every extensive handi- craft was represented in Paris, and the minor pursuits were manifold. It was the great emporium of the empire. The grand total of its manufactures, in 1856, was, according to M. Block, of the value of 1,463,628,350 francs, of which the exports amounted in English money to between ;^40,ooo,ooo and ;j^5 0,000, 000. Since that date the in- dustrial and commercial advances of Paris have been still greater. Unceasing efforts were made to equal the cheap- ness and strength of the English wares, and to add those elements to the taste and brilliancy characteristic of French productions. If these efforts have not accomplished all they aimed at, it is because the energies of England wece aroused to keep in the van of commercial enterprise. Parisian industry included almost every item of luxury and usefulness, amongst the rest, jewellery, chronometers, watches and clocks, upholstery, scientific and musical instruments, perfumery, bijouterie, tasteful dresses, feathers, artificial flowers, buttons, kid-gloves, machinery, and nume- rous products of artistic labour. Many things sold as articles de Paris were made in the adjacent districts, just as in Switzerland the so-called Geneva watches are not necessarily made in that city, but are brought there for sale. Amongst the special manufactures of Paris were the Gobelins carpets, of very beautiful and expensive tapestry, and the shawls of Cashmere wool, which, like those of Rheims, excelled the choicest fabrics of the East Indies, and furnished employment for more than four thousand skilful operatives. The great object of the Parisians was to rival COMMERCIAL PORTS. 407 the English, to which end all the resources of science and art were brought into action. Every discovery in mechanics and chemistry was utilised in industrial affairs, and every commercial and mercantile aid was at once put into requisition to facilitate intercourse and to open up new markets. Next to Paris, Lyons was the chief manufacturing city in France, being the centre of the silk trade, and possessing a valuable trafific with England, America, Germany, Belgium, Russia, Turkey, and Spain. The operatives suffered from the vicissitudes peculiar to their trade, and held the reputation of being turbulent and disaffected in times of depression, when they have frequently risen against the authorities. Havre, though less a manufacturing than a commercial town, was the principal emporium of the American trade. Its position relatively to Paris rendered it of increasing importance as its foreign trade expanded. Marseilles, the ancient entrepot of the Mediterranean trade, was the seat of many manufactures, as well as the grand outlet of the produce of the south of France. The commerce of Marseilles was principally with the East. Cotton and oil-seeds from Egypt, Africa, and India were important constituents of its import trade, while it ob- tained cocoons from the districts beyond the Caucasus, and from Japan. An extensive intercourse was carried on with Great Britain and America. The port also rose into importance as a point of embarkation for passengers to India, by way of Suez, but maintained its commercial rank although closely pressed by the rivalry of Genoa, and still more threatened by Brindisi. Nantes, on the western coast, made the grain trade its speciality. This port, conveniently situated upon the Loire and near its mouth, had been made more available by improved facilities for inland transport of goods by road, rail, and river. Textile manufactures of an inferior kind flourished, and sugar refineries, chemical works and found- 408 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. ries were in active operation ; grain, salt, iron, and coal being brought from the departments of the Loire for export, and commodities from abroad forwarded to the interior. The trade of Nantes with Great Britain increases yearly. Bordeaux was largely engaged in the wine trade. Its chief intercourse was with the United Kingdom, and ex- tended greatly after the conclusion of the treaty of com- merce. Coal and colonial produce were the principal commodities received from Great Britain, much of the latter, however, being re-exported. The canal of Langue- doc, constructed by Riquet, under the ministry of Colbert, unites Bordeaux with the Mediterranean, and enables a large trade to be carried on with the South of France. Calais, Boidogne, and Dieppe were but little occupied in commerce and manufactures compared with the towns above described ; yet they were busy and prosperous, owing to their positions on the routes of the passenger traffic be- tween France and the United Kingdom. FRENCH FOREIGN TRADE. England. — Vastly as the foreign trade of France extended in the early part of this period, it remained still far from commensurate with the physical resources and geographical position of the country, and the intelligence, ingenuity, and enterprise of its inhabitants. This disparity is most seen in comparison with England. Ignorance and mutual distrust long kept the two countries apart, both cherishing the notion that naturally they were enemies rather than friends. In the Crimean War, where the two nations were engaged, tliey happily no longer faced each other, but fought side by side. The Cobden Treaty of i860 made up for the loss which befell both countries upon the sudden stopping of the American cotton trade, by the blockade of the Southern Ports. Every year since increased this intercourse, which, while it added to the prosperity of both, strengthened the bonds of amity. The treaty, viewed with alarm by many COBDEN TREA TV. 409 on both sides, brought about no consequences which were not reassuring. By comparing statistics of the gross trade and of the trade with Great Britain, we shall perceive the increase in every department of French commerce under the stimulus given by the Cobden Treaty: — Gross value of exports from France — Increase. 1864, 2,942,200,000 frs. 1S59, 1,266,462,000 frs. 1,675,738,000 Total value of exports to Great Britain — 1864, 641,018,775 frs. 1859, 421,771,450 frs. 219,247,325 In British money the exports for 1864 to England were valued at ;^25, 640,751, those of 1838 at ;;^5, 602,145. I"^ 1870 they exceeded the French exports to all the world thirty years ago. Such an advance is unparalleled in the history of France. The next period of five years ending in 1869, had no disturbing element of war, and advanced at an accelerated speed. The nature of the commerce between France and England may be gathered from an enumeration of the princi[)al items of export and import : — EXPORTS TO ENGLAND. Silk manufactures and raw silk. Fine woollens. Cambric. Parisian wares. Clocks and watches. Furniture. Fruit and eggs. Gloves and shoes. Madder and garancine. Paper and paper-hangings. Wines and brandy. Seeds. Olive oil. Quinine. Feathers and artificial flowers. Lace. IMPORTS TO FRANCE. Apparel and haberdashery. Iron and steel, arms and am- munition. Tin and tinned plates. Linen and linen yarns. Cotton and cotton yarns. Hardware and cutlery. Copper. Coal. Leather manufactures. Foreign produce (re-exported from Great Britain). Germany. — The proximity of Germany to France caused a commercial intercourse, which was of such importance that all the ingenious devices to hamper and destroy the trade met with but partial success. Every petty German state at 41 O THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. one time had its own customs dues, but the institution of the Zollverein abated this vexation, and the connection of North Germany with Prussia assisted to influence com- merce still more advantageously. From Germany, France obtained wool, cattle, and grain ; — but linen and linen yarn arrived in much less quantity than formerly. The balance of trade was almost always in favour of Germany, that is to say, specie had to be transmitted from France in payment of imports, which circumstance shows that German products were in greater demand in France than French products were in Germany. United States. — France had always cultivated a friendly intercourse with the United States, not always from admira- tion of its institutions, but sometimes from the less worthy motive of enmity to England. From the year 1827 to 1839, this trade was unusually prosperous. The reduction of duties in 1833 gave it a great impulse. It was checked, however, by the American war, but rapidly recovered its former dimensions. France sent to the States silk fabrics, woollens, cambric, and other fine linens. Cotton goods were exported in small quantities, wine and brandy largely, pottery, paper, olive oil, and articles of ornament and fashion were also sent. The imports from America com- prised cotton, tobacco, cochineal, and potash. Tobacco had for some years been cultivated with great success in France, but though the quantity was large, it did not equal the American leaf in quality. The progress of the trade with America before 1S39 is subjoined : — Date Value of Imports. Value of Exports. 183s 1S36 1837 1838 Francs. 196,000,000 239,000,000 98.500,000 132,750,000 Fmncs. 89,500,000 110,750,000 117.750,000 170,750,000 FRENCH FOREIGN TRADE. 41I The partial cessation of the trade while the civil war was proceeding rendered the course of interchange irregular in after years, but the general tendency has been to increase, France carried on a valuable commerce with Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, which has already been noticed in our account of the commerce of these countries. The Mediterranean trade, for which France is so excel- lently situated, but of which the empire was deprived by the English fleet in the time of the first Napoleon, soon rose, after the introduction of steam navigation, to great importance. The overland route to India brought much prosperity to T^Iarseilles, now one of the most flourishing cities in France. Toulon, Dix, Montpelier, and every Mediterranean port shared in a minor degree the same advantages. Cette is an instance of a flourishing town owing its origin to great works of economic utility. It arose in the time of Louis XIV., directly from the con- struction of the canal of Languedoc, and is still an impor- tant commercial town, as well as the favoured place of resort by the sea-bathers of the south. Colonial Trade. — Algiers was at this time the only impor- tant colony of France. The West Indian colonies and the settlements in Asia were too small to affect either its com- merce or revenue. Before 1825 the produce of sugar from the West Indies supplemented the beetroot manufacture. It gradually fell, till, in 1840, an excise levied upon the beet sugar promised to restore the colonial industry. The moral effect of the liberation of the slaves by the English, however, influenced the French at this time, and they abolished slavery when its continuance might have been commercially advantageous. As a consequence, it was only during the later years of this period that free labour in Guadaloupe and Bourbon produced enough sugar to ex- port with profit. The trade of Martinique remained nearly stationary. 4 I 2 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. In generalising the results of the commercial treaty of i860, we may observe that its tendency was to enlarge both the domestic industry and the external commerce of France. It also altered the relation which industry and commerce bore to each other. Trade, before the treaty, was primarily confined to the supply of home demands. It has been seen that this is most efficiently accomplished by unrestricted interchange with other countries, and, with- out doubt, the intercourse of France with the whole world was enlarged as a consequence of the treaty with England. While the incentive to outvie the British excited a gene- rous emulation in industry, it was a healthy stimulus to both nations. The course pursued under the second em- pire tended to confidence rather than to distrust, and gave great reason to hope that the calamities of war between the two were not likely to be again experienced. Among the political changes brought about by the Franco-German war must be reckoned an apparent change in the commer- cial policy of France, and a reversion, under the present possessors of power, to old restrictive principles. CHAPTER VII. THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT I3RITAIN AND IRELAND FROM 1790-1885. /. —COMMERCIAL POLICY.— SHIP-BUILDING. Before 1790 the English minister Pitt had sought to initiate free trade with France, a measure which was frus- trated by the outbreak of the Revolution. Already coal had been rendered available for the process of iron-smelting, which, through the diminution of the forests, had become so unimportant an industry, that England was yearly more dependent upon Sweden and Russia for her supplies of the metal, although her own mines were inexhaustible. Sweden drew from England annually at this time one and a half millions sterling for wrought iron. Improvements in machi- nery were making rapid progress, and even thus early steam power was utilised. War diverted the current of events. Shut out from almost all Europe, the English were impelled to seek markets further from home. Spain and Sweden were for years the only countries in Europe open to our ships. Thence many English goods reached the closed states, and a contraband trade was even covertly encouraged by the governments. Without war, England might possibly have sooner attained to the extent of trade she now possesses, but it would have been in conjunction with the rest of Europe. War threw the entire European commerce into her hands, and swept the sea of rivals, while India and America opened wider fields of interchange than those from which she was ex- cluded. At a prodigious cost many powers were kept in the field against France. The wants of the forces engaged gave employment to an industrial army at home ; but with peace 414 TfiE. GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. came the reaction and labour temporarily suffered, yet the earnings of industry were still great. Much of this was effected by throwing upon posterity payment of the debts incurred, a policy which, whether right or wrong, has en- cumbered the subsequent generation with burdens — though not too heavy, it may be hoped, for patient endurance. A few examples of the growth of the National Debt in various years will give an idea of the fluctuations, and that after 1830 the total amount remained year after year without much change. Year. £ i6S8..The King's Debt at the Accession of William Til. .. 664,263 1702.. The National Debt „ Anne 12,767,225 1714.. „ „ „ George 1 36,175,460 I727-- :. >. .. George II 52,523,023 1760.. „ ,, „ George III 102,014,018 1820.. „ „ „ George IV 834,900,960 1830.. „ ,, ,, William IV 784,803,997 1837.. „ „ „ Victoria 787,529,114 1X70 \ Funded ^740,789,548— Unfunded ;^6,76i,5oo ) „ , <, '^70- I Estimated Capital of Annuities ;^53, 140,380 \ - »oo,b9i,4-3 1885.. ,, „ „ 740,330,654 ANNUAL CHARGE FOR DEBT. In 1792. In 1816. In 1S46. £ {, £ Interest and Management of) „ r,,^ „^^ ^q _,, _„„ „, _,„ ,„, Funded Debt ... 1 7,8i7,75o 28,563,592 23,739,573 Ditto of Unfunded Debt 346,713 1,998,937 421,432 Terminable Annuities 1,307,212 1,894,612 3,916,982 Total Charge ,.... 9,471,675 32,457,141 28,077,987 In 1856. In 1866. In 1870. £ £ £ Interest and Management of ) „.,^_o--,, «^ ^.^ -„. „» o. Funded Debt ... \ ?3,37S,634 23,542,594 22,427,854 Ditto of Unfunded Debt 870,284 328,800 252,951 Terminable Annuities 3,863,907 2,361,894 4,365,848 Total Charge 28,1x2,825 26,233,288 27,046,653 From 1793 to 1802, the sum of ^^450, 000,000 was spent, while our exports did not exceed an annual average of ;^2o,ooo,ooo. The expenditure from 1802 to the peace SHIPS UlLDING.-S TEA ."if. 4 I 5 of 1815 was ^1,113,000,000, or ;^8o, 000,000 a year, while the exports during the same period only amounted to ;;^7 20,000,000, and were swollen to this amount by the supplies sent to the troops and to the English allies. Ship- building underwent an extraordinary development, and the loans negotiated by the government being expended in the materials of food, clothing, and ammunition, im- parted such vigour to agriculture and to many departments of labour, that the weight of taxation was considerably alleviated. The history of the war shows how much the development of British trade depended on political changes, and how skilfully every obstacle was made use of to expand it. Subsequent and previous events illustrate the same fact. The severance of Brazil from Portugal, and of the Spanish republics from Spain, opened the whole of South America to British merchants, who, when the Baltic was closed, turned to Canada for timber and forest products, and created a trade which benefited both sides of the Atlantic. Again, the voluntary severance of the United States from the mother country gave greater freedom of growth to those colonies ; and when ill-feeling had subsided, those who were once fellow-subjects became mutually good customers. Thus the insular energy of the United Kingdom confronted every danger, and educed good from evil. The British colonial empire also spread through every ocean ; many stations, the prize of conquest, which promised commercial gain, or were favourable as military depots, being retained at the conclusion of peace, while others were restored. Meanwhile, the impulse given to the iron trade, and the application of steam power, were doing their mighty work, and the consequent improvements which took place in industrial machinery gave a vast expansion to industry and interchange. Steam, applied to locomotion, facilitated communication, both by land and water, with the whole world ; and soon, by means of the electric telegraph, supply 4l6 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. and demand were so regulated as to avoid extreme fluctua- tions in prices, and the tendency to equalise profits and to discourage rash speculation was promoted. Extended intercourse too acted and reacted beneficially upon the nations brought together by commerce. " While England keeps the lead, and may in so far claim to be a great social benefactor, she receives as richly as she distributes." The Atlantic was now crossed in little more than a week, a voyage which, before the passage of the Great Western steamship in 1838, took five or six weeks. India could be reached overland in less than a month,* and by the way of the Cape in double that time, instead of, as before, occupy- ing nearly half a year. {See Supplemetit.) The British steam fleet became twelve or fourteen fold as numerous as it was thirty years before. Legislation aided in this development, and the United Kingdom led the world, as it has been remarked, not only by the magnitude of her commerce, but by the wisdom of the principles upon which it was conducted. The principle of levying customs and excise merely for revenue and not for protection, upon which British legislation had been conducted for some years, helped to keep England as the focus to which ships con- verged bearing the products of nature and art from every clime, and from which also as many radiated, freighted with British manufactures for world-wide use. Postal facilities, also the fruit of legislation, saved both time and labour, by the safe and speedy transmission of orders and patterns by post, and of orders for payments of money. The transmis- sion of small sums by this means so much increased, that the amount of " Seven Days' Bills " standing to the debit of the Bank of England was reduced from nearly a million sterling, at which it once stood, to half that amount. Much business also, which once involved expensive journeys, was now transacted by correspondence; while, on the other hand, a run across the Atlantic was thought less of than * The "regulation" time to Bombay was twenty-three days. DISCO VERIES OF GOLD. 4 1 7 a journey to Edinburgh a few generations ago ; and business agents as easily made the tour of Europe as they formerly did of a district of their own country. France, Holland, Germany, and Russia represented the chief States in Europe that shared with England the great commercial development of this epoch. As their home manufactures increased, they became less dependent upon England for their supplies of clothing and other commo- dities. Yet, the resources of these countries increasing with their wealth, the value of the commerce between them and England rose year by year ; while the articles traded in were of every variety, both in kind and amount. In the case of Spain and Portugal the policy of high protective duties extinguished home manufactures, and caused a diminished trade even in wines, the sherry and port of these countries gradually giving way to the lighter wines of France, where a more liberal tariff prevailed. Spain seemed to be at length awakening to these facts, and with next to nothing left to protect, evinced a willingness, rather than a desire, to mitigate her tariff. II.— DISCOVERIES OF GOLD. Mr. Hargreaves first discovered gold in Australia in 1S51. He had been to the "diggings" in California, and, on his return to Bathurst, was struck by the geological resemblance of that district to the gold regions he had just left. Thus stimulated to search, he was rewarded in a month or two with considerable finds of gold. On making the intelligence known, he readily obtained a Government reward, and an appointment as Commissioner of Crown lands. A native shepherd, in the service of Dr. Kerr, soon afterwards found a mass of pure solid gold. Richer gold-fields were shortly afterwards found to exist in the neighbouring province of Port Phillip (now Victoria), and HI * 2D 41 8 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. within ten years, gold was sent to England to the amount of p^ioOjCoOjOoo. During two or three years of this period, an annual average exceeding ^12,000,000 sterling arrived in England ; and the quantity found within more recent years amounted to from ;^7, 000,000 to ^^8, 000,000 annually. The total exports of gold between 1851 and 1868 amounted to more than ;z^3i, 000,000 from New South Wales, and above ;^i 38,000,000 from Victoria — an aggregate of more than ^169,000,000. These well-nigh incredible sums are amounts entered on ships' manifests, and are irrespective of the gold retained in the colony, and the large sums brought under private charge. Some of the largest masses of gold ever found have been the produce of Australia. The principal are : — Yield of Gold. Valued at. 1. Mass found, as above, by native shepherd — — 2. Three quartz blocks, 2 to 3 cwt., found in Merroo Creek, N.S.Wales 1344 oz>. ;iC5>400 3. " Victoria" Nugget from Bendigo, Victoria, a mass of virgin gold . 340 ozs. .i^Ij36o 4. Water-worn Nugget of pure gold, also from Bendigo 1272 ozs. ;|^5^ooo 5. "Welcome" Nugget from Ballarat 2217 ozs. ;i{,io,ooo 6. The "Blanche Barkly" Nugget, from King-ower 1740 ozs. £>^,^S 7. Nugget at Canadian Gully, Ballarat 1615 ozs. ;^5j6oo 8. The " Heron" Nugget, a solid lump (near Mount Alexander) . . . 1008 ozs. ^4,080 The influx of the precious metal, nevertheless, had but a comparatively small effect upon prices. The yearly supply, though vast, is as nothing compared with the accumulated stores of ages, consequent on the indestructible character of gold. The annual increment would not suffice to pay the interest of our national debt or to relieve England of more than twenty-five per cent, of taxation. In twenty years, however, the quantity produced must have been equivalent to more than five hundred millions sterling. What became of this immense store? Much of it A BSORPTION OF GOLD. 4 I 9 was coined to meet the demands of a rapidly-growing commerce and the wants of an increasing population. If the abundance of gold did not perceptibly diminish its value, it certainly saved us from the inconveniences of scarcity and enhanced value. Much, too, was diverted to the arts ; and wealth and knowledge created manifold uses for gold, only possible from its abundance. Electro- type gilding, for instance, was an entirely new art. A great quantity was also absorbed by India, where, not being as yet much worked, it was highly prized. The Hindoos had experienced the blessings of just laws and a settled govern- ment too short a time to feel confidence in the security of their property, so that the custom of hoarding stiil largely prevailed. In this manner, it is believed, much of the Californian and Australian gold was absorbed. The pro- duction and consumption of silver kept pace with those of gold so nearly, that the value of the former compared with that of the latter only varied within the hmits of three- pence an ounce, and no modification of silver coin was rendered necessary. We are not to suppose that England's wealth and great- ness were due to the arrivals of gold. Every ounce of gold brought to England in the course of commerce represents labour, not only in obtaining it abroad, but also at home, in the production of commodities for exchange. No part of the gold produce was a gift to English industry, nor was it an unearned tribute levied by the Government upon the colonies. Gold is but a small part of the wealth of England. Our yearly yields of coal and irofi exceed in value that of gold throughout the world. During this golden age there was, almost without exception, an annual surplus of revenue. Meanwhile England waged a costly war against Russia, a smaller war in Abyssinia, put down a fearful insurrection in India, and a lavish outlay was required for the recon- struction of her navy and the improvement of the national 420 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. defences. With all these drawbacks, industry and wealth rapidly expanded to wider dimensions than ever before attained, and still gave signs of healthy growth. Maritime adventure, from the love of enterprise and in the pursuit of science, was also promoted rather than neglected in the eager race for wealth. Polar explorations animated numerous heroes with the olden zeal, and claimed numerous martyrs during the present century. British research was crowned with the discovery of the north-west passage, invaluable in a geographical sense, but destitute of any practical or commercial importance on account of the severe cold of the high latitudes through which the channel passes. Thus all that was good and vigorous in British enterprise was due not to gold, but to the national character, and the country kept her place, advanced, or retrograded in the ratio of her skill, intelligence, energy, and good faith. Gold flowing into her coffers from America and Australia did not prevent the recurrence of mercantile crises, accompanied by collapses of credit, as severe, and as widely felt as those of 1797, 1S25, and 1836. III.— BRITISH AGRICULTURE SINCE ijgo.-CORN LAWS. POOR LAWS.— COTTON TRADE.— COLONIAL TRADE. " A fondness for the soil is distinctive of British character. Yet this epoch being essentially that of manufactures and commerce, agriculture, while it positively advanced, rela- tively lost ground. This is the more noticeable, inasmuch as the produce of English husbandry consists almost wholly of food for man and for domestic animals. Corn and grass, root crops, and pulse are extensively grown. English horses, cattle, and sheep, are equal to any in the world, and the dairy produce is excellent ; but there are no great fields of flax and hemp or madder root, nor are there any vineyards. The nearest approach to the cultivation of raw produce for manufactures is found in the apples of the south-west counties, IMPOR TA TION OF RAW MA TERIAL. 4 : I grown for cider making, and hops and barley for brewing. The raw material for the great textile manufactures is im- ported. Even English wool, which is of first-rate quality, only supplements the larger supplies from Australia and other lands." Restrictions upon the importation of corn, while in- creasing the landowners' and farmers' profits, took away the incentives to improved husbandry produced by com- petition. These restrictions, added to the growth of po- pulation following upon the increasing w^ealth derived from manufacturing and commercial industry, combined to keep up the price of corn, and ultimately to render bread so dear as to cause universal distress. It became plain at last that no ofie interest must possess privileges at the expense of the rest, and that least of all should bread, the staff of life, be thus made dear. The question was very serious. Corn of home growth was far from enough to meet the demands for consumption. Grain had to be imported in large quantities, as the subjoined facts w^ill show : — Date. Value of grain imported. 1800 to 1802 ....... ^19,600,000. 1817 to 1819 /,'2 5,200,000. 1829101831 ^18,200,000. Whatever duty was levied upon foreign imports, the home- grown corn rose at once to the same price, for the farmers would not sell below it. A double injury was thus in- flicted upon British industry ; dearness of bread, compelling the operatives to resort to substitutes for bread, made every form of food dear. As the real value of wages is to be measured by what the labourer can procure for his money, this high cost of the prime necessaries of life made him clamour for higher pay, and led to discontent and strikes. Again, the grant of more wages enhanced the cost of our manufactures. At length enormous numbers of the people emigrated to America, Australia, and the Cape of Good Hope ; but, as productive labourers, their departure was a S2 2 Th'E GZCU'TH AXD riCJSSIJUDES CF COMilERCE. national loss rz:her than a relief Matters grew worse every year. Even the middle classes were compelled to retrench in their consumption of bread- A crusade against the com laws began to be advocated by a section of econo- mists in the years 1839 and 1840, and by slow degrees nearly the whole of England was roused to a con^-iction of the hann done by these obnoxious duties. It was, how- ever, feared by some that agriculture could not stand alone, after having been so long supported. The idea that pro- tection was a duty, had taken such firm hold upon many minds, that a powerfiil opposition resisted any change for some years longer. Meanwhile the corn-growing coun- tries copied the evil example, and retaliated with heavy duties upon our manufactures. Industry langmshed, and the price of food continued to rise. There came at length a year of dearth- Famine and pestilence ravaged Ireland, and Great Britain endured privations unknown within the memory of man. WTiat reason and argument could not achieve, was brought about by the logic of starvation, and aU the ports of the empire were, in 1846, thrown open to the foreign com trade by an Order from the Queen in CoundL Since that year, the price of bread has fluctuated between narrower limits, and has never been so dear as it was formerly. En^ish Poor Laws. — For more than two hundred and fifty years the duty has been recognised in England of pro- viding for the incapable poor, by a compulsor) contribution or rate fi^om those in business or having a regular income, according to their means. This system, good in principle, became bad through erroneous legislation, and in the end was so abused, that the misery of the labouring classes was increased instead of being diminished. To understand this, a brief history of the poor laws is necessary. Before the suppression of monachism in England, the relief of the poor was quite voluntary, the clergy acting as almoners of the bounty of the benevolent, an arrangement still existing in POOR LAIVS. 423 some of die Roman Catholic States of the Conthient. It was made unlawful to beg, except at the religious houses, and upon the dissolution of these sources of relief, an im- mediate necessity arose for repressing vagrancy. Henry VIII., therefore, in 1536, enjoined that every parish should collect alms for the support of the helpless poor, and gave power to the local officers to compel able-bodied vagrants to work for their living, severe penalties being imposed for disobedience. An assessment upon ratepayers was made in 1572, in consequence of the failure of the voluntary system. It was not, however, till the famous statute of 43 Elizabeth, ch. 2, in 1601, that the English poor-laws were codified and reduced to a system. The preamble stated the object of this law to be "to set the poor to work, to relieve the lame, impotent, old, and blind, and to put their children as apprentices." The act of Elizabeth is notable for the introduction of the labour test, to prove that indigence and not indolence urged the applicant to seek relief. No able-bodied pauper henceforward was to receive relief except upon condition of working. In the reign of James I., this principle was further enforced by the erection of " Houses of Correction," where such labour-tests could be applied. These houses, although they fore- shadowed the modern workhouse, were then mainly, and now solely, used as places of penal labour. Workhouses properly so called, were not built until the reign of George L, in the year 1723. By an enactment of this date, paupers were required to enter the poor-house, and by their labour to repay the cost of their maintenance. Many thought that the difficulty was now solved, perhaps even a profit was to be got out of pauper labour. Hard as it was upon the poor, reduced by misfortune, to break up their homes before they could receive relief, yet the requirement rid the parishes of lazy impostors. The provisions of this act were not strictly carried out. Partial aid from the rates was awarded to labourers in employment, and at length it was regarded 424 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. by the poor as right that they should thus receive an addi- tion to their wages. This practice paved the way for Gilbert's Act of 1782 (22 Geo. III. c. ?>^), which made it imperative upon the parish guardians to provide employ- ment for every pauper parishioner. By a subsequent Act, in 1797, these arrangements which had before been tenta- tive, were made permanent. Out-door relief to the able- bodied became from this time an institution of the land. This scheme, framed rather on the economic ignorance of the Middle Ages than with prudence and foresight, had the effect of fostering idle and drunken habits, vicious life, and pauperism. Tables were made out stating the amount of wages which a labourer oteght to be paid, in relation to the price of bread. The minimum wages were put down at y. a-7veek, increasing with the cost of the loaf and with the number of children in the family. A man with seven children, when bread was 3J. a peck, could demand, by law, relief to the amount of i^s. a-week, and when bread rose to ^s. 3^'., to the amount of 20s. 3^. Paupers secured in this manner as much bread in seasons of scarcity as in those of abundance, while the thrifty ratepayers had to deny themselves many of the necessaries of life whenever bread was dear, in order to pay their rates. If the object had been to boast of the large sum spent upon paupers or to cultivate the pauper community as one of the resources of the kingdom, success could not have been more com- plete. Poverty became synonymous with sloth and igno- rance, vice and crime ; the poor lost their self-reliance, their sense of shame, and all care for the future. These evils were aggravated by the law of settlement, which bound labourers like serfs to their parish, and gave rise to paro- chial feuds and litigation all over England, in deciding to what locality those paupers "belonged," who had left the parish of their birth or apprenticeship. Numbers of labourers were passed on to their parishes, where they were useless, and in other places where labour was in request, POOR LA W AMENDMENT ACT. 425 the most jealous restrictions were in vogue, to prevent labourers making a " settlement." Before the Act of 1797, the poor-rates never reached ;!^2,ooo,ooo yearly. At the beginning of the nineteenth century they exceeded p^9, 000, 000. From 17S2 to 1834, a period of more than fifty years, the ratepayers endured a burden, the oppressiveness of which increased in a ratio greater than that of the population and of the national wealth. Some parts of the country were so heavily taxed that the produce of the land could not pay for its cultiva- tion, and rather than bear the local imposts, proprietors and occupiers not unfrequently allowed their fields to revert to the condition of waste land. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 (4 and 5 Will. IV.), based upon the laws of Elizabeth and of Geo. I., by re-establishing the labour test and limiting the out-door relief, reduced the rates in three years by one half. Labour again became an object of pur- suit, now that it was the only means of obtaining a sub- sistence, and the crowd of worthless idlers formerly living upon the parish alms disappeared. Since this time many of the other evils of the system have been extinguished, public morality rose higher, and though pauperism fluctu- ated with the prosperity of the times, it never assumed such alarming proportions as under the old law. We gather from these facts why a diminished trade, no matter from what cause, was to England such a calamity. Taxation was so burdensome that it hampered industry even in times of abundance, while in times of scarcity the army of paupers became swollen, and the hvies upon the middle classes were well-nigh unendurable. Morality, and therefore industry, were lowered in the early part of this epoch by the prevailing military spirit. Labourers were taken from the plough, the forge, and the loom, and, while drilled into good soldiers, were spoiled for the productive arts. Whether disbanded or invalided in the end, their life in barrack and in camp unfitted them for 420 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. peaceful pursuits. Drunkenness and other vices spread from the soldiers to the working classes, and were very prevalent long after the close of the war. The factory system had likewise a deteriorating influence. Immigrations of Irish of the lowest order, into the manufacturing towns, took place in considerable numbers. Children of the tenderest years were taken into the factories, school and home training, as well as health and growth, being sacrificed for the small pittances they could earn in cotton, woollen, and silk mills. Whole families were oftentimes employed, from the youngest child to the parent or even grand-parent, and thus the in- fluences of home, the great safeguard of English virtue, were seriously interfered with. Factory acts to regulate the employment of women and children, and to fix limits to the age at which children might be employed, and the number of hours for which they might labour, conferred a blessing upon the helpless young, by ensuring them a longer period of home life and some amount of school in- struction. Emigration, also, had an important share in the forma- tion of the character of this period. The nineteenth century has been characterised by emigration on a scale never before witnessed. Commercial inducements led many English to settle in France and Russia, but these are few compared with the hundreds of thousands of colonists who went to the United States and British North America, and at a later date to Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania. The chief emigrants were our artizans, yet individuals of a higher social class also went out either on the service of the government, or of their own accord, but in these instances principally to the English colonies and posses- sions. Of our Irish fellow-citizens who have left their native land since 1850, amounting in all to over three millions of souls, nearly the whole settled in the United States. CHAPTER VIII. INDIA AND AUSTRALIA FROM 1790 TO 1885. In the early years of British sway over India its importance was altogether owing to its native resources, and not be- cause it took the products of English agriculture, manu- factures, and arts. Neither linen nor woollen goods found a sale, for cotton was the universal dress in India, The gigantic cotton trade was then of humbler dimensions, and the British were for a long while dependent upon India for many cotton fabrics, which were famed for their fine quality. Indian muslins were valued at a higher rate than any others. In 1814 the cotton pieces brought to England numbered 1,266,600; and in the face of machinery and cheapened production as many as 414,450 pieces were brought as late as 1837. At length, even India, with the rate of wages only one-twelfth of that in England, could no longer com- pete with British facilities for manufacture. Cotton fabrics disappeared from the list of Indian exports, and soon be- gan to be included on the other side of the account. In 1858 India took from England cotton piece goods to the value of ^^4,776,764 sterling, and in 1865 the imports had increased to ;2^i 1,035,885. The average in 1870 was about ;^ 1 0,000,000. Cotton twist and yarn were also taken by Jndia in quantity ranging from twenty-three to twenty-five millions of pounds avoirdupois, and valued at from one and three-quarters to two millions sterling, according to price. The extent of land in India suitable for the growth of coUon is practically unlimited, and the cultivation has in 428 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. later years been largely increased. The American civil war greatly contributed to this result, for by stopping the American supply of cotton it compelled us to turn to India as the largest and most important field. In i860, before the outbreak of the war, India supplied 204,000,000 lbs, of raw cotton; in 1866, at the close of the war, 615,000,000 lbs., but part of this had been diverted from other markets, for a large proportion of the Indian cotton was formerly sent to China, a trade which ceased altogether during the American civil war, and had not yet recovered, the cotton cultivation in China having in its turn been extended to meet the wants of that empire. In 1870, although India was subjected to the renewed competition of the American cotton States, more than 340,000,000 lbs. of the staple were exported to England, Indigo, next to cotton, formed one of the most valuable products of India About four-fifths of the indigo used in England were obtained from this source. More than a million pounds weight was annually consigned to England at the opening of the nineteenth century. The supply, with many fluctuations, but with a tendency to increase, reached in 1830 the weight of eight millions of pounds, since which date a diminished use of blue cloth, together with the discovery of other blue dyes, lessened the depend- ence upon indigo, although the imports were still very large, approaching 80,000 cwts, from all sources. A few years before the close of the last century an increasing consumption of opium in China was noticeable, and its cultivation was extended to meet the demand. In 1 81 6 it was the most valuable commodity in the commerce of British India, and held that position until 1861, when the great rise in the cotton trade caused it to take the second place. The value of the exports of opium was in that year over ten millions sterling, and since then has varied from ten to twelve millions a year. It was an ex- ceptional government monopoly, from which one-sixth of TRADE WITH INDIA. 429 the public revenue of British India was derived, or about ;^8, 200,000 a year. Jute, another article of Indian produce, during this epoch took a place of great importance in the list of exports, being largely used in the manufactures of Dundee and elsewhere, as a substitute for hemp, or to mix with finer materials, as well as for coarse descriptions of sacking (gunny bags) in India itself. Jute is the fibre of a plant, Corchoni capsularis, and of another species C. olitorius, indigenous to India and Southern Asia, growing to the height of ten or twelve feet. The chief of the remaining articles of export from India were rice, grain and oil seeds, coir and other fibres, saltpetre, horns, hides and skins, ivory, shellac and lac dye, silk, spices, sugar, tea, coffee, timber, and wool. Goods were imported into the United Kingdom from India in 1836 to the value of ;i^9, 000,000. In 1864, under the stimulus of the civil war in America, they exceeded fifty-two millions sterling, while the exports from England to India approached twenty- one millions. The difference of values was partly balanced by specie, of which India received, in 1857, from all sources, ^14,413,697, and this by an annual augment reached to ^22,962,581 in 1864, and ;!{^26.557,3oi in 1866. Cotton goods stood at the head of our exports to India. Muslins were introduced about 1824, and still find particular favour in the market. By the year 1837 the quantity im- ported had increased from less than a million yards to sixty-four millions annually. About one-sixth of all the cotton yarn made in England was absorbed by India, and the demand for woollen goods continued largely to increase. Machinery and metals to a considerable amount were also consigned to the markets of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. The trade of India was exclusively carried on by the East India Company till the year 1833, which date divides two distinct epochs in the commercial history of the country. A monopoly was long granted to this company, and at the 43° THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. same time Indian produce was burdened with such exces- sive custom dues that many commodities could not be brought home, but were disposed of by the East Indian merchants in China and other regions of Asia. Sugar and coffee found markets on the Continent, and even in North America, instead of in England, where their enjoyment was denied. For some years after the lapse of the exclusive privileges of the East India Company, that corporation maintained the lead in the Indian, and a monopoly of the Chinese trade. When, in 1842, all restrictions were removed, the Indian trade received an immediate development, and largely increased during the years that followed. India is a British conquest, and not a colony in the ordi- nary sense of the term, as few English go there with the view of settling. Under the monopoly of the East India Company, settlers were wholly discouraged, but after the lapse of its charter a good deal of British capital sought investment in India. The result was seen in the wonderful growth of commerce. The cultivation of American cotton was tried with success, and soon took to some extent the place of Surat or native cotton of inferior staple, requiring special machinery to work it. Other fibres, such as flax and hemp, also received attention. Sugar cultivation was promoted by the introduction of canes from Tahiti, and the planting of tobacco was much extended. Tea planting was carried on in Assam, Cachar, and Sylhat, and other places bordering on the Himalayas, with considerable success. Coffee cultivation was also much extended, and the cinchona or Peruvian bark introduced. Trade with India was unrestricted even before the principle of free trade had been accepted by the British legislature, and to this freedom is due the great development of these years. Two costly wars were waged within this period, that with China, on the opium question, ending with the peace of Nankin, by which China agreed to pay twenty- SINGAPORE. 431 one million dollars, and that with the Sikhs, terminating in the annexation of the provinces of the Punjaub, at a cost of nine millions sterling. Since these events the Indian Mutiny has taken place ; it threatened at one time the loss both of our prestige and possessions, but in the end was subdued. This mutiny had the effect of accelerat- ing the transfer of the government from the East India Company to the Crown, and India thus became governed as an integral part of the British empire. Public works were carried on to a far greater extent than before, and the country began to be covered with a network of roads, rail- ways, and canals. Coal was also discovered and worked to a considerable extent ; though of inferior quality, it was largely used for steam navigation and railway purposes. Much has been done in improving irrigation. Facilities for reaching the markets, as well as better methods of culti- vation, told favourably upon agriculture. Grain began to be exported. Wool, coffee, tea, and oil-seeds, were the most important new items in the commercial list. The trade with India was and is a most important one to Great Britain ; commercial movements tended throughout to aug- ment. The most important settlement of the English in Further India was Singapore, on an island of the same name, de- scribed as " The Paradise of India, the home of plenty, and the abode of health." Singapore became a British possession in 1819. It was the seat of government of the Straits Settlements, a new colony, which included Penang and Province-Wellesley, and made rapid progress, being the rendezvous of vessels in the Chinese trade, besides con- tending with Batavia for the commerce of the Eastern Islands, as far as the Spanish Philippines. Dr. Karl Scherzer, in his " Narrative of the Circumnavi- gation of the Globe, by the Austrian frigate Novara, in the years 1857, 1858, and 1859," vol. ii., says: — 432 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. " Singapore, from its singularly favourable geographical position and the liberality of its political institutions, has made such a stride as is entirely without parallel in the history of the world's trade. From a desolate haunt of piratical foes the island has been converted into a flourish- ing emporium. " About a thousand foreign vessels, and fully three thousand Malay prahas and Chinese junks flit backwards and forwards annually with all sorts of merchandise and produce, while the value of the other goods annually exchanged here amounts to about ;^i 1,000,000. Such is the change that has come over the old unhealthy, ill-omened Malay pirate abode — thanks to a clearly-defined policv'. If a doubt should still obtrude itself as to these brilliant results of the utmost freedom and absence of restriction upon trade, it must give way before the spectacle presented to the view of the astonished beholder in the harbour of the Alexandria of the nineteenth century." And the Liverpool Reformers ask : — "What is the secret of this wonderful metamorphosis?" Simply the fact, that at Singapore, as Mr, Tennant says, there are no import or export duties — no taxes upon shipping. Rangoo?t, the capital of British Burmah, took also a very considerable place, exporting raw cotton, drugs, grain, hides and skins, oils, seeds, and timber, to the value (in 1863) of ^1,400,000, and more than double that amount in 1S65, and importing textile manufactures, machinery, metals, and jewellery of an annual value approximating to a million sterling. An exclusive trade with China was formerly included in the privileges of the East India Company, and was re- garded as part of the Indian trade. Since commercial inter- course became free, however, the China trade, as well as that of Japan, developed so rapidly as to demand a separate notice. TRADE WITH AUSTRALIA. 433 Australia. — This vigorous scion of the British empire began its commercial history in the present century. Under the general designation of Australia are included the colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, and New Zealand. Before the gold discoveries, wool was the staple export, the fine pastures, especially of the south-eastern region, being wonderfully adapted for the rearing of sheep. These animals multiplied so fast, and the wool was of such excel- lent quality, that it alone would make Australia important. Tills source of supply rapidly became the mainstay of the British woollen manufactures. The table below shows the progress of the imports of Australian wool into Eng- land : — In the year 1807 250 lbs 1820 100,000 „ 1835 . . . 4,000,000 „ 1840 12,000,000 „ i860 59,166,616 „ 1870 . 175,081,427 „ „ 18S5 the large total of about 253,363,829 „ of a money value of ;^i 1,969,080, was received into England. Cotton culture was introduced into Queensland under the stimulus of the scarcity of the American fibre, and soon Australian cotton rivalled the " Sea Island " growths. Rich mines of copper early rewarded the enterprise of the colonists of South Australia, but it is only since 185 1, when the gold- fields of New South Wales and Victoria first offered their attractions, that the population increased to an extent which made Australia worthy of the name of a southern empire. The advance of these colonies in the aggregate is proved by the commercial returns over a series of years : — III. 2 E 434 ^^-^ GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. DATE. IMPORTS. EXPORTS. TOTAL. 1852 1859 1865 ^8,086,225 ;^S,346,090 Specie 10,177,270 1 ;^23,6o9,58s ;^48,697,893 ;^62,8si,ii5 ;^26,567,690 ;^i5,523,36o ;^9,944,26i Specie 12,185,942 ;^32:452,557 ;if22, 1 30,203 ;^l8,I72,422 Specie 12,226,136 ;C3o. 398,558 Australian commerce continued to be almost confined to the mother country, and to the intercolonial trade. Foreign trade, as compared with the British, could scarcely be said to exist. The tastes of the colonists were inherited from home, and there was scarcely a constituent of the industrial produce of the United Kingdom but formed an item in the Australian imports. Gold and wool continued to be the chief exports, the latter being still the stable. Melbouriie was at the head of the Australian capitals, and also the depot for the important colony of Victoria. Besides wool and gold, its staples were hides, skins, cattle, horses, sheep, flour, and tallow. It early possessed some manufactories of different kinds, founded upon its agricul- tural industry ; and an external trade, considerable in amount, — the imports and exports in 1SS5 reaching nearly ;;^35,ooo,ooo, — and comprehensive in area, being conducted with the United States, the commercial States of Europe, Peru, China, Suez, and the Pacific Islands. Sydney, the principal port of the colony of New South Wales, increased annually in industrial importance. For example, the manufactories and other works of this colony, which numbered 1768 in 1863, rose to 2133 in 1866. Both its trade and industries partook of the character Q UEENSLA ND. —TA SMA NIA . 435 common to Australia generally. Of a special nature were the great establishments for boiling down tallow, the salting and meat-preserving works, and copper smelting. This period showed great advancement in the engineering works, gas works, type foundries, docks, and steam vessels of Sydney. The following figures give the position of the colony before and after the separation of Port Philip, now Victoria, in 1851, and that of Queensland in 1859 : — Quantity of Coal rai.-ed . Wool exported Gold Value of Imports by Sea „ Exports .... 1850. 1 186s. 7,126 tons 32,361,829 lbs. ;^2,07S,33S 2,399.580 585,525 tons 18,764,482 lbs. 682,521 ounces ;^io,635,507 9.563.812 Adelaide, the port of South Australia, shared the grow- ing prosperity of the British possessions in those parts. Its trade which in i860 reached only about ;2^3, 000,000, nearly doubled itself in the next decade. Its staples were bread- stufi's, wool, copper, and lead. Albany, the chief commercial town of Western Australia, was the least developed of the colonics of the southern hemisphere, yet only inconsiderable when compared with the great neighbouring colonies of New South Wales, Vic- toria, and Queensland. Brisbatie. — The colony of Queensland, of which Bris- bane is the capital, presented, even for Australia, a remark- able example of rapid development. The imports rose in eight years (from i860), 150 per cent, and the exports were even more rapid, rising in the same period 200 per cent Hobart Town. — Tasmania exported, through Hobart Town and Launceston, butter and cheese, flour, fruits and preserves, grain, horses, sperm oil, potatoes, timber, 436 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. and wool. The wool was almost wholly sent to Great Britain, the rest of the produce to the neighbouring colo- nies. The imports into the colony were of a like kind to those of Australia, already enumerated. The gold dis- coveries caused the older colony of Tasmania to be com- paratively deserted, and population and trade gradually diminished during the close of this epoch. As an example, the tonnage employed in the British commerce was 271,459 in 1852, and 204,494 in 1865. The highest value reached by the imports was in 1854, when they amounted to ^^2, 604, 680, from which point they had sunk in 1867, to ;!^856,348, increasing another milUon during the next two decades. Of exports, the highest value was attained in 1852, amounting to ;^i, 509,883. In 1867, it was only ^^7 90,494, but these also rose in the same period to a million and a quarter. Hobart Town used to be an important station of the southern sperm-whale fishery. New Zealand. — These islands imported through their chief ports of Auckland, Dunedin, Nelson, Wellington, and Lyttelton, British manufactures and other produce, as well as animals for stock, and Australian commodities. The exports comprised the staples of wool and gold, and the secondary products of kauri gum, copper ore, timber, and potatoes. A very limited intercourse was carried on be- tween some of these ports and the United States and Chili. The progress of the New Zealand Colonies, though much disturbed by conflicts with the aborigines, was rapid, every year exhibiting a marked increase. CHAPTER IX. RUSSIA FROM 179O-1885. Russian industry and commerce, so remarkably developed by Peter the Great and Catherine II., underwent a period of vicissitudes during the wars from 1787 to 1815. Corn had already become an important Russian product, and had been supplied to most of the states of Europe. While these states were involved with France in war against England, they dared not send their ships to Russia, on account of the English power at sea. The whole Russian trade therefore fell into the hands of the English, who supplied other countries as well as their own with Russian corn. Such exclusive possession of the trade extended greatly the use of English fabrics and other British products in Russia. Catherine's reign was distinguished by the acquisition of the Crimean and Black Sea provinces, with southern harbours convenient for the grain trade. Cherson and Odessa started on equal terms as Russian ports, but Odessa took the lead, which it has since kept. Besides being entrepots of grain, both cities entered upon an active commerce of their own, and opened up intercourse with Marseilles, Leghorn, and Genoa. A profitable and busy trade was carried on at St. Peters- burg and Riga. The smaller Baltic ports of Reval, Mittau, Habsal, Helsingfors, and Wiborg also assumed consider- able commercial importance. Archangel, on the White Sea, the first Russian port that traded with England, lost its commercial position after St. Petersburg was founded. 43S THE GROIVTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. The commercial dealings of Odessa were at first small compared with those of St. Petersburg and Riga. Its pros- perity began with the peace in 1801, after which for some years its trade was very extensive. A change followed as soon as Russia again took up arms against France in 1805. As a condition of the Peace of Tilsit, two years later, Russia was constrained to renew the continental system (discon- tinued since the death of Paul in 1801), and to prohibit British goods, a state of things worse for the trade of the country than war. The injury after five years' endurance grew insupportable, and the neglect to enforce the system brought about the memorable invasion of Russia and the burning of Moscow. While in alliance with England, Russia was supported by subsidies from this country, amounting, between 1789 and 1815, to the sum of ^^5, 250,000 sterling. Impoverished by the war, and most of all by the sacrifices demanded in 181 2, when Napoleon invaded the country, the finances were ruined, and depreciated paper issues deranged all mercantile aftairs. Peace, however, brought rest and prosperity. Between the years 181 5 and 1820, England and Russia were drawn into closer relationship. Each country needed the products of the other. The rude but boundless resources of the Russian Empire supplied materials for British manufactures, while England in return contributed the products of her skilled labour. Timber for shipbuild- ing and grain for food found outlets in the Baltic, and year by year the ports of the Euxine shared more largely in the trade. A recurrence of bad harvests in the years 1816 and 181 7 created a demand for Russian corn from every part of the Continent, by which Odessa was greatly enriched. The Russians thought this exceptional prosperity would endure ; their demand for foreign manufactures continued after the productive fields of Europe had resumed their normal fer- tility and the demand for Russian com had fallen off. In the face of such clear evidence that the Russians, who ha\'e the credit of being keen bargainers, wanted these conmio- PROTECTIVE SYSTEM. 4-59 dities, an outcry was raised that foreign competition was injuring the country. Immature industries forced into being by Peter, were probably giving way before the better and cheaper productions of England. An ukase* was con- sequently issued by the Czar in 1820, imposing heavy duties upon almost every foreign product admitted into Russia. This stopped importation, and rewarded political interven- tion with bad and dear goods of native make, in lieu of cheap and good ones from abroad. Under this protective system Russian manufactures made actual but not relative advances. Moscow and its outskirts were the chief seats of industry, especially of the spinning and weaving of cotton. Fabrics of cotton and of half cotton, of silk, and of half silk, woollen cloths, and stuffs, linen and sail- cloth, were recognised productions. Other provinces besides Moscow, notably the governments of Vladimir, Nijni-Nov- gorod, St. Petersburg, Saratov, Tula, Kaluga, and Kostroma, engaged in active industries which trace their origin to Peter I., who established, partly at the public expense, a cotton, woollen, and linen manufactory in each of the governments of his empire. Cashmere shawls well imitated in the factories of the government of Penza, fetched high prices. Fine linen was not a successful manufacture. Russia leather, fragrant with the extract of birch, was pre- pared in the environs of Moscow. Imperial cannon foun- dries, situated near Tula, where there were also many iron and steel works, constituted it "the Sheffield of Russia." Metal and platinum works were a staple industry in the mining districts of the Ural. Zlataust, in the government of Ufa (lat. 55° 11', long. 59° 38'), was a great centre of these industries. Glass manufactories, although chiefly located in the government of St. Petersburg, were also found elsewhere. Pottery, saltpetre, potash, soap and candle- making, sugar-refining and the extraction of sugar from * Pi on., oukaz. 44° THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. beet-root, tallow-melting, and paper-making, were the other staple manufactures, all of which were protected. In 1842 there were in Moscow, which, with the district around, fairly represented the progress of productive in- dustry, 560 masters employing 40,168 labourers. Steam- power was used in 26 of the works, horse-power in 89, and water in 15. There were 20,424 looms and 1794 other machines at work, and the annual value of the produce was more than ;^5, 500,000 sterling. In the vicinity of Moscow there were 497 manufactories, employing 37 steam- engines, 26,063 looms, and 55,894 operatives. The whole value of Russian manufactures at this date was about ^30,000,000 a year. In i860 the various branches of the cotton industry in Russia showed the following results : there were 1153 factories, 150,000 workmen, and an annual production of cotton fabrics to the value of ;^9,5oo,ooo. Russian calico was produced of a quality equal to English, At Moscow, Vladimir, and St. Petersburg the cloth was both woven and printed. St. Petersburg still confined itself to fabrics of the best quality, which were worn only by the wealthy, while Vladimir produced almost entirely cheap goods used by the peasantry. Moscow, the emporium of industry, as St. Petersburg of commerce, combined the two branches. " An interesting history of the progress of cotton-spinning and cotton-printing, illustrative of the advance of Russia, is given in the Consular Report of Mr. Michel ; from which it appears that spinning-mills were erected both in the old and the new capitals of the empire as early as 1824, but that no calico-printing works were established till 1830, when a Moscow merchant of the name of Pittoff erected the first. Sparing no expense, he engaged the services of Schwartz, a celebrated dyer of Miilhausen, who brought the works to an excellence equal to those of Alsace, taught the workmen the newest processes, and kept the factory supplied with every new improvement. Most of the TRADE lyiTH GREAT BRITAIN. 44I cotton-mills of Moscow have been started by a single firm, which still maintains a form of paternal control. This firm orders the machinery, buys the raw material, and engages the overlookers and managers, who, they stipulate, shall be British. This predilection is very common in Russia. At Abo, Scotchmen build steam-vessels for the Russian Govern- ment. At Tammerfers large spinning-mills have been started conducted by English firms. At Helsingfors and Fiscars, Englishmen manufacture cutlery from native iron, and English capitalists also work the mines of Finland." Russia also manufactured porcelain, furniture, agricultural implements, carriages, pipes, matches, bricks, leather, oil, and gas. Russian staple exports to the United Kingdom were grain, flax, and hemp, timber, potash, iron, copper, tallow, candles, linseed, hemp-seed, tar, rags, horse-h^ir, wool, goat's-hair, cordage, pelts, hides, furs, feathers, leather, isinglass, bones, and various other materials. The nature of Russian produce has but little altered since the beginning of the commercial history of the country, but the quantity yielded has materially increased. Russia is essentially agricultural, and grain, of various kinds, has always been an important export. In 1839 the total weight taken by different European states was 11,447,440 hundred- weights, of the value of 59,000,000 silver roubles. The amount sent to England necessarily fluctuates with the yield of our own harvests. Rye was the chief cereal grown, little of which came to England. The wheat exports to England were on a most extensive scale, ranging from 3,000,000 hundredweights in 1857, to 14,000,000 in 1867, but during the later part of this period the quantity fluctuated ex- tremely, not only on account of our English harvests, but by the increased importation of wheat from other countries. As an example the exports were in 1871 more than 15,500,000 of cwts., while in 1880 they fell to 3,000,000, but rose again in 1885 to 26,000,000; the trade was carried 442 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE on mostly by the southern ports. Of barley, oats, and maize, very large quantities were annually exported. Lin- seed was another valuable item, even more important than flax. In 1839 linseed to the value of 19,500,000 roubles was exported, while the flax fibre was unused. Wild rape- seed, strange to say, proved more profitable for trade than the produce of cultivated varieties. Hemp-seed was an important addition to this oil-seed trade. Tallow was and is a very important export of Russia, more so perhaps than any other single commodity. It formed the basis of the South Russian trade, and many thousands of tons were annually exported. The tallow was principally the produce of cattle reared on the steppes. In late years the exports were chiefly made from the southern ports, though formerly, the trade was confined to St. Peters- burg. Iron and copper, produced in greater abundance than formerly, were however less exported on account of the in- crease in the home consumption. The exports of these metals were almost wholly from St. Petersburg, owing to its proximity to the mines. Forests constitute an invaluable source of wealth. Timber and a variety of forest products formed a staple of export from Riga and Cherson, especially from the former, which re- ceived the produce of the woodlands of the Upper Dnieper, formerly sent to Cherson. The British timber trade was diverted to Canada during the early years of this period. Such, however, was the need of timber for ship-building and many other purposes, that the Russian trade has long since been restored, while that with Canada has also increased. From the time of Peter the Great, every Russian ruler has displayed great anxiety to possess a powerful navy and a large mercantile fleet. This ambition has been rewarded with comparatively few merchantmen, but with war ships, most formidable in appearance, upon which the Emperor Nicholas spent enormous sums, and which his successors RUSSIAN FOREIGN TRADE 443 have not neglected. In 1837 the number of vessels enter- ing Russian ports was 5620, of an aggregate burden of 935,538 tons; of these, only 1045 ^^'^^^ native vessels, the rest being foreign, chiefly British. The total number of ships visiting Russia in 1869 had increased to 10,349, of a burden of 1,331,766 tons, and these numbers since in- creased. Of these vessels 2020 were British, and only 1377, or less than one-seventh, Russians. In the Black Sea the proportion was considerably lower. This unfavour- able result is due doubtless to the small extent of coast available for training the Russians to maritime habits. The Arctic coast is ice-bound for the greater part of the year ; while the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian have but a small extent of coast compared with the immense area of the empire. Trade even at the ports continued to be con- ducted by foreign merchants, chiefly British and German, settled in the country under the name of "foreign guests," without being subjects. Not merely on the frontiers, but even in Moscow there were found wealthy residents of this class, whose connections abroad enabled them to extend credit to the Russians, and also to render valuable service as agents for the extension of commercial relations. The inland river-trafific and the coasting trade were carried on exclusively by the Russians themselves. Few ships were used for these purposes, but innumerable boats and rafts of timber. St. Petersburg engrossed half of the foreign trade. It supplied Moscow and the interior with foreign commodi- ties. This was owing, not so much to its position, as to the fact of its being the capital, and thus attracting foreigrt merchants to reside in it. The English quarter is one of the finest parts of the city. Next to Britain, France, Ger- many, and Holland ranked in order of importance in the Baltic trade ; Turkey and Italy in the Black Sea trade. In consequence of the disparity of value between Russian imports and exports there was a constant flow of specie 444 "^^^ GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. into the empire. This gave the country great command of ready money, and gradually reduced the amount of paper in circulation (which, however, would have been much sooner accomplished by the profits on unrestricted trade), until the two were brought into correspondence with the requirements of commercial intercourse. This effect was aided by the produce of gold and platinum from the Ural mines, which before the discoveries in California and Australia was of considerable importance to Europe. The Crimean war was a heavy tax upon the resources of Russia. It not only stopped the profits of trade, but con- sumed the accumulations of specie. Since then several thousand miles of railways absorbed a great deal of native capital, besides rendering foreign loans necessary. The principal railway was that connecting St. Petersburg and Moscow, four hundred miles in length, and straight through- out. Railway investments, unlike war expenses, are, how- ever, reproductive, opening up the country to the pursuits of commerce and stimulating industry. Russia possessed an overland trade with Asia, of which As- trakhan remained the emporium. This is destined to expan- sion when railways unite Eastern and Western Russia. A treaty of commerce was entered into with China in 1861, and Russian factories have been erected at the mouth of the Amoor. "The Russians are the greatest tea-drinkers in Europe, and the tea brought overland from China is said to retain its flavour better than any that is sea-borne. Travel- ling dealers buy up the stores of bristles, rags, and native produce, prepared for them by the peasants, and transport their stock to the seaports, the frontier towns, or the great fairs for sale. Moscow is the great inland entrepot for merchandise thus collected. Much interchange is carried on at the annual fairs, the greatest of which is that of Nijni- Novgorod, the centre of the magnificent system of Russian rivers. Merchants from every part of the Old World, and even from the New World, visit this fair during the two POLISH RUSSIA. 445 months of its continuance, and goods to the value of several millions sterling change hands." The vast regions of Asiatic Russia are as much behind- hand in commerce as in population; and a wide extent must remain for a long time to come productive of nothing except for animals. Western Siberia continued to improve, being incited to industrial activity by the mines of the Ural Mountains, on the Asiatic slope, as well as by its more direct communica- tion with Europe. The largest town of Siberia was Irkutsk. Yet, farther to the eastward, the territory on the Amoor, with the adjacent coast, stretching along the Gulf of Tar- tary and the Sea of Japan, formed a region in which Russian enterprise and settlement very rapidly extended. This region, which before 1853 formed part of Chinese Man- chooria, possesses great natural capabilities, and gave good cause to hope that it would occupy an important place in the development of Russian trade on the Pacific. Southern Russia possesses an extreme climate, the sum- mer being hot enough to ripen the produce of the warmest parts of Europe. It was hoped that by the acquisition of the fertile territories of the Caucasus, the empire would be enriched with the varied products of silk, cotton, wine, rice, saffron, madder, cochineal, and southern fruits. But mili- tary occupation proved very unfavourable to these expecta- tions, and was so distasteful to the brave and hardy tribes of the Caucasus, that a chronic state of insurrection pre- vailed. The Polish provinces of Russia possess vast capabilities, hindered in their development by misrule and political sufferings. They abound in soil of the richest fertility, which only slowly recovered from a century of neglect. The prey of contending factions, Poland became ex- hausted, and fell an easy prey, in 1772, to Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Since that date intermittent outbreaks, ruthlessly repressed, have marked the course of events 446 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. down to the year 1868. During the French wars, it was alternately overrun by the forces of Napoleon and of the Allies. In the intervals of tranquillity, German weavers settled in the country and improved the woollen manufac- tures. The Emperor Alexander showed a laudable desire for the pacification and progress of Poland, which for some time proved of benefit to the peo'ple. With the lapse of years, a sense of security and the desire for industrial reforms began to be once more discernible. Improvements were made m the breed of sheep, and as a result, Poland soon became an important wool-producing country. The woollen manufactures also expanded. Poland was rich in raw produce, and its manufactures, centred chiefly in War- saw, were very varied. Exports of corn, flax, hemp, timber, turpentine, colza oil, oil-cake, raw silk, furs, bristles, hides, tallow, horses and cattle, glue, bones and horns, caviare, and other articles, were considered as staple products. Two- thirds of the trade was with Russia, and the rest foreign. In 1865 there were in Poland 3290 factories for the manu- facture of cotton, woollen, linen, and silk fabrics, besides paper-mills, brandy distilleries, glass-works, and agricultural implement factories. A great wool fair was annually held at Warsaw, about the middle of June, to which the •wool of almost every Polish district was sent. The river Vistula is navigable for purposes of trade between Warsaw and Dantzic, and large consignments of grain, timber, and wool by this means reach the Prussian Ports on the Baltic. CHAPTER X. SCANDINAVIA FROM 1790 TO 18S5. The years immediately before the close of the eigliteenth century were favourable both to Norway and Sweden, for by obtaining a neutrality they secured to themselves much of the carrying trade of the belligerents. English shipbuild- ing at that time demanded immense quantities of timber and iron, by which Scandinavia profited, for it was almost the sole source of supply. Sweden enlarged its commerce by trading to China and the West Indies. Induced in 1806 to engage in the war against France, she suffered severely, and subsequently, through a disastrous conflict \vith Russia, she lost Finland. A yearly subsidy averaging one million sterling, from 1804 to 1S12, as a grant in aid of the war, together with the profits on British trade, contributed to save her from financial ruin. Norway, which, under the tutelage of Denmark, incHned to France rather than to England, lost in consequence its profitable trade in metals and timber, and thus, at the conclusion of European hosti- lities in 181 5, both Norway and Sweden had retrograded. The union between Norway and Denmark continued until the year 18 14. The transfers of sovereignty that took place by the Treaty of Kiel, on the fall of Napoleon, were founded upon expedience rather than justice ; and, with the exception of the sacrifice of the Genoese, no piece of diplo- macy was, at the time, more severely criticised than the conduct of England towards Norv\-ay. The whole system of diplomacy, however, was bad. Sweden, which had long held a moiety of Pomerania, was required, at the bidding of Prussia, 448 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. to evacuate Germany ; and, in order to supply her with an equivalent, Norway was taken from Denmark. That this was distasteful to Denmark was only natural ; yet in Nor- way itself the separation was forced upon an unwilling people, by the prominent agency of a British fleet. If subsequent events have belied the prophecies of more than one right-minded statesman who condemned, at the time, the British policy, it is mainly owing to the good sense of the Norwegian people. They had been badly governed by the Danes, though not so badly as Iceland. Nevertheless there was not only the promise of a constitution, but one had been actually drawn up when the separation was determined on, and this held good for the contemplated union with Sweden. It is one of the few " paper constitutions " that have, from first to last, worked efficiently ; and it has been not only the bulwark of the Norwegian liberties, but the main source of their commercial prosperity. It abolished the hereditary aristocracy, wdth the exception of four titles in which a vested interest was claimed. The parliament (Storthing) sat in two houses, but the Upper House was a select committee of the Lower. The elections were by two stages, the people at large nominating those who should elect the members. The Crown had only a suspensive veto, so that any bill which had been passed by three different parliaments became the law of the land. It is only by the most jealous vigilance that a constitution of this kind can be preserved ; and, though neither the reigning king nor his predecessor ever acted otherwise than as constitu- tional rulers, it was very different with the first of the dynasty, the French ex-marshal, Bernadotte. More than once did he threaten to coerce the Norwegian Storthing, and every time he was effectively resisted ; indeed, the abolition of the native aristocracy was made in spite of his resistance. In Norway, then, we have an instance not only of a " paper constitution " working well, but of a union of two crowns under one king being compatible with the freedom and UNION OF NOR WA Y A XD S WED EN. 449 prosperity of the smaller kingdom, if, indeed, Norway can be called such. Within the period under consideration the wealth of Nor- way increased enormously, and if the population did not keep pace with it, the difference must in part be attributed to an extensive migiation, especially to the United States. How thoroughly Norway is a commercial country may be inferred from the mere inspection of the map. With two or three exceptions, where mining operations have con- centrated the inhabitants, all the Norwegian towns lie on the sea-coast ; Bergen, the oldest and the most important of them, was once one of the Hanse Towns. For some time after the Union the chief trade of Norway was with Ham- burg, heavy advances having been made by that city. At a later time it rested chiefly with England. The regulation of the forests and mines was, in the eyes of the government, a matter of special importance. Eoth the primary and the higher education were foremost objects of attention in Nor- way ; and the University of Christiania had among its pro- fessors some of the most able men in Europe. Religious liberty was at that time at a lower standard than civil liberty. It was only within this epoch that a Jew was allowed to set foot in Norway. The history ot the union of Norway with Sweden is im- portant as a political study. Notwithstanding the difficulties of getting two nations to live on terms of friendship and equality under a single king, amply illustrated by Austria and Hungary, in the Scandinavian kingdom, at least, they were surmounted. Still, the amalgamation of the two popula- tions was political rather than social or commercial. There was as yet no approach to a common coinage, the Nor- wegian money not being a legal tender in Sweden, and the reverse. Equally different were the fiscal regulations, so far as they touched the great question of free trade. Equally different, too, the national characters — a fact which, to some extent, is explained by the histories of the two III 2 F 45° THE GROll^TH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. countries. Sweden, royalist and aristocratic, has always been ambitious of what it has undoubtedly earned — military glory ; its victories, however, have been on land, the victories of skilful generals and brave soldiers, rather than those of bold captains and hardy seamen. Norway has always been naval rather than military. The government of the Lap- landers of Finmark, who are subject to Norway, has been a successful example of the rule called " paternal." In the united kingdoms of Norway and Sweden, as indeed in most States of Europe where the reaction from the forced activity of war laid industry and commerce nearly prostrate, a prohibitive tariff was adopted to encourage manufactures, and still remained in force through the fear that native industry would otherwise again die out. In these countries few manufactures were carried on in large mills and factories. Linen was spun and woven in almost every house, and the aggregate produce was large enough to allow of exportation. Woollen stuffs were fabri- cated in like manner. All the members of families were engaged in industrial pursuits, especially amongst the peas- antry in the north. The cheapness of ship-building materials promoted activity in the harbours of the Baltic, but not to the extent that might be expected, although a sufficient number of ships for home use and many for foreign sale were constructed. Swedish iron was of such excellent quality that it stoocj its ground against the vast mining operations of Great Britain and Belgium and their possession of coal. The employment of wood in smelting the ore improved the quality of the steel, and its superiority for cutlery and various other purposes rendered the demand for it univer- sal. It was exported to North America, the West and East Indies, the Levant, and Australia. Navigation soon recovered from its depression, and again flourished far and near. The repeal of the Navigation Laws in England nearly doubled the mercantile marine in SWEDISH HUSBAXDRV. 45 1 Norway, so closely connected was the Scandinavian trade with that of Great Britain. The shipping interest exercised a vital influence upon the prosperity of Norway, and was managed with so much forethought and skill, that amid the commercial derangements of the nineteenth century there has hardly been an instance of bankruptcy among the Norwegian shipowners. An important trade in Norway ice, shipped principally from Drobak, and for which England was the chief customer, sprang up about this time, and almost superseded an earlier traffic in ice from Wenham Lake in the United States. Sweden, on the other hand, competed with Canada for the supply of deals, the shipments of which from the two countries to England were almost equal in 1864, but in 1870 was in favour of Norway and Sweden. {See Supplement.^ A remarkable change of proprietorship and additional capital made very decided improvements in Swedish farm- ing. Feudal tenure never prevailed in Sweden. Peasant proprietors held their farms, generally containing about three hundred acres, with right to a mountain pass and pasture in the summer, by what was called Udal right, a form of tenure which also obtained in Orkney and Shet- land. The Udallers owned no superior over their holdings, and thus did not hold by charter or deed, but by simple act of tenancy or possession. State aid was also given both to the agricultural and manu- facturing industries, towards which objects the princes who last ruled the country personally contributed fifteen million rix-dollars, or about one and a quarter million sterling. Sweden as well as Norway traded principally with the United Kingdom ; Stockholm and Gothenborg being the commercial ports of Sweden ; Christiania (the great port for timber) and Bergen of Norway. While shipping devel- oped in the last- mentioned country, manufactures assumed increased proportion in Sweden. The staple exports from Norway were fish, shell-fish, cod-liver oil, ice, iron, copper, 452 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. timber, tar, and pitch ; wliile, in addition, Sweden exported cereals and wool. The imports to Norway consisted of grain, dairy produce and other animal food, wines, brandy, coal, salt, colonial produce, and woven fabrics. CHAPTER XL DENMARK FROM I 7 90 TO 1 885. There was a great demand by England and France during the revolutionary period for the agricultural produce of Denmark, and that country was visited for some years by a prosperity as remarkable as that which it enjoyed during the American war of independence. But Denmark could not serve two masters. To satisfy one provoked the re- sentment of the other. In 1801, and again in 1807, Copen- hagen was bombarded by the English fleet. On the first occasion the Danish fleet was destroyed, and on the second it surrendered. The temporary surrender of this fleet was demanded to prevent its falling into the hands of Napoleon. While thus yielding its navy to England, Den- mark was compelled to shape its policy to the will of France, and to acquiesce in the continental system. Its commerce, which was its Ufe, was thus doubly ruined, and some years elapsed before it was restored. Rape-seed, butter, grain, and horses were the first constituents of com- merce to reach their former value, which they did by the year 1824. After 1838 the exportation of butter and cheese increased beyond all precedent; and such was the progress of this industry after the fertile provinces of Hol- stein, Schleswig, and Lauenburg were wrested from Den- mark by Prussia, that the loss commercially did not show itself in the further trade returns. The exports to the United Kingdom from Denmark in i860, — the last year when the German provinces were included in the returns, were of the value of ^2, 575,958; in 1861,^1,371,933; andini867, DA NISH H USB A NDR V. 453 ;^2, 588,92 1. The average exports from the detached duchies were under a million sterling. Various branches of Danish commerce since the time of the French war were unable to again assume their former dimensions. Condi- tions are changed since the hardy seamen of this small king- dom were the carriers for a great part of the world. Self- reliant States have arisen in America, and England obtained the trade of which Holland deprived Sweden and Denmark. St. Thomas and St. Croix, the Danish colonies in the West Indies, were restored by the English at the peace, but they had lost their value with the loss of their use as emporiums. Their produce of sugar and coffee was hardly enough to supply Denmark alone, and these colonies became of so little importance to Denmark that in 1867 St. Thomas was sold to the United States for ;,^i, 500,000, the latter power making it a " territory " and securing it as a naval station for the West Indies. The China trade and that with the East Indies could not be resumed with profit. They had both been intermediate trades, the one to Canton for tea to supply the European markets, the other for Indian fabrics, the de- mand for which was being rapidly lessened by the cheapness of British machine-made goods. Serampore and the other Danish possessions in India were transferred to Great Britain in 1845, and the stations on the Guinea Coast in 1850. " The staple national occupation of the Danes is husbandry. There is neither iron nor coal in the country, nor are there many raw materials for manufacture. Commerce is therefore confined to the produce of the field and of the dairy." The few textile manufactures of Denmark were inherited from the French Protestant refugees, who received a welcome in 1693, after their flight from the bigotry of Louis XIV. Beyond some coarse stockings and other woollen stuffs, and gloves, none of the produce was exported, but commercial prosperity brought luxuries in the form of foreign manu- factures. Hardware, pottery, woollen and cotton fabrics of a much finer kind were imported. When reverses came, 454 ^^-^ GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. the Danes resorted to the common practice of protecting their industry, and at the same time they rigidly checked illegal traffic. By such means woollens and cottons, al- though not enough for home consumption, and a great deal dearer than foreign goods, were produced by native hands that could earn as much, or more, in agricultural pursuits. Sugar refiners and brandy distillers were also similarly encouraged. Brandy distilling being in a great measure dependent upon agriculture, produced a surplus for export. Schleswig and Holstein, before their severance from Den- mark, possessed an important commerce, much of the Danish trade entering their ports. There were about three thousand vessels of thirty-six thousand tons possessed by the duchies, a larger number than belonged to the rest of Denmark. These, the fairest provinces, were absorbed by Prussia in 1864, ^.nd the small kingdom, which was before only a quarter of the size of Great Britain, was thus reduced to the limits of one province, that of Denmark proper, com- prising the peninsular division of Jutland, and the insular divisions of Zealand, Funen, and the smaller islands. The tendency of trade since the political change was to con- centrate itself at Copenhagen, where, as trade developed, as many as two thousand merchant ships not unfrequently entered in a week. Gluckstadt was the capital of Holstein, a whaling station, but of diminishing consequence. In 1838 twenty-seven whalers were sent out, which captured thirty- eight whales, and 65,920 seals. Denmark commands the entrance to the Baltic, and till the year 1857 suffered no vessel to pass the Sound without clearing at Elsineur and paying toll. This toll was com- puted to amount to 1,600,000 guilders, annually, and was impatiently endured by several states. Its origin was due to a bargain between Denmark and the Hanseatic League in 1348, whereby the former state became bound to erect and maintain lighthouses round the coast, and the Hanse to pay a passing toll. An agreement between the Danes A USTRIAN INDUSTRY, 455 and the Dutch was signed in 1645 relative to these dues, and by long prescription the claim was yielded to by the Swedes, the English, and the French, who with the Dutch paid I per cent., while smaller states with less trade paid i^ per cent, upon the declared value of their merchandise. CHAPTER XII. AUSTRIA FROM 1790 TO 1 885. The interval from 1790 to 1S15 gave little scope to the productive industry of Austria. No other European state was so humiliated by the wars of that age. Austrian pro- gress cannot be said to have begun until the peace of 18 15. The first stage of development lasted till 1830. Atten- tion was directed to husbandry and mining, and to home manufactures founded thereupon. The Italian provinces, amongst the most productive by nature, were made more so by careful cultivation. Sheep rearing was energetically pursued in Bohemia and Moravia. Capital, diverted from wasteful war, was devoted by the landowners to the im- provement of the breed of sheep, whose fleece soon yielded such excellent wool, as to give celebrity to the cloth manu- factures of these two provinces. Glass, iron, steel, linen, cotton, and silk manufactures received the fostering care of government, by the levy of duties upon imports. Austrian industry entered upon another phase about the year 1830. Home manufactures were in greater demand in the empire itself, and there was a continuous advancement in agriculture. Markets were found in Germany for the domestic produce, much of which was sent to the fairs of Leipzic and Frankfort. From the Zollverein, to which all the other German states had by degrees given in their adhesion, Austria, however, kept aloof, and in consequence, lost most of the German traflfic ; but the beautiful glass of 456 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Bohemia and various other manufactures continued to find favour even from the states of that commercial union. Beyond the confines of Europe, Austrian goods made their way eastward to Turkey and Persia, and westward across the Atlantic to the United States and Brazil. In 1838, the Austrian government appeared to perceive that an extreme tariff did not benefit the country, and entered into a commercial treaty with the United Kingdom in accordance with which the duties were lowered, but to an extent so trifling that it only diminished the revenue with- out increasing trade. Foreign competition was maintained by the aid of smugglers, who supplied raw materials for manufacture and colonial produce. A good deal of wool used to come thus from Saxony, until stopped by that state joining the Zollverein. Illicit traflic still procured an entrance by means of the numerous islands and broken coasts of the Adriatic. Goods thus easily found their way to Hungary, where a lower tariff prevailed. Austria was one of the first countries to construct rail- ways. A steamboat service was established on the Danube, which only failed to create an enormous river trafific because a close monopoly denied it the wholesome stimulus of com- petition. Many new highways were also formed. Even in 1870, though railways crossed the country, the means of communication were scanty, compared with those of Eng- land, as instanced by the fact that while in England food, cost about the same price in all parts of the kingdom, in Austria it varied widely in price, and was specially dear at Vienna ; — in later years the railway system greatly increased. Before the year 1840, industrial improvement was every- where visible. From 60,000 to 70,000 ozs. of gold, and more than 1,000,000 ozs. of silver were annually obtained from the mines, besides supplies of every other metal, of precious stones, and of coal, The forests furnished five and a half million loads of timber, besides potash, tar, turpentine, galls, and charcoal, and the vineyards produced FISCAL BURDENS. 457 600,000,000 gallons of wine. Tebacco was raised to an extent yielding 300,000 cwts. of the cut leaf, 45,000 lbs. of snuff, and 200,000,000 bundles of cigars. The agricultural statistics of the same date give, of farming stock, 2,500,000 horses, 8,000,000 horned cattle, 30,000,000 sheep, and about 1,000,000 goats. Swine, poultry, and game were innumerable. Silkworms contributed 5,000,000 lbs. of silk for export, and 2,000,000 lbs. for home use. Between 50,000,000 and 60,000,000 quarters of grain, and nearly 100,000,000 bushels of potatoes, were annually raised. Of manufactures there were in Austrian Italy between 10,000 and 1 1,000 separate establishments, and in the Austrian states proper, exclusive of Hungary, nearly 14,000, and, generally, of greater extent. Austrian commerce nevertheless remained so much hampered by monopolies and tolls as to be quite inconsiderable for an empire of such vast resources, w'hile salt, gunpowder, tobacco, and many other articles were re- tained as imperial or government munufactures. The most absurd duties on woven fabrics were enforced ; on silk 20s. a pound, and on linens from 6^. to \2S. a pound. Similar penalties were exacted from those who indulged in coffee and sugar or other tropical produce. There were only between five hundred and six hundred registered merchant ships, exclusive of coasters. Trieste was chiefly favoured, as being Austrian, at the expense of Venice, which was Italian. Fiume, in Croatia, the outlet of Hun- garian produce, and Ragusa, in Dalmatia, possessed their share of maritime trade. The exports to the United King- dom exceeded half a million sterling in value, and had doubled in a few years. The imports from the United Kingdom w-ere of about equal value. Austria suffered heavy losses during the industrial de- rangements which began in 1835 and lasted over several years. Vienna, the commercial as well as political capital of Austria, was peculiarly injured. Much of its business \vas in government securities and in exchanges. The fall 458 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. in value of all property of this kind resulted in a ruinous loss to individuals, and in general inconvenience. Details of Austrian Manufactures. — Linen was an ancient industry which even in the fourteenth century supplied the markets of Italy and Constantinople, as well as home rcr quirements. Bohemia and Silesia produced linens of the finest quality, and coarser kinds were woven in the southern provinces. The inferior fabrics were mostly for home consumption, but the finer were sought for abroad, being consigned to Hamburg, and thence despatched to America. This commerce flourished until the promulgation of the memorable Berlin Decree, the pernicious effects of which were felt in the immediate decline of foreign intercourse. The number of Bohemian flax spinners fell from 320,000 in 1801, to 40,000 in 1S19, and linen yarn, owing to the absence of demand, suff'ered a great fall in value. Between 1820 and 1870 the industry revived. It employed many hands in Bohemia, and resumed its position in commerce. Machinery was imported from England, and the quantity of yarn, as well as of finished cloth produced, greatly increased. Cotton. — The cotton manufacture was, to a small degree, an early industry, carried on in the lower regions of the river Enns, near its confluence with the Danube. Bohemia took but little part in the fabrication of cotton cloth, but had a large share in the business of calico printing. Cotton grew in favour as a material for clothing, when machinery was brought into use, so that in the year 1840 the weight of raw cotton worked up for home consumption was 29,000,000 lbs., a quantity exceeding that which was demanded by the rest of the Continent, with the exception of France, and nearly three times as much as was required for the manu- factures of the Zollverein. Many mixed fabrics of linen and cotton were made towards the close of this period. Woollens. — Brunn, the "Austrian Leeds," the capital of Moravia, stood as the centre of the woollen industry. There MANUFACTURES. 459 were also large factories in Bohemia. Coarse goods were made in several other places, a considerable quantity of which was exported as soon as railway communication with the northern ports was completed. Switzerland and Italy were early buyers of the superfine cloths of Moravia. The fine quality of these fabrics was due to the skill and industry of weavers from Verviers, induced to settle in Moravia on account of the numerous flocks, whose improved and valu- able fleeces aff*orded a ready supply of the best wool. Silk. — Silk-spinning and weaving were early pursued in Austrian Italy, and in the province of the Lower Enns. Silk-worm rearing was spread over a wider area. Before the cession of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom to Itah', this industry had made much progress. France depended upon these Austro-Italian provinces for supplies of reeled and raw silk, and the introduction of the Jacquard loom had raised the silk manufacture to one of national importance. Leather. — Tanneries abounded throughout the Austrian territories, especially in Hungary. For the quantity of leather produced, the province of the Lower Enns, and still more Vienna, situated therein, stood eminent. The leather manufacture was promoted by the abundance of cattle. The produce, great as it was, did not, however, furnish enough for home requirements. Glass. — Bohemia kept its lead in glass- making, and was not surpassed in the beauty of its wares by any country in the world. The manufacture, however, no longer confined to this province, quickly extended itself to the districts on the Enns, and to Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola. While Austria held aloof from the Zoilverein, the transport of these wares through Germany was placed at a disadvantage. Notwithstanding this, the exports had, in 1840, amounted to 6,000,000 florins. Russia formerly took a large quantity of Bohemian glass, but put an effectual stop to her enjoy- ment of such elegant works of art, by raising the tariff upon imports. Italian taste led to an opposite policy, which, 460 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. with the demands of England and North America, more than made up for the loss of the Russian trade. A large variety of minor products of art distinguished Vienna and its neighbourhood, as articles de Paris did the capital of France. Amongst the chief were noted gold and silver articles, leather work, porcelain, watches, silk tissues and shawls, musical instruments, coaches, and various branches of the locksmith's art. The total value of these products reached but very little less than that of the corre- sponding industry of Paris. Metals. — Relatively to other European States, Austria has gone back in the production of iron during the nineteenth century, owing to the dearness of wood-fuel, in comparison with the coal which has elsewhere been utilised in smelting ; still, iron and native steel are abundant, the works well con- ducted, and a good deal exported, though less than formerly. Copper, where found, was manufactured throughout the empire, and much of the produce exported by way of Trieste. The most distinctive metalliferous ore found in Austria was that of quicksilver, the produce of which, from the mines of Idria, in Carniola, was only surpassed in quantity by that of Alniaden in Spain. Transylvania, Hungary, and Bohemia yielded smaller supplies of this metal, the uses of which in chemistry, in the arts, and in manufactures, be- came so extended that hs price, in spite of new and pro- lific sources of supply, very considerably increased. Salt was worked in many of the provinces, and sea salt, rock salt, and salt from brine springs, saltpetre, alum, and Glauber's salt, or sulphate of soda, from saline morasses, obtained in abundance. Rock salt has been dug from the Wieliczka mine, in Galicia, ever since the year 1253, without making a perceptible diminution in the massive bed that extends for six hundred miles in the line of the Carpathian Mountains. An extraordinary development of industry carried the empire through the loss of trade consequent upon the American civil war, ^Yith the stoppage of the cotlon supplies, MA y UFA CTURES. 461 and the loss of the Italian provinces, as the consequence of the wars with France and Prussia. The years 1862-3 ^^^ regarded as the most flourishing period of Austrian history. The care expended upon railways and improved locomotion bore abundant fruit so soon as fiscal impediments to free intercourse amongst the provinces had been removed, and inland smuggling had disappeared. The cattle and timber trade, and the beetroot sugar manufacture, assumed dimen- sions out of all proportion to their former extent. A service of trains from ^loravia and Bohemia to the North German ports, and of fine vessels thence to the United Kingdom, was next adopted for the British division of the traffic in fat cattle. In 1867 there were in Austria 13,660,000 head of horned cattle, besides 3,390,000 horses, 46,600,000 sheep, and 8,000,000 swine; and the whole capital invested in the cattle trade was computed at more than thirty-six millions sterling. Of the cattle, 175,000 head, worth, on an average, ;^2o apiece, were exported for the most part to Great Britain and France. Forest produce in the same year was estimated at ;2^7, 000,000. Beetroot sugar had completely taken the place of cane sugar for home consumption, and was also exported to a large and increasing amount. Raw materials and yarns for weaving were imported in 1866 to the value of more than 100,000,000 florins, and woven fabrics worth 16,500,000 florins, which not only provided for the consumption of the empire, but afforded a surplus of goods for export, within one-twelfth of the value of the original imports. As an example of the wisdom of low tariffs it may be stated that the Danube Steam Navigation Company, in 1865, reduced its charges, and in the following year in- creased its receipts from 9,000,000 to 11,000,000 florins, or 22 per cent., while its expenses increased only 3 per cent. The gross value of the exports of Austria in 1838 was 135,000,000 guilders. A normal tendency to advance, but at a slow rate, marked the subsequent import and export 462 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. trade, as illustrated by the following figures, in florins or guilders, of which ten equal one pound sterling : — Imports. Exports. 1851 . . . 158,074,663 136,524.944 1861 . . . 232,732,554 310,687,250 1870 . . . 424,700,000 395,900,000 The year i860 was the last in which the statistics of Venetia were included in those of Austria. It thus appears that Austria soon recovered from the commercial loss caused by the severance. The magnitude of this loss may be calculated from the statistics of Venetian trade. In 1 86 1 the exports from Venetia to the United Kingdom were to the value of ;^52 7,946, and its imports from this country ^230,814. During the next decade both items had but trivially increased. Vienna remained the industrial centre of the empire, and the chief market for the national manufactures. Although severely tried by political reverses, the capital decidedly advanced in material prosperity. The export of manu- factured goods nearly doubled between 1851 and 1862, and the production of fabrics approached nearer every year the quantity required for home consumption. Viennese leather work was much in demand in England, and neatly- made lucifer matchboxes, in immense numbers, were known all over the world. Festh, the capital of Hungary, and the depot of the produce of that kingdom, secured by its situation on the Danube all the benefit of the commercial freedom and improved navigation of that river. There were manufac- tures of linen, cotton, and woollen goods, of machinery, implements of husbandry, chemicals, plated goods, glass, musical instruments, and paper, besides oil works and distilleries. '■''Natural produce and manufactured wares reach Pesth from every part of Hungary, for distribution over Austria and the Continent, and enormous rafts of timber, consigned to distant ports, float thence down the Danube." Pesth also possessed a trade in grain of all kinds, rapeseed, INDUSTRIAL CENTRES. 463 fruit, wooden articles, bricks, stones, salt, potash, alum, iron, copper, skins, furs, and cattle. Cracow, the industrial centre of Gallicia, situated in the midst of an agricultural district, was dependent thereon for its manufactures and trade. As it revived from the depressing influences of war its industrial works, of which the chief were the production of wax candles and chemicals, soap and vinegar, clocks, watches and jewellery, steam engines, machinery and agricultural implements, soon resumed their normal activity. Lemberg, the capital of Gallicia, manufactured on a smaller scale the same classes of goods as were produced at Cracow, with which city it was connected by railway, Prague, the flourishing capital of the productive province of Bohemia, and well placed for trade with both the German and Austrian states, with which it also enjoys excellent com- munication by railroad, stood next. The prosperity of the city was primarily founded upon its varied and extensive manufactures of textile fabrics, glass, porcelain, and other industrial products. Trieste (Illyria), the principal port of Austria, was growing in importance every year. Its exports for 185 1 were of the value of nearly ^10,000,000, while its imports exceeded ^12,000,000. It maintained regular steam communication with Venice, Alexandria, Constantinople, and the ports of Greece and Turkey, conducted by the Austrian Lloyd's Steam Packet Company. Westward it sent Austrian pro- duce to Marseilles and Great Britain, and received in exchange much British, foreign, and colonial produce. Manufactures, similar to those of the empire generally, added to the resources of this prosperous town. Ragusa, Gravosa, Fiume. — Ragusa (Dalmatia) is a sea- port town, the inhabitants of which are chiefly engaged in soap-works and shipbuilding. In the neighbourhood is the fine harbour of Gravosa. The trade of these ports remained small, the imports from Great Britain being little else than coal. CHAPTER XIII. GERMANY FROM 1790 TO 1885. The balance of trade against Germany during the French revolutionary period was considerable. From England alone the imports of the years 1795-97 were at the mean rate of ;^7, 000,000 sterling against ;2£"4, 250,000 of exports. A disparity of this kind would be rectified by the outflow of specie. Germany, not being a gold-producing country, would have been rapidly impoverished by such a circum- stance, and trade would have tended to balance itself by a diminution of imports. The phenomenon is, however, ex- plained by the system of subsidising the German states in time of war. England paid in subsidies, for the outfit of troops and other purposes, from 1793 to 18 14, the sum of eighteen and a half millions sterling, shared by Austria, Prussia, Hanover, Hesse Cassel, Hesse Darmstadt, Bruns- wick, Bavaria, and Baden. Specie therefore came into Ger- many to flow out again ; notwithstanding which, the first decade after the outburst of the French Revolution, 1 789-1 799, was a golden age to niany of the German cities. These subsidies must not, however, be regarded as generous gifts, or as bribes from the British Government to enlist the material aid of German states, but really as the most economical means, in the estimation of England, of adding to her active forces and bringing war to the speediest conclusion ; the circumstances of our country rendering the organization of an army comparable to the huge levies of the Continent quite impracticable. Hamburg and Brunswick received an accession of inhabitants from the families of the rich, who fled for their lives from France ; and CONTINENTAL SYSTEM. 465 when Holland, in 1725, was overrun by the French, many Dutch exiles brought their skill and fortune to Hamburg and Altona, by which means the business and wealth of these cities were materially enlarged. Through Hamburg colonial produce was introduced into the south-western states of Germany. Grain from the interior found an outlet by the same port, which was the commercial medium for a large and profitable interchange between Russia and Germany. Luneburg and Minden were likewise enriched by this Russian trade, and the trade in corn. Consequent upon this, activity wealth began to abound, wages rose, house-rent, cost of transport, and prices of commodities, all became higher. Capital accumulated and was lent at low interest, to the encouragement of agriculture and manufac- tures. Sugar refineries, distilleries, and chicory-mills — the last due to the taste for cofiee as a beverage — were thus improved or established. Tolls levied at Magdeburg and a prohibition against the export of grain, both from this port and Halberstadt, prevented to some extent their growth in wealth ; but the vigour of the times overcame all obstacles, and even in these places manufactures of tobacco, chicory, sugar, and earthenware prospered. Leipsic fair came into greater prominence for the sale of Saxon wool, raw and manufactured, and of Lusatian linen. This city also pos- sessed a flourishing transport trade, and did a good business in exchanges. The transitory peace of 1802 filled Germany with illusive hopes. When the war commenced afresh in the following year, the trade of the Hanse Towns was cut off by France taking possession of Hanover, then dynastically united with England. Hamburg was also unable to trade direct with Great Britain, the source of its greatest profits, but held a circuitous intercourse by way of Denmark. Napoleon's continental system brought upon Germany still worse con- sequences. The most onerous oppression befell Prussia and Austria, for they had to maintain, during the years III 2 G 466 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. 1806 and 1807, the " Grand Army" of France. The weight of such a tax, imposed after Prussia had lost the battle of Jena, may be judged of when we bear in mind that cattle and horses and agricultural produce were very largely taken by the French, the Niemen districts alone being despoiled of eighty thousand farm horses in the single year 181 2, and a war levy was made of ;^6, 200,000, equivalent in Prussia to double the same sum in England. Saxony and Central Germany did not feel the evil effects of the continental system so much as the maritime states. Their trade was before nearly confined to the home markets, which they relied upon now more exclusively. The Con- federation of the Rhine, under Napoleon's protection, opened France to a good German trade, which was greatly stimulated by the incessant wants of his great armies. Saxony wool, improved by a cross between the Saxon and Merino breed of sheep, made beautiful cloth, which was in good demand. While it was possible to get raw cotton, the manufactures from that material also flourished. On Napoleon's final overthrow the ports were once more open to shipping, and a busy traffic began. Hamburg, Bremen, and the other Hanse towns felt the beneficent change. The productive labour of Europe could not, how- ever, revert to precisely the conditions which existed previous to the war. The German marts were filled with the manufactures of England, France, and Belgium, and with the raw products of foreign commerce. The German producers, on the other hand, had to find new markets, both for buying and selling, for they were superseded by England in their old spheres of business. Such markets were now open to them in Cuba, Hayti, Brazil, and the Spanish republics of South America. British manufactures, which had improved in quality and diminished in cost, were the chief source of alarm to the forced manufactures of Germany. English cotton goods in particular gave no chance to those of the Germans, but the SE VERA XCE OF NE THER L A NDS. 467 German woollens were of such good quality that they were better able to withstand competition. Manufacturers of metals were wholly unable to hold their own against the influx of hardware and metals from England and Belgium. In the \var, Prussia had been the chief sufferer, and after the peace her industry was benefited more than that of any other state. There had been no embargo under the French rule upon inland intercourse, and France, commanding the trade of every state, had suffered comparatively little; the embargo was solely upon the ports. The problem for statesmen at this juncture was what policy to pursue to keep up the prosperity of their respective countries in the presence of industries sinking and dying, through the superior facilities of production enjoyed by England. When France was reduced to its ancient dimensions, and political relations with the Rhinelands was severed, there was no longer any community of interests between the two. Rhenish Prussia was, therefore, when France decreed protective laws, bereft of its commerce at one stroke. Prussia retaliated with the same weapons, and soon succeeded in decreasing her imports and obstructing the progress of all the states of Germany. Every state, large and small, followed the example. Tolls were levied ujDon goods at every frontier. The only limit to the exactions of the states was the chance of losing their whole transit trade ; and with some of them this danger weighed but little. Saxony found its continental trade sink to nothing, and sent its cotton and woollen cloths, by way of Hamburg and Bremen, to the United States, Brazil, and the Spanish republics. Manufactures could scarcely revive by such means as these. The produce of labour was consumed in each state and kept within this narrowest range of interchange. An excess of labour was expended in production ; interchange, which sets the limits to division of labour, was retarded \ competition, v/hich stimulates excellence, was removed. There was loss at every stage of production, distribution, 463 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. and consumption. This loss was multiplied by the number of protected industries and of states " enjoying " protection, and by the number of years the system lasted. The effect of this policy upon England was the reflex of its effect upon the German states. From 1820 to 1825 complaints were loud and deep that the English demand for grain from Germany had ceased, owing to the prohibitory duties imposed upon foreign imports, a course resented by the Germans as destructive of what was to them their staple foreign trade. This resentment was A\dth some show of reason mutual, for England felt it as much a grievance to be shut out from the German markets as Germany did to be swamped by British manufactures. From 1826 to 1830 England was obliged to admit foreign corn to avert famine. Most of the supplies came from Germany, and fetched a high price. The profits upon agriculture were so large during these years that it turned the attention of the Ger- mans more than ever to that branch of industry, attracting investments of capital and raising the price of estates. Germany was incidentally benefited by the separation of Belgium from Holland. For several years after the revolt, there being little commerce between the severed kingdoms, the Dutch sought in Germany many articles formerly ob- tained from Belgium. Cotton stuffs, and, more extensively, woollen cloths, from the Rhine-lands, were thus procured. Rhenish or Rhoer coal was another German commodity supplied to the Dutch, in increased amount every year. Eng- land, too, shared in the coal trade with Holland, which was entirely withdrawn from Belgium. Belgium, in turn, with independence, began her plodding industry, and required German wool for her manufactures. Saxony wool com- manded an increasing market in England also, and was not excelled by the produce of any other pastoral country. Manufactures and agriculture improved in consequence, and the population, especially in Prussia, increased. En- larged commerce caused the irksomeness of manifold tariffs ZOLLX'EREIN. 46537 tons. Barbary States. — These states, which played so great a part in the days of Carthaqe, and of the Saracens, had by no means regained their ancient fame or importance. Their existence during this commercial period was made known chiefly by the piratical character of their inhabitants, who scoured the Mediterranean, and were the terror of European mariners. The expedition of Lord Exmouth against Algiers in 18 1 6, led the Dey to agree to a treaty in which he cove- nanted to restrain his subjects from piracy ; but it was not until the occupation of Algeria itself by the French in 1830, and 504 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. its retention as a French colony, that the practice was effectually put an end to. Tripoli., one of the pirate states, had retained a trifling industry and commerce, which served as a nucleus for expansion. Saffron, in particular, was cultivated, and was always in demand. Tripoli interchanged with Turkey more than with any other country; 268 vessels, out of a total of 539 that entered its port in 1870, being Turkish, while only 35 were British. The whole value of the imports was under ;,£'3oo,ooo, and the exports were estimated to be of about equal value. European manufactures, grain, metals, tobacco, timber, coals, and colonial produce were imported ; and oil, butter, wool, salt, dates, madder, skins, soap, ivory, feathers, natron, and oxen, were the principal exports. From Tripoli many of the imports were despatched by cara- van to Fez, Morocco, and Fezzan, whence they reached Central Africa, and were exchanged for gums, balsams, indigo, and cotton. lunis, though the smallest of the Barbary States, was one or the most piratical. The capital stood a few miles from the site of ancient Carthage. Admiral Blake captured it so long since as 1655, in order to release the Christian captives taken by the corsairs. France had commercial relations with Tunis in the last century, obtaining therefrom oil, grain, wax, hides, gold, horses, ostrich feathers, and sending thither coffee, sugar, cloths, wine, brandy, and paper. In this epoch the trade of Tunis was unimportant, and was shared by England, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Venice, and Italy, Morocco, one of the most fertile parts of the Barbary States, continued to be rudely cultivated, and wheat, of which three harvests can be gathered in the year, was frequently exported to Spain. Maize, dh'urra, rice, dates, and olives were staple products. Cattle rearing was impor- tant ; valuable horses, called Barbs, and fine-woolled sheep were also bred. CENTRAL STATES. 505 Morocco had long been famed for its manufactures of leather, carpets, and arms, the first-named being beautiful and highly esteemed for choice work. Pink and red coral were dredged for along the coast by the Italians and French. From this state, whose chief ports were Tangier and Mogador, were exported almonds, beans, peas, canary seed, cotton, dates, goat-skins, gums, hides, maize, olive-oil, ostrich feathers, wool, and wax. Great Britain engrossed more than two-thirds of the trade, and France came next. Spain, Portu- gal, Egypt, Belgium, and Italy, shared to an unimportant extent the remainder. The value of the exports in 1870 was about three quarters of a million sterling, a sum rather exceeded by the imports, of which Manchester goods alone amounted to one-fourth. The other imports embraced alum, saltpetre, copperas, iron, steel, tin, hardware, earthen- ware, cloths, linen, indigo, coffee, spices, sugar, and tea. Much older than its European trade is the caravan traffic in connection with the pilgrimages to Mecca. Morocco wares formed part of the equipment of every caravan, being dis- posed of in the different towns and resting-places on the way. Another route was that from Fez to Timbuctoo, and the caravans, provisioned with water, dates, and barley-meal, occupied about one hundred days in either direction. Algeria. — The city of Algiers was taken by a French force under Bourmont and Duperrd, in 1830, in retaliation for an insult offered to the French consul. The conquest of the adjacent territory was the work of several succeeding years (1830-1847.) Great hopes were entertained that French authority would cause the province to flourish and commerce to take the place of plunder. France did Europe a service in ridding the Mediterranean of the Algerine corsairs, but the colony during this period was not very successful, being a heavy burden to the French people. All the efforts of France to promote industry were long frustrated by the unsettled character of the inhabitants, who could not be speedily changed from pirates into peace- 5c6 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. ful and loyal friends of their conquerors. War for many years kept off colonists from France, and a sense of inse- curity prevented the cultivation of the ground. Consider- able importations of French goods favoured the belief that trade was increasing, but it was soon found that the consumption was confined to the troops. Abd-el-Kader, in a harassing guerilla warfare, long opposed the might of France, but was at last taken captive ; and with the excep- tion of sundry expeditions against the Kabyles, to remind them of their terms of submission, the country since then remained peaceful. Abd-el-Kader, after a long but honour- able captivity, was released and permitted to settle at Broussa, in Asiatic Turkey, by Louis Napoleon, in one of his first public acts as Prince-President of the French Republic in 1852. Algeria made its greatest progress under the Empire. Emi- grants from Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Malta, and as many as from all these together from France, were encouraged to settle in it, and the effects upon the produc- tions of the country began to be perceptible. Hides, wax, and a few raw materials, too insignificant to enter into commercial statistics, completed the original list of exports. As cultivation spread, rice, wheat, and maize, were added to the produce, and still later, the vine, cotton, tobacco, and mulberry have been introduced, wine and silk furnishing no unimportant items of the wealth of the colony. The ancient cattle-rearing and pastoral industry also in some measure revived, and wool, for which all the Barbary States were at one time famous, proved abundant enough for export. Most commercial nations at this time had dealings with Algeria, and its exports increased. French policy kept the commerce as much as possible out of the hands of other states, whose trade remained therefore inconsiderable, but that with France greatly developed, rising from ;z^248,ooo in 1832 to ;^8,492,ooo in 1861. Soudan (Beled-es-Soudan, i.e. Land of the Blacks), Negro- CE.VTRAL STATES. 507 land, or Nigritia, properly so called, was the region or basin of the river Niger. Soudan occupied the central regions bounded by the Sahara on the north, by the mountains of Kong and the highlands which form the water-shed of the Niger and Lake Tchad on the south, by Senegambia on the west, and Nubia and Abyssinia on the east. In navigating the Niger from its estuary in the Gulf of Guinea, we find in the course of thirty or forty miles up the stream, a thickly-peopled country in a condition very different from that of the coasts ; but for a long while the existence of Negro kingdoms in Central Africa, as populous as many European states, was unknown and unsuspected. The development of the trade in palm-oil incited adventurous traders to ascend the river. These found many towns on its banks, some of them with a large population, regularly constituted markets, and other proofs of a considerable degree of civilisation. Such a town was Ebboe, the first reached, whose inhabitants proved keen at a bargain in palm-oil, for which they eagerly took guns and powder, cottons, beads, rum, and mirrors. At Idda, Bocca, or Iccory, another large town, higher up the stream, a market was opened every tenth day and continued through three days. After passing many unimportant towns, Egga was reached, having great trade and varied industries. Its inhabitants traded up and down the river in their own canoes. Rabba and Koulfou were busy commercial towns, belonging to the kingdom of Nyffe. The natives of this kingdom were amongst the highest types of Negro vigour, both physical and mental, and in general the inland tribes were a finer race than those on the coasts. So great an industry and so good a market distinguished Rabba, that an island of the Niger, opposite the main town, was well-known amongst English merchants as the Manchester of Africa, and the town became the depot of the trade of Soudan. At Koulfou two markets were held every week, attracting traders from distant parts. The powerful kingdom of Yarriba had for its capital 508 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. the large trading town Cyeo or Ketunga, with a circum- ference of fifteen miles. Fundah, the capital of a neigh- bouring state, is described as having been as large as Liver- pool. The upper part of the Niger was known by the name of the Joliba, flowing through the kingdom of Timbuctoo, passing the capital of the same name. This state was once considerably more powerful, exercising a sway over much of Nigritia, but at this time it was regarded as the great mart of west central Africa, although it could only secure the safety of its caravans across the Sahara by paying tribute to the Tuaricks. Mungo Park describes the Niger at Sego, considerably above Timbuctoo, as of the width of the Thames at Westminster. It is navigable nearly to its source during the rainy season and for a short time after, but the water in the dry season is not deep enough for navigation, even within a few miles of the estuary. Saccatoo, the capital of the powerful empire of the Foulahs, four days' journey from the great river, was the largest town of Soudan. Bornou, another powerful kingdom, still further to the east, occupying the inland basin of Lake Tchad, held a caravan communication open to Fezzan and Tripoli. The nature of the trade carried on so extensively through these wide regions may easily be inferred. European goods being greatly coveted, reached the markets both by way of the Barbary States and of the Guinea Coast. Native produce received in exchange varied considerably. At Koulfou, salt, wood, and pepper constituted the burden of the caravans from the north ; European textures of cotton and wool, brass, zinc, other metals, and cutlery, horses, raw silk, and petroleum, came by way of the Niger ; Bornou sent a contribution from its caravans arriving from Tunis and Egypt. From Tunis, the goods consisted of Maltese swords, beads, and Venetian mirrors and turbans; from Egypt they were cotton and woollen yarn, and woven linen. At Iddah, in like manner, European and other goods found a ready sale. In the market at Egga, the chief commodities SOUTHERN AFRICA. 509 were cotton, indigo, dye-woods, and palm oil. Rabbah exceeded every other market in the magnitude of its transactions, dealing in grain, indigo, wax, ivory, ostrich feathers, camels' and leopards' skins, Fez caps, and metal- work. At Boure, a hilly district of the Joliba, rich gold-mines abounded, which supplied the coast and the interior with much of that precious commodity. A trade in gold grains was a long established business in every part of Soudan, and indeed gave the Gold Coast its name, as did Guinea, the country of which this coast forms part, to the English coins made of the gold brought thence. JVest Coast Settlements. — Since the abolition of the slave- trade, commerce in these places rose into great importance. Palm-oil became one of the chief commodities dealt in. The other constituents of trade resembled in great part those of the towns on the margins of the Niger, The palm-oil imported into England amounted to nearly a million hundredweights per annum of a value averaging nearly two pounds sterling per hundredweight. Southern Africa. — The English South African settlements formerly belonged to the Dutch. The independent states of the Transvaal Republic, and the Orange River Settle- ment, north of Cape Colony, were still occupied by Dutch Boers. These settlers, who kept up an intercourse with Holland, were mostly employed in the rearing of sheep for the production of wool. Cape Colony, of much more importance than these, being the centre of commercial intercourse, absorbed fully two-thirds of the whole British trade of South Africa. Cape Town and Port Elizabeth were the chief ports. Trade was also conducted at Mossel Bay, Simon's Town, and Port Alfred. By a census taken in 1865, the population of the Cape Colony was found to number 566,000 ; above a third of white race, the other two-thirds being mixed races and aborigines, either of Kaffir or Hottentot stock. Natal, a newer colony, containing in 1869 over 269,000 settlers, was of growing importance. 5 I O THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. The south African traders exported cereals, arrowroot, sugar, copper, ore, ostrich feathers, dried fruits, cured fish, hides, ivory, skins, wine, and wool. Wool was their staple ; the exports in one year amounted to ;^2, 267,000, the imports to ;^i, 968,000. Cotton was introduced into Natal, with such success as to quality, but at first leaving little profit on the cultivation. Arrowroot, a product of Natal, and sugar were grown largely. Manufactories of candles and soap, distilleries and foundries, grist, sugar, and saw mills, were successfully established. The trade of Natal was almost exclusively wath the mother-country and the Cape Colony. Its whole trade in annual value reached about ^^380,000 sterling of imports, as against ^363,000 exports. England exported to her South Afri- can possessions apparel, furniture, coals, textiles, hardware, iron, leather, colonial and foreign produce, and machinery. The discovery of diamonds also proved a great attraction ; it was said that the supply was inexhaustible, although subject to fluctuations. East Coast of Africa^ Mozambique, Zanzibar. — Compara- tively little intercourse was maintained by European nations with these coasts, although the Portuguese formed trading- stations at Mozambique as soon as they had discovered the route by the Cape to India. The trade here continued chiefly in Portuguese hands. Some competition existed between the English, French, and Americans. Zanzibar, which for a lengthened period formed part of the dominions of the Imaum of Muscat, became since 1857 a distinct sovereignty, under the rule of a Sultan of Arab descent. Zanzibar proved the seat of considerable commerce. Its ruler encouraged the cultivation of sugar and the settlement of foreign colonists, but without any very decided results during the period under consideration. Zeyla, in the south of Abyssinia, became one of the chief trading marts in this part of Africa, at which ivory, hides, gums, and ostrich feathers, together with the indi- EAST COAST OF AFRICA. 511 genous coffee of the country, were bartered against the merchandise of the Arab traders \Yho settled at Berbera, on the Gulf of Aden. England, by its station at Aden, competed with advantage against France in these regions ; yet, excepting an occasional cargo of sugar from Mozam- bique, and a consignment of coal thither, little commercial intercourse was as yet carried on. The Portuguese, in their commercial list, added gold, ivory, and beeswax. CHAPTER XVII. EUROPEAN AND ASIATIC TURKEY, PERSIA, INDE- PENDENT TARTARY, AFGHANISTAN. TURKISH COMMERCE FROM 1790-1885. The epoch, beginning in 1453, when Mohammed II. took Constantinople, and made it the seat of the Turkish empire, may be regarded as the period of cessation of the industry and trade of the conquered land. ReHgion and tempera- ment combined to render the Turks indolent, proud, and disdainful of foreign intercourse. The Black Sea was sub- stantially closed to all nations for four hundred years. A partial intercourse with France resulted from an alliance between Solyman the Great and Francis I. early in the six- teenth century. Cardinal Richelieu, in the century follow- ing, tried to develop a vigorous Levant trade, and Colbert, with more success, caught the taste of the Turks with French woollens, known as Loudonnes, for which a considerable demand was created, thus preparing the way for the intro- duction of coffee, sugar, and other colonial produce. The Black Sea was partly opened to Russian trade by treaty in 1774, and to the British in 1792, and after the Crimean war the passage of the Bosphorus was permitted to the ships of the whole world. This early intercourse gave France an ascendancy in the Turkey trade, which it did not lose, despite the competition of the English, Dutch, and Genoese. When graver matters occupied the French Republic after 1789, England enjoyed until 181 5 the control of this trade. A British chartered company, called the Turkey or Levant Company, had pos- sessed some trade since 1579, and its privileges did not THE DANUBE. 5 i 3 wlioUy cease until 1825, but compared with the former trade of the Arabs or the Greeks, modern Turkish com- merce was quite insignificant. Turkey, during this period, made advances towards western civilisation, and the Sultan, throwing aside old traditions, visited Christian sovereigns. With the excep- tion of the direct intercourse with Constantinople, secured to Russia on the cession of Taurida in 1784, the trivial character of the commerce may be judged from the fact that two or three English vessels making an annual voyage with an assorted cargo proved sufiScient. It increased when Malta was formed into an entrepot of British com- merce. Greek merchants, with an intuitive perception that recalled the days of Pericles, saw in that circumstance a basis of commercial enterprise, and started on a brisk course of interchange between Malta and Constantinople or Smyrna. British manufactures were as readily taken by the Turks as the dried fruits, rhubarb, opium, and raw silk, which they offered in exchange, w^ere desired in the English markets. In 181 2 an English merchant established a house of business at Constantinople, and directed for a consider- able time the whole course of the trade. After the peace in 181 5 France expected to be able to renew its former Turkey trade^ but found that England had gained too firm a hold. Nor had other commercial nations any better success in affecting the virtual monopoly enjoyed by England. Next to this country, the port of Trieste, the Mediterranean outlet of German and Belgian goods, carried on the largest trade with Constantinople. The Danube appeared to present a great highway for commercial intercourse between Turkey and other parts of Europe, but political, as well as physical, obstructions rendered it of little use in navigation. The vast quantities of mud brought down by the river form banks at its mouths, and the Sulina passage, the chief channel, was only kept open to vessels by constant dredging. In many parts the III 2 K 5 I 4 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. current runs with great force, so that vessels ascending the river had a tedious and difficult task. Near the Iron Gate, a narrow passage through the Carpathians, the river rushed over a bar of rocks stretching right across the stream, and opposed the course of any vessels drawing more than two and a half feet of water. Over the plains of Hungary, and along its lower course in Turkey, the Danube spreads out in shallow meanderings, enclosing within its branches numerous islands and extensive marshes, *' And like a serpent shows his glittering back, Bespotted with innumerable isles." As if these impediments were not enough, the various states through which the river flows added tolls and sanitary re- strictions of very vexatious and exacting character. Russia, till the conclusion of the Crimean War, had control over the Sulina mouth, ceded by Turkey in 1812, and by neglecting to dredge it, though bound by treaty to do so, rendered the whole of this grand waterway of very little use. Corn coming down from the productive principaUties of Moldavia and Wallachia was occasionally trans-shipped outside the bar by the agency of lighters, at great cost and risk in consequence of the rapid increase of mud. Russia altogether closed the Sulina passages in 1854 when at war with Turkey. Steam navigation on the Danube was projected in 1830, and the Austrian company launched steamers of light draught that could pass over the rapids. A Bavarian com- pany was chartered in 1836. These companies certainly increased the river traffic, but not to its full capabilities. A canal which unites the Altmuhl, a tributary of the Danube, with the Regnitz, an affluent of the Main, connects the navigation of the Danube and the Rhine, and thus pro- vides the means of intercommunication by water to a large part of Europe, although any great access of trade from these sources was prevented by a multitude of tolls. Bj TURKEY. 5 I 5 blasting the ledge of rocks between Widdin and Belgrade, a channel was cut for vessels, which then proceeded direct to Galatz and Brailov, near the Black Sea, without the trans-shipment of their cargoes. In 1856 the Danube was for the first time made free to all nations, and a commission of European states undertook to remedy the physical ob- stacles to the navigation. Great increase of traffic quickly resulted, in the profits of which every town on the banks of the river participated. British trade alone, imports and exports, with Turkey and the Danubian principalities, became augmented from less than nine millions sterling in 1856 to more than fourteen millions in 1866. In 1870 this had further increased to nearly sixteen millions, the im- ports exceeding the exports in value by rather less than half a million sterling. Turkey however continued in a deplorably backward state. Foreign trade was not conducted by Turkish vier- chajjfs, but by English, French, Italians, Greeks, Armenians, and Jews. Large as the commerce was even then, nearly all the exports were raw materials, the spontaneous produce of a fertile soil and a balmy climate, little being due to steady industry. The amount is really small from an em- pire covering (if we include the tributary territories) more than a million square miles. Manufactures, once numerous, now hardly existed. Anatolia produced Turkey carpets of excellent durability and beauty, which were only surpassed by the products of the looms of Persia in costliness and delicacy. A few coarse woollens and cottons and some metal works remained, but the commercial system of Turkey, that of unrestricted trade, did not favour manu- factures. Machine-made goods from England and France gave no chance to the native fabrics. Every department of labour remained in a backward condition. Husbandry continued in a primitive state. There was no real security for property, and might was the chief law in the provinces. Pashas were kept, by fear of the bowstring, from offending 5 I 6 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. against their sovereign, but there was no real check upon their rapacity and tyranny in their respective governments. Under such conditions industry could not thrive. No one who is liable to be robbed of the fruits of his labour will cultivate the ground with zeal. It is scarcely needful to say that the inland communications of the empire were still imperfect. There were neither railways nor canals till nearly 1870, when a railway from Aidin to Smyrna was opened, as well as a line connecting the port of Varna, on the Black Sea, with the valley of the Danube. Horses and asses were the means of conveyance in European Turkey, and camels continued in common use in the Asiatic division of the empire. There were but few roads on which carriages could be used. These were the causes that frustrated all efforts for the renovation of Turkey, and commercial free- dom alone maintained the vitality the country possessed. Early in the nineteenth century, prohibitions were tried for a time without working well, and were removed in 1839 by treaties with England and Austria, in the advantages of which Russia, France, and Prussia soon afterwards participated. A writer on Turkish history says : — *' Their capital is Constantinople, a kingdom in itself, more coveted than many realms. Austria and Russia have alternately united and contended for the splendid prize : it broke up the alliance of Erfurt, and carried the arms of Napoleon to Moscow ; and in these days it has dissolved all former con- federacies, created new ones, and brought the forces of England and France to the Bosphorus, to avert the threat- ened seizure of the matchless city by the arms of the Czar. " Its local advantages are unique, and its situation must ever render it the most important city in the Old World. Situated on the confines of Europe and Asia, with a noble harbour, it centres within itself the trade of the richest parts of the globe ; commanding the sole outlet from the Euxine into the Mediterranean, it of necessity sees the COXS TA X TIXOPL E. 517 commerce of the three quarters of the globe pass under its walls. The Danube wafts to its quays the productions of Germany, Hungary and Northern Turkey : the Volga, the agricultural riches of the Ukraine and the immense plains of Southern Russia : the Kuban, of the mountain tribes of the Caucasus ; caravans traversing the Taurus and the deserts of Mesopotamia, convey to it the riches of Central Asia and the distant productions of India ; the waters of the Mediterranean afford a field for the vast commerce of the nations which lie along its peopled shores, while the more distant manufactures of Britain and the United States of America find an inlet through the Straits of Gibraltar. The pendants of all the nations of the earth are to be seen, side by side, in close profusion in the Golden Horn; 'The meteor flag of England ' and the rising star of America, the tricolor of France and the eagles of Russia, the aged ensigns of Europe and the infant sails of Australia. Hers is the only commerce in the world which never can fail, and ever must rise superior to all the changes of fortune — for the increasing numbers and energy of Northern Europe only render the greater the demand for the boundless agricultural productions of Southern Europe, and every addition to the riches and luxury of the West only augments the traffic which must ever subsist between it and the regions of the sun." In later years the commercial development of Constan- tinople was enormous. England, France, Austria, and Russia were, in the order named, the principal customers for commodities brought from many parts, and of which the following were amongst the most important : — Wool and hair (sheep and goats'). Cotton wool. Skins (goat, hare, lamb). Silk and cocoons. Hides and leather. Bones and horns. Leeches. Chromate of iron. Seeds (aniseed, canary, linseed, rape). Meerschaum. 5 l8 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Rags. Opium. Tobacco. Olive-oil. Gums and resins. Attar of roses. Fruits (raisins and nuts). Boxwood. Drugs, galls, and dyes. The import trade was much more extensive. In addition to the dealings with the countries just mentioned, Constan- tinople imported for transmission inland, commodities of the most varied character from Trieste, Genoa, Holland, Belgium, the United States, Brazil, Havannah, the ports on the Sea of Azof, Odessa, and Persia. Adrianople was the grain depot of the Turkish empire. The chief outlet for its commerce was the port of Enos, at the mouth of the river Maritza, on which the city itself is situated. It had also a valuable trade in attar of roses, which found eager purchasers in foreign markets, not only in the east, but westward as far as New York. Salonica was the emporium for the provinces of Macedonia and Thessaly, cotton and grain being given in return for the manufactured products of western civilisation, but these provinces remained in too backward a state to offer any other commodity of importance. The only important port in Asiatic Turkey was Smyrna. Beyrout and Alexandretta (or Scanderoon) were outlets for the manufactures of Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir, the trade in which Great Britain almost monopolised, but they did not compare with Smyrna. British cargoes imported by Smyrna in 1866 were of the value of ;^i, 165.500 sterling, and those exported amounted to p^i, 5 20,040. The former comprised timber, coals, earthenware and glass, dyes, drugs, watches, furniture, hardware, and fire-arms; the latter consisted of madder, grain, boxwood, cotton, wax, gums, galls, wool, hair, silk, sponges, valonia, carpets, spirits and wines. Ottoman Asia is admirably adapted, from its position, to be a great theatre of trade between the Eastern and OTTOMAN ASIA. 519 Western nations. From remote antiquity, and during the early centuries of the Christian era, it was the highway of an enormous commerce, which, under the depressing sway of Turkish indolence, nearly disappeared. The ancient names 01 the provinces included in this territory recall the great deeds of Chaldean, Hebrew, and Arab history, but the very sites of some of their cities remained a mattej- of dispute. Babylon and the river plains, once teeming with life and wealth, and whose works of irrigation were the glory of the Caliphate and of earlier times, became simply a sterile marsh. Bagdad, Diarbekir, and Aleppo (Haleb), long remained as seats of industrious weaving and trade, but succumbed to the benumbing influence of Moslem fatalism. Referring to this district, Sir H. Rawlinson says, "The resources of Bagdad are unbounded. When the Great King ruled over a hundred and twenty provinces, from India to Ethiopia, the single region of Babylonia furnished one-third of his revenues. At present, there is the same country, teeming soil, tropical climate, and illimit- able supply of water. All that is required to restore the ancient prosperity of the province is a just, firm, en- lightened, and tolerant government. Cotton, sugar, silk, indigo, opium, and coffee, would be produced, and the increase in the revenue would be enormous." Bedouin Arabs, Turcomans, and Kurds, roamed respectively over the Syrian desert, the central parts of Asia Minor, and Kurdistan, living upon plunder and the produce of their flocks and herds. The husbandry even of more settled parts could scarcely be worse ; but still, despite of neglect, the soil produced enough grain even for export. Cattle rearing was one of the sources of wealth amongst the nomades, the riches of a chief being estimated in flocks, herds, and tents, as in patriarchal days. The silkworm was extensively reared, the silk produced being partly used up in home manufactures, and partly exported. The few lingering branches of industry found in the large towns 520 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. were the weaving of cottons, dyeing, the making of Turkey leather, and the fabrication of fire-arms and swords. Damascus was so famous in the ISIiddle Ages for its sword- blades (the production of which it has now lost), as to give name to the beautiful process of damascening steel. Nature, however, was stronger than. Turkish stagnation. Its geo- graphical advantages, lying between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, gave rise to an important caravan traffic. Armenian merchants were said to trade from China to Gibraltar, and, with the Jews, to conduct the interior commerce, as the Europeans did that by sea. Bassorah, Bagdad, Damascus, Aleppo, and Erzeroum being the rest- ing-places of the caravans, as Smyrna, Beyrout, Latakia (Antioch), Tripoli, Acre, Trebizond, and Bassaroh, were the ports of maritime commerce. Beyrout, which served as the port of Damascus, in an especial degree increased its commercial importance. The exports consisted of the products of husbandry, wool, Angora goats' hair, cattle, horses, hides, skins, leather, silk, cotton, grain, tobacco, gums, valonia, honey, wax, saffron, madder, and Arabian, Persian, and Indian goods. Raisins and figs were sent in immense quantities from Smyrna, which also carried on a large trade in fine sponges and coffee from Arabia. The imports comprised British and European fabrics, hardware, earthenware, paper, furs, tropical products, and dye stuffs. Many commodities were imported into Turkey for distribu- tion by caravan routes to Persia. During Mohammed Ali's sway over Syria, as well as Egypt, a great European import trade was begun, and efforts were made to improve the native industries, but these were frustrated by military oppression, and the insecurity of property under a despotic government. Arabia. — The Sultan exercised a nominal sovereignty over Arabia, and the Pasha of Egypt claimed an authority over the western tribes, but no advantage could accrue from active government. Many of the Bedouins (dwellers PERSIA. 521 in the desert), and also the Wahabees, disclaimed any power superior to their own emirs, or sheikhs. Arabia was no longer the scene of the great transit trade between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. While intercourse with India resumed its activity, and, through the facilities afforded by the Suez Canal, promised greater results than ever, it affected only small tracts on the Arabian coasts, the inland deserts having ceased to be traversed. Coffee is indigenous to Arabia and Abyssinia, that of Mocha being the finest pro- duced. Its exportation, however, lessened since coffee cultivation became so greatly extended, and even Turkey received more through the maritime traders than from Arabia. All the commerce deserving the name that remained to Arabia at this time was connected with the pilgrimage to Mecca, which every Mohammedan is bound by his religion to perform at least once in his life, as many as 60,000 or 70,000 pilgrims yearly joining in caravans, and along the route combining some amount of trade with religious duty. To these caravans must be accredited the entire importance of Mecca and Medina. Persia. — Irrigation fell into disuse over the regions extending from Armenia to the eastern verge of Persia, and deserts cover the plains which once refreshed the eye with their verdure, and gladdened the heart with their fruits. Only by the river margins and in the valleys could any sign of agricultural industry be seen. The great towns of antiquity have either dwindled to villages, or lie buried in ruins : the population decreased everywhere in Central Asia, while the great empires bordering on the sea in the south and south-east, from Hindostan to China, teemed with inhabitants. Some exceptional oases, however, maintained tribes, which were subject to the plunder of barbarians around, whose predatory attacks reduced both cultivation and cattle-rearing to the lowest point. Goats' hair, silky and of great fineness, formed an im- portant article. From the camel's hair beautiful, soft, and 522 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. costly Cashmere shawls were fabricated. This hair is gathered only from the breast and the back, corresponding to the mane of some other quadrupeds. Silk weaving has continued a branch of Persian industry for several centuries; but this pursuit decreased, owing to the frequent ravages of cholera, which did much to depopulate the districts where the silkworm was reared. Still the exports are estimated as having been worth a million sterling. The rearing of silk- worms, and silk weaving, were likewise pursued in Bokhara. Persian cotton was poor in quality compared with American, and the demand was small, although the climate and soil were well adapted for its production. Besides silk, the staples of Persia for export consisted of tobacco, asafcetida, rhubarb, and otto or attar of roses. Persian monarchs tried hard to restore the native manu- factures by setting the example of wearing the fabrics of their country, but have been unable to induce their sub- jects, from the mere sentivient of a royal preference for Persian industry, to reject the cheap manufactures of Eng- land for the dear textures of home make. The Turkish Sultans adopted the opposite course of introducing European goods and fashions, in which policy they have been much op- posed by the hereditary antipathy of their people to change. Maritime traffic in Persia superseded nearly all the ancient routes of land trade, and was almost exclusively possessed by the English. The country could not be said to possess roads, and had no navigable rivers. Once there was a fair amount of caravan traffic carried on between Meshed, in Khorassan, and India, by way of Herat and Afghanistan, This has been greatly diverted to the Persian Gulf and the River Tigris. Even the caravan line connect- ing India with the Aralo-Caspian regions, of which Cabul, Balkh, and Bokhara were the emporiums, though so entirely inland, was deprived of much of its importance by the diversion of trade to niaiitime routes. It certainly is a remarkable fact that these Oriental INDEPENDENT TARTARY. 523 empires should be vitally influenced by what is taking place in a small and distant island, which in the time of their glory was utterly unknown. England is called upon to clothe the numberless tribes from the Bosphorus to the Indus. The cheapness of machine-made fabrics, caused the native manufactures to cease, and a temporary diminu- tion in the supply of cotton from America quickened into life the whole industry of these vast regious, and multiplied fivefold their produce of this valuable fibre. The gross amount of the Turkey trade, with all its asso- ciated branches, was of great importance to England. The monopoly long enjoyed by this country excited the emula- tion of other trading nations. The Germans and the Swiss, and, later, the Belgians and the French, vied with each other for Oriental custom. Trade was stimulated by these efforts, and the English were spurred on to maintain their place in the markets by the good quality and cheapness of their goods. Some diversions of the trade routes, and minor effects upon the towns, have to be traced to this enlargement of traffic. The Black Sea ports were also utilised, and the ancient path of commerce, from Trebizond through Erzeroum, reopened. Many of the goods from the great fair of Leipzig were disposed of along this course, until temporarily obstructed by Russia, when the line of Redout- Kaleh, east of the Black Sea, and Tiflis, in Georgia, was made use of. Russia allowed the free passage of goods again in 1832, and the former route was resumed. Smyrna, once the great entrepot of the Levant, the centre of the whole of its commerce, suffered in its trade from these circumstances. The trade was still further diminished by the rising commercial importance uf Constantinople, of which it was long the rival. A tendency set in amongst the merchants of Smyrna to remove their residence to the capital, where many of them had settled. Jndependcrit Tartary, or Turkestan. — Bokhara, the capital of Turkestan, was always the mart of the caravan trade of 524 THE GROWTH AWD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Central Asia, to which the merchants of India, China, and Russia yearly directed their steps, while Samarcand, once the residence of the Great Khan, was fallen from its high position. Bokhara headed the list of the towns for industry, although some amount of manufactures, as well as attention to husbandry, distinguished all the towns of this region. A great caravan, consisting of from 1000 to 1500 camels, travelled annually from the southern provinces of Russia, laden mostly with goods, especially metals, from the fairs of Nijnii Novgorod. From India and Cabul came indigo, cotton, spices, sugar, and fabrics, three-fourths of which were of British make. From the garrison towns of Cashgar and Yarkand, Chinese tea was obtained, of which the people of Turkestan were as fond as the Chinese were of the Persian opium, for which it was exchanged. Nankeens and bullion came also from China. A small trade was carried on with the Persians, with whom the Turcoman tribes were constantly at feud, embittered by minute differences in their religious tenets. Amongst the exports from Independent Tartary, we find raw silk, cotton, wool, lamb-skins, and horses. Slavery and the slave trade existed in the country, many of the slaves being Russian serfs, stolen during incursions into that empire. The open country was infested with hordes of daring robbers, who, until the Russians advanced into Central Asia, were accustomed to levy black mail, even upon the caravans of that nation. The Russians gradually succeeded in getting a hold upon the country, and in 1865 established the new province of Turkestan. Afghajtistan possessed commercial importance, mainly as the only highway between India and Turkestan to the north, and between India and Persia to the west. Cabul was the depot for the first line of traffic, Candahar for the second. The Afghans were nomadic, living upon the pro- duce of their flocks, and upon plunder. We find Indian commodities brought by caravan to Cabul, and, from the AFGHANISTAN. 525 time of the British ascendancy, manufactured goods of our own country were added. These were exchanged for horses, asafoetida, and dried fruits, — the produce of the country, — and for the wares brought from Russia and Turkestan. Persian and Indian caravans made their respective ex- changes at Candahar and Herat. Although the British, in 1842, subjugated Afghanistan, the fierce character of the Afghans and the profitless nature of the country rendered it undesirable to annex the terri- tory to India. It was therefore evacuated ; but it continued during this period to form an invaluable outwork to our Indian possessions. Peshawur, situated within British terri- tory, was a town of 105,000 inhabitants, west of the Indus, standing in the midst of a plain watered by the river Cabul, and covered by a forest of fruit trees. The Pun- jaub, or region of the five rivers, was the continuation of the plain on the other side of the Indus. No part of India surpassed these districts in fertility. Grain and fruit, sugar, indigo, and cotton, were produced in abundance. That it was a land of plenty may be inferred from the current cost of food in 1839 '• — 65 lbs. of wheat, i rupee (2^-.); 95 lbs. of barley, I rupee (2x.) ; i sheep, 2 rupees (45.) ; i ox, 12 rupees (245-.) " Nature has endowed these fine regions with rich mineral resources. Excellent iron abounds, and saltpetre, sulphur, and table salt have, since the annexation of the Punjaub, been prepared. The native Sikhs are a fine and brave race of much intelligence." Their manufactures of cotton fabrics, coarser than those of India, were so well suited to the wear of the mountain tribes, that British cottons stood for a long while no chance against them. With respect to the work- ing of iron, the Sikhs confined themselves to the manufac- ture of fire-arms and swords, in which they exhibited great skill. The city of Lahore was the most noted place for the febrication of weapons. The steel used in the workman- ship was of the same quality as that formerly employed in the manufacture of the celebrated Damascus swords. An 526 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. impetus was given to the trade of the Punjaub and Peshawur by removing the obstacles to the navigation of the Indus and the five affluent rivers, and thus opening them up to steamboat traffic. Cashmere, with which country we associate the silky, soft, and warm shawls, which all the manufacturing and scientific skill of England and France could barely equal, was an independent kingdom under a Sikh ruler. It was sub- jugated in the early part of the nineteenth century by Run- jeet Singh, whose oppressions drove many of the natives to settle in distant parts of India, much to the detriment of Cashmere. On the conquest of the Punjaub, in 1846, it was separated from the British portion of that territory and recognised as a sovereign state. In Bokhara the com- mercial dues were kept low, in order to brmg trade to the country. Without mines or metals to replenish the suppHes of money, which left the country m payment of British manufactures and Indian produce, bullion and coin were often very scarce, an inconvenience which rectified itself by receipts, in due course, from Russia and China. Asia Minor presents us with commercial phenomena of a different kind. Silver and other metals were found in con- siderable quantities, but iron was absent. Yet hardware and steel goods were made, and unmanufactured iron imported from Russia, Sweden, England, and Austria. Earthenware and glass were furnished by Austria and England. France supplied household furniture but the balance of trade stood in favour of Turkey. Customs and duties at one time interfered with this trade, though they were not ex- travagantly high. They have, however, since been reduced to the lowest rate. Similar remarks apply to Persia, where the commercial dues remained of a moderate character, and where in the early years ot intercourse, both Russia and England were exempt from every inland toll. The ignor- ance and indolence of Persian rulers did more harm by farming out the tolls — a vexatious system of collection — A SI A MINOR. « 527 than the taxes themselves produced by their incidence or amount. No Oriental state with any pretension to a settled government, continued more behindhand than Persia in in all that appertains to national well-being. The whole revenue of the kingdom was only valued at ;^i, 500,000; yet under these unfavourable circumstances the chief item of export — that of silk — to England alone reached the annual value of ^1,100,000. This extension was achieved by the introduction of Japanese grain or eggs, and of a new variety of silkworm, not affected by the epi- demic that had seized the native worm, and partly also by the irrepressible enterprise of the English ; but more than all perhaps by the plain and simple fiscal policy adopted by the Persians of letting trade alone. CHAPTER XVIII. CHINA FROM 1790-1885. The Chinese trace their origin from mythic ages, yet have ever been, according to western ideas, without the pale of authentic history. The historical records of the Celestial Empire are of high antiquity, a period of from three to four thousand years, at least, being assigned to them, and an unprejudiced account has yet to be written from data fur- nished by native historians. The Chinese are a literary people, and their books, which they readily sell to strangers, give minute details on every subject relating to their country, but the language is so difficult that their volumes have been hitherto little better than useless on our shelves. Yet the evidence which has been brought to light in reference to praehistoric man and the antiquity of the ancient civilisa- tions of Egypt and India, render the claims of the Chinese to a remote origin deserving of attention. The authentic history of China commences with the epoch of Confucius, who died 480 B.C. Many of the great discoveries of European civilisation were anticipated by the Chinese, but remained in the un- improved form of their primitive development. Down to the year 1885 very little more was known as to internal China for active commerce than at the beginning of this epoch. " The almost universal occupation of the people is that of husbandry, favoured both by the extreme fertility of the soil, and by prescriptive customs. We still find nearly the whole of the country laboriously cultivated with the spade or the plough. There are no pastures or meadows, and AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE. 529- many wide regions are treeless. Grazing and pastoral farms do not exist. Few domestic animals are used as beasts of burden, human labour is employed instead, being both cheap and abundant. The hills are generally cultivated to their summits, the sides laid out in terraces, often labori- ously formed of soil brought from the plains, and fertilised with water lifted from the valleys by means of the chain pump. The copious water system and the general level character of the country facilitates the construction of canals of grander dimensions than any elsewhere, which serve for irrigation as well as for inland transit. Water is a vital necessity to the myriad inhabitants, for their great object is culture, and their chief food is rice, which requires in its early stages an excess of moisture. Everywhere the soil is employed in the production of food, the demand for which, from a dense population, is so extensive that the question of utility overrides every consideration of taste or beauty. Pleasure grounds and flower gardens are, there- fore, rare. An untiring industry applied to small allotments is rewarded with enormous crops of the staple food, and of the less valued grains — millet, barley, and wheat. The sweet potato {Batatas edulis) and potsai, a kind of white cabbage, as well as most of the European culinary vege- tables, are extensively raised. A water lily called the lotus is grown for its root and seeds, especially near Shangtung. " We notice that agricultural produce is necessarily varied over so many degrees of latitude. In the extreme southern provinces the tropical products of commerce are obtained. These provinces are believed to be the centre whence the sugar-cane first spread. The cocoa-nut and other palms, and the camphor laurel {Laurus camphora) here come to perfection. Tobacco, indigo, olives, cotton, and the bam- boo extend through the warm provinces adjoining. The bamboo-grass is invaluable to the Chinese. It grows fifty feet high and twelve inches in girth ; it is utilised in endless forms ; it is the chief material in building and in furniture, III 2 L 530 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITWDES OF COMMERCE. and supplies fuel, clothing, and food ; it grows on every farm, and supplies the place of trees ; its tender shoots are boiled as a vegetable or candied as a sweetmeat ; its fibrous bark is the chief source of paper, and a silicious concretion in the stem is used as a drug under the name of taba sheer ; implements of every kind, baskets and fishing-rods, rods for flagellation, umbrellas, soles of shoes, hats, shields, cloaks of the leaves ; sails, boat covers, pillows of the shavings ; miles of water pipes are made of it ; in the houses and fields, on land and water, in peace and war, it is in demand ; in company with the cypress, juniper, and pine, it waves over and marks the tombs. It is to these regions also that we owe silk and the mulberry-tree, upon which the silkworm feeds. " Tea, the great staple export, is produced in the temperate hilly districts, from Canton, 23° N. lat., to Hang-choo-foo, 31° N. lat. " One cause of the repugnance of the people to animal food arises from their doctrine of the transmigration of souls, which is sedulously inculcated by the priests of Fo or Buddha, and inspires the eater of beef or mutton with a fear of possible cannibalism. Nevertheless the lower order of Chinese risk the consequences, and readily devour ver- min and carrion. The dog is the sole quadruped eaten by all classes. Milk is little used ; butter and cheese are unknown. One source of food in universal favour, and un- failing in supply, is that of fish, with which all the rivers abound, and which are caught in various modes, the most curious being the employment of trained cormorants to dive for them. Artificial hatching of spawn, in egg-shells, for the continued replenishment of the rivers, has been practised for many generations. The sea fisheries are quite neglected. " We also find the mineral kingdom supplying the raw materials for various industries. Coal is abundant ; there are too springs of petroleum, and in other parts brine springs, MANUFACTURE OF PORCELAIN. 53 1 from which salt is prepared. Lenses have long been made, both concave and convex, from the rock crystal of Fokien. The ancient art of porcelain-making, which defied the science and skill of Europe for many years, owes its excel- lence to the prevalence of the kaolin clay. The precious metals are obtained in the south-west provinces adjoining Burmah. Copper, zinc, and iron are found in various parts. Quicksilver mines exist in the province of Quei-chow. Yuman is most prolific in metallic ores and other useful minerals, but everywhere the mining industry is unskilfully pursued." Second edition. These resources of China continued to be the principal bases of the national wealth, several constituents of which possess an economic history of great interest, and have exercised a wide influence upon the well-being of mankind beyond the confines of China. In the empire itself various manufactures of ancient origin were developed from native raw materials ; such for example as the manufacture of porcelain, or "China ware," as services of this beautiful substance were called when brought to England. Its fine hard texture and power of withstanding heat for centuries excited the emulation of European potters in vain. Its manufacture in China is supposed to date back to the seventh century, if not earlier. The best porcelain was made in the Kiang-se province, at the celebrated furnaces, more than five hundred in number, of Kin-he-chin, east of the Payang Lake ; the produce being transported to Nang- chang-foo for sale by canal. Commoner porcelain for foreign trade was made at Chaon-king-foo, west of Canton. the kaolin clay employed consists of silica with alumina, together with a trace of iron and a little potash or soda. It is derived from the oxidised felspar of granite. The glaze is formed of white quartz finely pounded, and rendered fusible by admixture with an alkali contained in the ashes of ferns. But we find the products of the furnaces of Worcestershire, Dresden, Berlin, and Sbvres now surpassing 532 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. the porcelain of China, and particularly in respect of paint- ing, gilding, and taste in design. Nevertheless the old blue "willow-pattern" plate, so indifferent to the laws of perspective, reminds us everywhere of the extent of our obligation to the Chinese for our progress in this division of manufacturing industry. Porcelain was first introduced into Europe by the Portuguese, in whose language the term forcella means a cup. By others the name is derived from that given to the substance of univalve shells, which, in turn, were said to be porcellanous, from the resemblance of their curved surface to the raised back of a porceUa, or little hog. Silk. — The manufacture of silk amongst the Chinese claims a higher antiquity than that of porcelain, native authorities tracing it as a national industry for a period of five thousand years. From China the looms of Persia and of Tyre were supplied with raw silk, and through these states the Greeks and the Romans obtained the envied luxury of silk tissues. The introduction of silkworm eggs into Europe was due to two missionaries, who brought them concealed in a bamboo to Byzantium. The food also of the silk-worm, the white mulberry {Moms alba), is of Chinese origin. In some parts of China the silk-worm lives upon trees in the open air, requiring little care or attention until the cocoons are gathered. The finest silk was produced in the parts adjacent to the thirtieth degree of north latitude, where the mulberry plantations are carefully tended^ shelter is provided for the worms, and assiduous care taken to preserve quiet and the requisite temperature. While the Chinese produced, age after age, their silk crapes, damasks, and figured satins, of undeviating quality, the Western nations made advances in silk weaving which left Chinese skill far in the background. These remarkable people fail in inventive power, but possess imitative ingenuity almost beyond belief. As they will faithfully reproduce, to order, CO TTOy.-PA PER-MA KIKG. 533 the highest trophies of the British ceramic art, even to the exact copying of a flaw or crack, so will they imitate in their simple looms the most beautiful fabrics of Lyons and Spital- fields, without being thereby inspired to improve their own products. China crape shawls were of an excellence such as the best imitations in France and England found it difficult to surpass. Cotton. — The Chinese obtained celebrity for the fineness and delicacy of their cotton manufactures long before America had produced a pound of the staple, or Manchester had woven a yard of the fabric. Nankin cotton, naturally of a light buff colour, was early in favour amongst us, the cloths being called jiankeens. This, as well as white cotton, is the produce of the herbaceous variety of cotton plant, although tree-cotton is also grown. Every process of work- ing the fibre remained primitive in its simplicity. A rude handmill, or roller-gin, consisting of two horizontal fluted wooden rollers, which revolve nearly in contact, at a little height above the ground, was employed to clean the cotton from the seeds. By these means about sixty pounds of cotton could be cleaned by one man in a day. The looms were equally rude in construction. Our first notice of the cotton manufactures of China is gathered from the travels of Marco Polo towards the close of the thirteenth century. It is probable that the use of the fibre for clothing was introduced at the period of the Tartar conquest, and struggled into favour, as the best form of clothing for the tropics, against the opposition of prejudice, especially that of the silk producers. At this period we find it in universal use, but the country did not yield enough for the wants of its vast population. M'uior Manufactures. — Papeniiakiui:;, from the inner bark of the mulberry, the bamboo, rice straw, and other materials, has been carried on for nearly two thousand years. The India-paper of commerce was of Chinese manufacture, coming from Canton as wrappers for silk goods. Despite the anti- 534 ^^^ GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. quity of the art, the paper continued of the flimsiest texture, much discoloured, and so thin that the printing could only be applied to one side of the sheet. Printing itself is an ancient Chinese art, its origin being traced to the tenth century, but with the usual stationary character of Chinese skill, it had not as yet advanced beyond the method of "block printing," similar, but not equal in merit, to the craft of our paper-stainers. The beautiful rice-paper of the Chinese, used by the native artists, and taking the most brilliant colours upon its surface, is not a true paper, but the pith of an herbaceous plant {Aralta papyrifera), which is cut spirally, with great skill after the fashion of the cork- cutter, and unwound like a sheet of paper, rolled round a ruler, and then flattened by pressure. Ifidian-ink was a Chinese manufacture the preparation of which was for a long while not understood in Europe. It was employed in China for every purpose for which we use a variety of inks. It was once imagined to be the product of the ink-bag of the cuttle-fish, and analogous to sepia, but is really a compound of gluten and lamp-black, with a little musk, bound together by animal size. Gunpowder was made in China before it was known in Europe, but its properties have been turned to account in the pyrotechnic art rather than in war. Chinese fireworks were remarkably ingenious, but the army was supplied with matchlocks of a fashion long since discarded in Europe. The amount of thought displayed by the Chinese in their industrial inventions must have involved a long and pro- gressive history. While with the Western races a steady if not rapid advancement marked more modern times, the strange phenomenon of Chinese history is that of progress abruptly ended, and an unimprovable fixity of life and manners stamped upon a third of the human family. Thus we find printing and paper, while they made literature the sole avenue to the highest rank, underwent little, if any improvement ; the possession of gunpowder led to no CHINESE COMMERCE. 535 martial development, and acquaintance with the mariner's compass never stimulated maritime enterprise. Again, the ingenuity of the Chinese was minute and unwearied, display- ing wonderful powers of endurance, but possible to a low order of intellect. These characteristics were shown in their embroidery, dyeing, varnishing, filigree work, and ivory carving ; examples of the last being seen in the nests of elaborately-carved balls, one within another, cut out of the solid, without a join, sometimes to the number of ten or a dozen. Their fans and artificial flowers were nowhere excelled, and the slavish fidelity with which they copied European models rendered it occasionally cheaper to repro- duce them in China than at home. Division of labour was resorted to, to a large extent. This was exemplified in the porcelain works, many of the products of which are said to have passed through forty hands. The monotonous reserve of the Chinese doubtless tended to the conservation of the empire, but it also cut them off from the civilising benefits which foreign intercourse confers. Commerce. — There are indications of the commerce of China having extended in ancient times considerably to the westward. The Arabs probably gained from Chinese mariners their knowledge of the polarity of the magnet. It is a fact, however, that with resources unapproached by the great mercantile nations of ancient or modern times the Chinese for centuries have not merely been passive, but have systematically discouraged intercourse with foreign nations. Traders belonged to the lowest social grade, and those who held intercourse with foreigners were regarded as the lowest of this grade. Manufacturers ranked above merchants, and husbandmen were only second to the learned class. Wealth, however, as in European societies, made many social distinctions void. "Of commerce confined to the Chinese, we notice the internal, amongst each other, is far more important than the external or foreign trade. The numerous canals and high- 530 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. ways create and facilitate an enormous domestic interchange. The Imperial Canal, the medium of communication between Pekin and Canton, a distance of twelve hundred miles, is of grander dimensions than aay other canal in the world. Such is the extent of the water-ways that a floating popula- tion of many millions subsists on board the river craft, having little connection with the people on shore except in the way of traffic. The country is so extensive, and its resources are so various, that an almost incalculably valu- able trade exists in the natural and artificial productions of the different provinces. " Foreign trade is both overland and maritime, and in each direction has existed from time immemorial. Native mer- chants in ancient days visited the Red Sea, and in modern mes a few even have been allured by hopes of profit to distant foreign ports. All the commercial nations of anti- quity held an intercourse, direct or indirect, with China. During the Middle Ages the Arabs, and afterwards the Italian merchants, conducted a very lucrative trade. Silks, bullion, tea, china-ware, musk, and other commodities have ever been objects of exchange of the caravan trade of Central Asia, of which Cashgar and Yarkhand are the fron- tier cities, and Bokhara the great emporium. Commercial intercourse has at last been established between Yarkhand and our possessions in India." An unimportant trade was carried on through Siberia with the Russians, particularly in the finest-flavoured teas, which thus reached Europe without injury, but were not able to retain their delicate aroma through the sea passage. Overland intercourse was still further pursued with the dependent territories of Mon- golia, Manchooria, and Thibet, and with those parts of Burmah and A nam abutting on the Chinese empire. Maritime traffic was carried on in the clumsy junks or native vessels with Japan, India, Java, Manilla, and other East India islands. One strange object of barter with the Javanese consisted of the edible bird's-nest, used by the CIUXESE COMMERCE. 537 Chinese in their soup as we use vermicelli. The demand for this commodity was so great that an annual importation took place of the value of several hundred thousand pounds. The maritime traffic may nevertheless be described as wholly in the hands of foreigners. It is this fact which gives interest and significance to its modern and recent history. The first Europeans visiting China of whom any record remains were the three Polos, in the thirteenth century. The narrative of Marco Polo, the most eminent of the family, is a mine of information not yet superseded. In 1586 the seaport of Macao, at the mouth of the Canton River, was ceded to the Portuguese in recognition of services rendered. This privilege was fettered by many irksome restrictions. Canton was the only port open to foreign commerce, until the year 1842. Merchants with their families were not allowed to reside in the port, and official interferences im- peded every stage of dealing. Trade was strictly confined to a specified number of native " Hongs," or merchants, who had to be answerable for the conduct of the " barbarians," or *' foreign devils," with whom they traded. The customs were capricious, and the government officers were extor- tionate and corrupt. For two centuries innumerable indig- nities were submitted to by the commercial states of Europe. The British trade with China was comprehended in the monopoly granted to the East India Company, by whom the price of the staple article of tea was regulated, there being no other sellers allowed. Various abortive embassies from England attempted to establish freer and more equitable relations. The first embassy was sent in 1793. The nineteenth century has been eventful in the history of Chinese commerce. The United States, soon after the revolutionary war, commenced an intercourse, which rapidly increased, and though British trade with China continued to overshadow all other, yet America soon stood in advance of every state except England. The privileges of the East India Company lapsed in 1834, 538 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. when, by Act of Parliament, the trade was thrown open to every British subject, and a vast impetus was communicated to it, the effects of which were quickly seen. The year 1838 opened a new chapter in Chinese policy. An illegal traffic in opium had long been connived at by the mandarins, who were themselves opium-smokers, till the menaces of the Government, repeatedly issued, came to be regarded as empty protests. The habit of consuming this drug had become ineradicable with the Chinese. It was produced in India, and its sale was so profitable that the duty upon it was the mainstay of the British Indian revenue. A chest of opium fetching in the market at Bombay from ^OfO to ;£s°i P^^d ^ <^^^y to the Government of ;^i2 loj-., and was sold at Canton for ;^i5o. Profits of such a nature on the one side, and the eager desire for the drug by the Chinese, broke through every restriction upon the traffic. Upon the appointment of Commissioner Lin to office, in 1839, the law was suddenly enforced, and a seizure and destruction of British opium, to the computed value of ;^3, 000,000 sterling, brought the unprecedented spectacle of a fleet of British men-of-war to seek retribution, or to make reprisals. The war which ensued could have but one termination. It lingered from 1838 to 1842, but the tea trade, pursued under other flags, suffered during the time no material diminution. Nankin was threatened by our soldiery, and the Emperor yielded. An indemnity for the opium destroyed, as well as for the costs of the war, was enforced. The vexatious obstructions to commerce were swept away. The Hongs were superseded, and trade was made free. The contemptuous style of address hitherto used towards the British was discontinued, and an equality of dignity was established between the two governments. The five ports of Canton, Amoy, Fou-chow-foo, Ning-po, and Shanghai, were opened to the vessels of all nations, and Hong Kong ceded to us. Since the opium war, the trade in the dru? did not diminish, but was carried on irregularly. CHINESE COMMERCE. 539 The Chinese pleaded that morality required the suppression of the opium trade. " If there exists a drug destructive of life, incessant efforts should be made to keep it at a dis- tance. The men accustomed to it can by no means relin- quish it. Their faces become as sharp as sparrows, and their heads sink between their shoulders in the form of a dove. The poison flows into their inmost vitals. Physic cannot cure their disease. Repentance comes too late for reform." The imperial state paper, from which this is quoted, proceeds to denounce the trade as causing "an oozing out of silver, whereby the fathomless gulf of the outer sea will soon be the receptacle of the easily exhaustible wealth of the central spring." The fear expressed of the "oozing out of silver" betrays an economic as well as a moral motive for putting an end to the opium trade. Before opium took such an important place in the trade of China, the exports of the country exceeded the imports, and the difference was balanced by specie. A yearly drain of silver ensued amounting on an average to ;43, 000,000, and this, in the estimation of a half-civilised people, who think the precious metals to possess value above every other form of wealth, was an injury to their country. By a stipulation, known as the "favoured nation clause," the English commissioner secured in perpetuity the equal enjoyment of all privileges granted by future treaty, with any commercial state whatever. Advantage was taken of this clause when, subsequently, the Americans negotiated a treaty with the Chinese. To enforce the observance of treaty obligations, a resort to war was again necessary, and, in alliance with the French, our military forces advanced to Pekin. Upon the conclusion of the contest new ports were opened, making in all twelve, besides the ports of the island of Formosa. By the terms of peace between Great Britain and China, signed at Tien-tsin, on the 26th of June, 1858, it was agreed " that there shall be a British minister at the Court of 54° ^^-S GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Pekin and a Chinese minister at St. James's, and that official business shall be transacted by each minister on a footing of equality ; that Christianity shall be tolerated throughout the Chinese Empire, and its ministers protected; that British subjects shall be allowed, with a consul's passport, to visit any part of the Chinese Empire ; that British ships of war may visit any of the Chinese ports, and that measures shall be concerted for the suppression of piracy." This treaty was again enforced at the cannon's mouth by the combined armies of France and England. After sacking the summer palace of the Emperor outside the walls of Pekin, preparations were next made for attacking the imperial city itself. Submission was obtained only a few hours before the time fixed for the attack. On the 24th October, i860, the English and French ambassadors entered Pekin, with a force of eight thousand men, when the Tien-tsin treaty was ratified, and two addi- tional articles were inserted, one to legalise Coolie emigra- tion. On the 26th of March 1861, the English and French embassies were installed in Pekin. During the period under consideration there was no further trouble with the Chinese. The full benefit of these extra facilities for trade still remained to be gathered, having been checked for some years by intestine strife in China, and by commercial depression in Europe and America. Of the newly-opened'ports Shanghai exhibited by far the largest commercial development, and greatly surpassed any other in the amount of its foreign trade. The most notable commodity amongst the exports from China was tea, the trade in which possesses a history hardly less remarkable than that of cotton. An entry in Mr. Pepys's Diary, dated 25th September, i66r, states that he sent for a cup of tea, a Chinese drink, of which he had never tasted before. Three years after, the East India Company's agent was commissioned to buy a small quantity, as a present to the king, from which time tea became an CHINESE COMMERCE. 541 article of regular trade. A duty of a hundred per cent, was levied upon tea previous to the lapse of the Company's charter, and was a fruitful source of revenue. This system was altered for a series of discriminating duties, which failed from the circumstance that the merchants knew better than the Custom-house officers the various qualities of the teas imported, and did not scruple to pass the best as inferior, at the lowest rates of duty. In 1836 a uniform rate of 2s. \d. per pound was imposed on every kind of tea, an amount since reduced by degrees to td. The tea imported in 1834, the last year of the Company's monopoly, amounted to 33,000,000 lbs., which was increased by one-third in the course of the following year. The average import during this epoch was about 126,000,000 lbs. Next to the English the Americans bought the most tea from China. This for a long time they obtained in exchange for furs ; but the Russians, who gradually extended their relations with China, obtained large tracts of land on the Amoor, and displaced the Americans as purveyors of furs. The rapid growth of trade is shown by the following facts. The quantities of tea shipped from the five ports in 1851 were : — United Kingdom United States Australia Holland . Other parts Overland to Russia, about Total 65,100,000 lbs. 34,327,000 „ 8,829,000 „ 3,000,000 „ 2,700,000 „ 15,000,000 „ 128,956,000 „ The statistics for the year ending June, 1S71, show : — Exports of tea to United Kingdom, about 132,000,000 ll)s. „ „ United States, „ . 49,000,000 „ „ ,, Australia ., . 12,000,000 „ „ ,, Holland, European Conti- nent, and other parts, about . . 2,500,000 „ 542 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. A considerable quantity sent overland to Russia, must be included, the statistics of which are not obtainable with certainty. The gross commerce of China at this time exceeded ;^i 00,000,000 Sterling, including treasure, of which nearly a third was with the British empire : considerably more than half being coasting trade ; while that with America, which exceeded the aggregate of all other countries, omitting Japan, barely went beyond a fiftieth. Thus we still retained a practical monopoly of the trade. We find Shanghai the principal trading port in China : its exports in i860 were valued at ;^io,779,3i9, its imports at ^,{^18,326, 430, including bullion and opium; in 1867, exclusive of treasure, they were to the value of ;^25, 000,000 sterling. "Large as these figures are, they are insignificant com- pared with the commercial capabilities of the empire ; as is evidenced by the crowded cities and the magnitude of the internal traffic, still conducted on a rude system of barter. An unbounded market for British manufactures must even- tually open, which the keen trading propensities of the people would promote, were it not for the jealousy of the government, a jealousy not lessened by the knowledge of British supremacy in India." Signs however were not want- ing of the cordon of ages of prejudice and pride being broken through, and of a desire for a more unrestricted share in the affairs of the world. Apart from the pressure put upon the government by the events of war, many thousands of the Chinese were allured abroad by the attractions of the gold fields of California and Australia, embassies visited the United States and the courts of Europe, and native merchants not only began to take an active part in the coasting trade of their country, but also to dispense with intermediaries in their foreign trade, chartering their own vessels for direct service, and establishing their own representative houses in the great commercial cities both of CHINESE COMMERCE. 543 the Old and the New World. Fears were at one time expressed that this activity heralded a policy of ousting foreign merchants from Chinese commerce ; but it seemed more reasonable to believe that the desire for European wares growing with the knowledge spread by enterprising natives of their superiority, and commerce, employing all agencies, would rapidly increase. The French established several Roman Catholic missions. The English introduced horse-racing at Pekin, which became very popular with the Chinese. The Russians constructed a telegraph to Kiachta, on the Siberian border ; and a survey was made by an English engineer for a rail- way from Canton to Shanghai, and also another line from Shanghai to Pekin. Tien-tsin also greatly improved since it became a trading port, and was soon transformed from one of the dirtiest to one of the handsomest of towns. In the foreigners' quarters, so called, the land was well raised, so as to ensure drainage and dryness, and a spacious quay and promenade, faced with solid masonry, formed along the river ; wide streets were then laid out and many handsome European houses built. It would not be easy to estimate the number of emigrants from the Celestial Empire to the gold diggings. There were more than fifteen thousand at the Victoria gold fields in 1870, and Dutch merchantmen alone carried to California over thirty thousand within a few years. If the ultimate benefit to China from this outflow could be ascertained, it would probably be found greater than the influence of all the gold which the diggings have yielded. " There has since been a continued exodus of Chinese, who have swarmed over Australia and our Eastern settlements, and who are perhaps destined eventually to compete with the free negroes in the Mississippi valley. The Chinese are not properly colonists, they are temporary settlers, who when they have made for themselves a frugal provision by their industry, return to the Flowery Land." CHAPTER XIX. JAPAN FROM 1 790-1885 Our earliest knowledge of this empire was derived from the descriptions of Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller, of the thirteenth century. Mendez-Pinto visited Japan in 1535 or 1542, and soon after the Portuguese effected a settlement. At this time Portugal was in the meridian of her power, and commercial intercourse, begun under favour- able auspices, soon became extensive. Interfused with the desire for trade was that of converting the Japanese to Christianity ; a mission upon which a number of Jesuit priests were sent, and in which they met with unexpected success. The Portuguese, however, fell into the error of disdaining the Japanese. Rancorous disputes arose with the priests, and a reaction set in against the Christians. Presuming upon their influence with the Japanese Govern- ment, the Portuguese conducted themselves as masters of the country, and made their ambitious designs apparent. The effects of this folly fell first upon their converts, thousands of whom were massacred to prevent their siding with the Portuguese, as well as to afford an outlet for religious animosity. Another source of peril to the Portu- guese was the presence of British and Dutch traders. Philip II. being at war with Holland, the Portuguese were exposed to the reprisals of the Dutch. One of their vessels was captured, on board of which papers were found disclosing a conspiracy to subvert the Government, and the Dutch communicated the fact to the authorities in Japan. The jealous disposition of the Japanese put an end to such machinations by driving the Portuguese out of the country, JAPAN. 545 and sealing their coasts against foreigners. Even the friendly Dutch, who alone were admitted to trade, were not allowed to reside in Japan proper, but had the small island of Jesima or Djecima, connected with Nagasaki by a bridge, allotted to them for a factory, where, restricted to eleven vessels annually, they were under strict surveillance, and had to endure humiliations which the profit they obtained alone enabled them to bear. The nature of the imports and exports, at first left to the traders, soon began to be precisely defined ; the Dutch East India Company were still more narrowly limited to two vessels, the crews of which were to be secluded from the natives during their stay. Beside these severities the trade was often suspended altogether upon offence either given or fancied. Thus the short-sighted arrogance and cupidity of the Portuguese, acting upon the suspicious prejudices of this narrow-minded people, shut Europeans out of the Japanese Empire during two hundred years. With the Chinese, intercourse was freer, but not extensive. Holland continued, as far as possible, its commercial connection with Japan, during all the disastrous period from the breaking out of the French Revolution in 1789 to the peace of 18 15. Her flag waved over the factory even when the Dutch ships were swept from the sea as in the years from 1810 to 1814. As soon, moreover, as peace was declared the old trade was renewed. The Japanese at the same time became somewhat less exclusive, for they opened their ports to the inhabitants of the Loo Choo islands and of Corea, as well as to the Chinese. Every European state envied the Dutch their privileges, and the United States made many efforts to obtain a footing in the country. The Japanese began to perceive, when the Chinese could no longer hold out against the pertinacity of European traders, and first with the British, then with the French, the Russians, and lastly with the Americans, were forced into commercial amity, that the like fate was imminent III 2 M 546 THE GROWTH AND I'lCISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. to Japan, and that they could not much longer frustrate the determination of the merchants. The Dutch themselves advised a relaxation of the commercial exclusiveness. A treaty with the United States was therefore concluded in 1854 : a similar treaty with Great Britain followed in the same year, and one with Russia in 1855. Nagasaki and Hakodadi were made free to the ships of these countries in 1856 without the humiliating conditions attached to Dutch commerce. In 1858 Lord Elgin proceeded on a mission to Japan, taking with him a steam-vessel as a present to the Emperor. He obtained an enlargement of the commercial treaty, and in the succeeding year Sir Rutherford Alcock was appointed Consul-General in Japan. Between i860 and 1862 a Japanese embassy visited New York, France, England, Holland and Prussia. A brother of the Tycoon (as the temporal ruler of Japan is usually styled by Europeans) came over to England. Our knowledge of the islands greatly extended, though it was acquired in the face of many misunderstandings. Attacks were made upon the British embassy in 1861 and again in 1862, and ill-will to- wards foreigners was repeatedly evinced. These acts were followed by retaliatory measures, in which the Japanese suffered. On various occasions the Government broke through the treaties and tried to revoke the privileges previously granted, conduct which was met by a display of European and American naval power. Yedo or Jeddo, Osaka and Hiogo, were opened to European commerce. English merchants and bankers established themselves at Yokohama, the port of Yedo, and prospects of an extremely valuable commerce developed. During this period there was no fresh renewal of religious antagonism. The collisions between the Japanese and the foreign traders had only a commercial origin. By a curious inversion of the sentiment that influences most industrial states, the Japanese were not so anxious to keep foreign merchandise out of their country as to retain their JAPANESE COMMERCE. 547 native goods at home. A belief prevailed that the country was impoverished by exporting its copper, silk, and other produce, but that it was enriched by importing. Efforts were therefore made to increase the imports and to diminish the exports, with apparent blindness to the fact that inter- change must inevitably equalise itself, and that the balance of trade must be rectified with specie. The fact is remark- ably illustrated in the British trade, which has capriciously varied in value and amount since i860. Date. Exported from Japan. Imported into Japan. i860 /i67,5ii /.2 1861 538,687 43,631 1862 591,885 254 1863 1,283,631 125,628 1866 273.745 1-559J50 1867 317,799 1,694,008 1 868 181,222 1,112,804 1869 167,308 1,442,104 1870 96,173 1,609,367 18S4 662,441 2,604,490 The year 1862 was disturbed by a fanatical attack upon the foreign residents, which made them change their resi- dence from Yedo to Yokohama. In 1S65 treaties were ratified with England, France, and others powers. At the same time alarm was evinced at the rapid growth of foreign trade, and obstructions to the treaties were created by the same hand that signed them. The Government had not then learnt the economic truth " that to encourage commerce is to invigorate its own power and resources. " In an ofificial report for 1864 upon the trade of Yokohama it is remarked that an abundant crop of silk had been gathered, and that great quantities were intercepted by the Government on the way to the port, to the great indignation of the native mer- chants who would gladly get the high prices offered for their commodity by the foreign traders. 548 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. All the oriental races have a passion for silver bullion, and it by no means tended to remove the dislike of the Japanese towards foreign traders that they were obliged in lieu of silk to part with their cherished silver. The most elementary truths of political economy, as a science, were unknown to the Japanese. Natural sagacity made them conform to many correct principles, but others that require to be sought for more than surface deep were intermingled with error, and were violated as flagrantly as in Russia or Spain. Their monetary matters afford an example. Acute Europeans saw a way of taking advantage of the crude measurement of values, and speculated in silver specie in such a way that the ancient fears of foreign trade seemed likely to revive. The last few years saw considerable change in Japanese sentiments. To Eng- land and America a considerable number of Japanese youths, of both sexes, were sent by their Government, to acquire, and afterwards return and impart to their own countrymen, a knowledge of the arts and sciences of the West. The Mint of Japan, however, was placed under an English superintendent, and there was to be an end of the rude Japanese currency with its rectangular plates of gold and silver. Japanese exports comprised bar copper, silk, tea, tobacco, camphor, vegetable wax, cotton, galls, and lacquered or japanned ware, the imports being European manufactures and goods similar in kind to those taken by China, India, and other Eastern states. CHAPTER XX. SUMMARY. FOURTH PERIOD.— RECENT COMMERCE FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IN 17S9 TO 1885.— CO.U- MERCE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. The history of nineteenth century Commerce is divided into three periods, well defined by alterations of commercial policy. 1. From 1789-1815, comprises the epochs of the French Revolution and of the First Empire. 2. From 18 1 5-1 845, deserves to be designated the Age of Protection, in contradistinction to 3. The period from that date to 1885, during which the principles of Free Trade were acted upon by England and found partial acceptance abroad. The salient commercial feature of the First Period, was the Continental System, established by Napoleon's Berlin Decrees, and reduced to a code in the Decrees of Milan. Its object was to ruin England, by cutting her off from her European customers. The effects, however, recoiled upon France, by depriving her citizens of English goods, which had from use become a necessity, while the blockade, far from being successful to the extent intended, urged England to seek a wider range of commerce. Every European state has been infiuenced by the wish to resist the preponderance of the United Kingdom, m manufacturing industry and in foreign trade. This desire has been an incentive to excel- lence in workmanship, and produced such success, that in order to keep British industry abreast of Continental, great efforts were made to establish technical schools, and provide 550 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. instruction in science and the arts of design. Attempts to banish British fabrics from use on the Continent met with but partial success, and that at the cost of the consumer. The most judiciously framed and lasting combination against British industry was that of the ZoUverein or Con- federated Customs' Union, initiated by Prussia, in 1818, and generally adopted in Germany in 1834. Great economy was effected by the collection of tolls, once for all, on the common frontiers of Germany, instead of levying dues, as heretofore, in every state through which merchandise had to pass. By lessening thus the cost of production native industry was fostered, while British goods were as far as possible excluded by prohibitive tariffs. The unity of the German Empire, now an accomplished fact, assisted to bring about a still closer identity of interests amongst the confederated states, and promote the growth of German industry and commerce. The United Kingdom retaliated for many years by ex- cluding from British ports foreign ships and merchandise, particularly grain. Since 1846 this policy has been totally changed, and British trade made free to all the world. The increase in exports and imports, since this great reversal of principles, has been unprecedented. From the breaking out of the French Revolution in 1789, to the battle of Waterloo in 1S15, there was almost unin- terrupted war. Napoleon's Continental System affected injuriously the prosperity of every European state ; and there was not one, while in arms against the French, but was dependent, more or less, upon England for the means of keeping troops in the field. Looking back at the system of subsidising foreign states, we see little result from the policy pursued. It was the occasion of wars being prolonged, and of fresh ones being commenced, whose interference with industry and commerce caused much greater loss than was covered by the subsidy. The ties of race are stronger than the bonds of conquest. EXGLA XD'S DEB T. J 5 I Blood and treasure were wasted, and Europe was thrown back for several generations. Had the sentiments and manners of the eighteenth century encouraged industry, intercourse, and education, instead of slaughter, the aspira- tions of the German people for unity might have been sooner realised. The foundations of the prosperity of Great Britain were strengthened during the gigantic struggle with France. Great as British commerce had before been, there were presented in Asia further fertile fields of enterprise, from which rich harvests began to be gathered. 2. At the conclusion of peace in 1815, social and political changes had grown too complex for affairs to resume their former state at once. Millions of men had been withdrawn from productive industries, and their energies employed in destruction. They lavishly consumed the stores of previous ages as well as the hard-won products of present labour ; in economic language, they lived upon the capital that should have been applied to industry, and produced nothing. Loans had been resorted to, and the labour of future generations mortgaged to repay them. France lost her colonies, her fleet, and for a time her foreign commerce. England became burdened with a debt which the gold of the whole world was perhaps insufficient to redeem, and which at its greatest, amounted to nearly a thousand millions sterling. The interest alone at the end of the war was twice the whole revenue in 1789. In the last year of peace, 1792, the expenditure was under ;^2o,ooo,ooo. In 1814 it was nearly ;!^io7, 000,000, and the expenses of the preceding year were well-nigh as great. To meet these prodigious demands, every commodity, raw and manufactured, was fettered with customs or excise duties. Labour was thus placed at a disadvantage, while food rose to famine prices. 3. Science and inventions have, notwithstanding, done more than war to mould subsequent history. Steam power 552 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. applied to machinery and locomotion, and electricity to telegraphy, have been among the chief agents in bringing about an economy of labour and time, the results of which surpassed all former experience. Industry, with a career before it of an altogether higher range, seemed to be started anew. Nations once thought to be shut out by nature from emulative exertions, were brought by the aid of science into the front rank. Switzerland, the home of the moun- taineer, hemmed in by powerful states, without a port, with soil almost too scanty to grow food for the people or herbage for the cattle, without coal or metals, rose superior to these drawbacks, and became renowned for its manufactures, and, in parts, for its dairy farms and grazing lands. America assumed a most important place in later com- mercial history. The United States won their freedom, and, by repeated accessions, their territories reached im- perial dimensions. The enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon and other European races found a field of employment in the great republic, whose home industries and foreign trade were second only to those of the mother country. Except in a few colonies and the British territory in North America, the New World remained free from the political control of Europe. The Spanish republics in South America, through intestine jealousies, made no progress comparable to that of the United States, but the liberties they achieved opened their ports, and altered the nature and direction of their trade. Brazil, awakening to the greatness of her splendid resources, in 187 1 decreed the liberty of her slaves. The development of India is another distinctive feature of this century. About two hundred years ago a few humble adventurers sued for permission to trade with the subjects of the ancient princes of India. But at this time from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, from Cabul to Burmah, a vast area of a million squares miles, with a population of one hundred and fifty-one millions, owned DISCO I'ERY OF GOL D. 553 the rule of the British Crown. India perhaps rivals Europe in variety of race, religion, social systems, climate, and productions, and possesses a more venerable though less advanced civilisation. Since the mutiny of 1857, this magnificent territory became directly subject to the British Crown. The charter of the British East India Company was taken away, and trade thrown open to India and China. Indian afitairs were managed by a Secretary of State at home, and by a Governor-General and Governors of Presidencies and Provinces, each assisted by a Council in India. A higher political morality directed the admin- istration of the Government of India as a trust for the benefit of the inhabitants, and not merely as a means of enriching the rulers. China, gradually divesting herself of her old exclusiveness, both internally and externally, cultivated the acquaintance of the despised "barbarians." Ships from England and the United States especially, became increasingly numerous on the Chinese seas. Chinese ambassadors visited Europe and America, and Chinese labour found its way into Cali- fornia, Australia, and the West Indies. As many as three hundred Japanese students, of high rank, were sent by their Government to acquire a knowledge of European civilisation. The excitement in both worlds caused by the discovery of gold in California was still fresh in the minds of the people. Gold worth 140,000,000 dollars is estimated to have been obtained from California between the years 1849 ^"^d ^857. The country continued to furnish us with treasure, and added thereto many valuable raw materials, but its affairs gradually calmed down almost as quietly as though it had no gold fields. Australia, although not completely explored, rose to a high place in commerce, and by its gold fields and pastoral expanses attracted colonists from every part of the world. Gold, in quantities profitable for working, has since been 554 ^^-^ GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. obtained in many other places, the presence of the precious metal having been indicated to scientific geologists by the local rock structure. Abundant finds of diamonds, again, drew and attracted many adventurers to the South African Colony. Greater and more hopeful changes were crowded into this brief commercial epoch than into ancient, mediaeval, or modern times. The world at large learnt that self-depen- dence is not achieved by disdainful exclusiveness and holding aloof from social intercourse. The mutual dependence of a family is a truer self-dependence on the part of each of its members than it would be if disunion deprived them of power. Commerce at this period promoted the freest intercommunication and exchange as it gradually became unimpeded by protective duties. Should this freedom from fiscal hindrances ever prevail tiniversally, each branch of industry and production will more and more fall into the hands of those whose skill and intelligence can turn it to the best account. Commerce thus leads to closer fellow- ships amongst nations, and teaches them that they form but separate provinces of the universal kingdom of man- kind. The British Government largely legislated in the later years for the working classes. In deference to the claims of "the million," taxes on food, on knowledge, on health, on cleanliness, on domestic comfort, were abolished, and the principle laid down that the consumers' claims are paramount ; and the liberty of the few — the producers- does not extend, for their supposed individual advantage, to the power of taxing the many — the consumers. Political disabilities were also removed, and freedom of speech and discussion, of union for regulating wages and other trade objects were accorded, not as privileges, but as legal rights. Working men's clubs and news-rooms, co-operative stores, and even trades unions, now relieved from stringent penal laws, were amongst the most hopeful AN INDUSTRIAL REl'OLUTION. 555 industrial features of those days. The Government for several years directed inquiries into the condition of the working classes abroad, and with valuable and highly interesting results. Acknowledging the fact that it is not the aggregate wealth, or income of a state, but the amount separately enjoyed by the individuals forming a community, that tests its well- being, efforts were made, through the British ambassadors and consuls, to learn what were the relative earnings of the operatives in various parts of the world. By the con- tinuance of these researches, and a comparison of the various wages' funds, a body of trustworthy statistics may at length furnish evidence of the advancement or decadence, relative and actual, of states, and direct attention to conduct and legislation. " Indisputable inferences, based upon the evidence afforded by the ignorance, want, misery, vice, and crime, in our midst, establish the fact that the wealthiest country in the world is still comparatively poor, that the necessaries and comforts of life could be indefinitely multi- plied without an excess of enjoyment, and that this increase is possible, when the industrial virtues act more effectually, through early education, to mould the character and habits of the producers of wealth." The enfranchisement of labour and trade effected a silent industrial revolution. Great undertakings once impossible on account of legal difficulties which beset the practice of co-operation were upon the principle of limited liability, now successfully carried on. Banks, companies, partner- ships greatly multiplied, and co-operative factories and stores in many instances bridged over the imaginary gulf between the capitalist and the labourer by giving the latter a direct interest in the investment of his savings, and the first profits from trade formerly intercepted by an intermediary master. With the political enfranchisement of the people, a dis- position arose to regard the action of Government as that of the whole community, and to entrust it with duties 556 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. formerly jealously withheld. Postal service, telegraphs, savings-banks, insurances, and railways, in some countries wholly, and in others partially, were for the public benefit relegated to state control. Education, sanitary arrange- ments, the supply of water and of gas, and other objects of national magnitude, also became, or tended to become, sub- ject to municipal or government administration. The spirit of political freedom also reached the British colonies. Self-government and freely-elected legislatures prevailed in Australia, the Cape Colony, the Canadian Dominion, and every important settlement. In Europe it resulted in a united Germany and Italy and a free Spain, while France was profoundly stirred with the question of her future form of government. The prominent industrial feature throughout the latter portion of this third period is the conflict between the antagonistic principles of restricted and unrestricted trade. Perfect civilisation and perfect freedom are convertible terms. Conversely, restrictions upon thought and inter- course are distinctive of times of ignorance, and traceable to isolated barbarism. Nature herself is protectionist in the best sense of the term, imposing climatic conditions upon the products of the soil, and appointing bounds to the manifold forms of animal and plant life. Human agency effectively promotes the operation of natural laws, but is powerless to reverse them and to cause abundance where its conditions are absent. Yet this is the purpose of legislative restrictions, whether avowed or not. The pro- tective principle has been as varied in its manifestations as the ages and countries of its adoption, and has sheltered, both in their simplest developments and in their most com- plex combinations, every phase of husbandry, handicraft, and interchange. Its enactment may, notwithstanding, be founded upon a few simple facts. Where natural resources abound, that is, where there is enough and to spare of any commodity, as the cotton of America, the tea of China, the THE P ROT EC TI P'E S VS TEM. 557 wool of Australia, protection is not called for, for it would be " sending coals to Newcastle " to dispatch goods to places where a surplus of home-growth is already looking for buyers. Where nature furnishes scanty sup]:»lies one of two courses may be followed — either a free market will be opened to foreign supplies, and industrial energy will direct itself to produce exchangeable commodities for which the region is favourable, or the scanty native produce will be protected, that is, an embargo or prohibition will be placed upon foreign supplies, in so far as they tend to lessen the profits of home producers. Home growths are thus enhanced in price and consumption is limited, the enjoyments of the community are curtailed, and the many are indirectly made to contribute to the profits of the privileged few, "The administration of a protective system, in all its rami- fications, has been exemplified in England. Excise dues have been levied upon home industries until scarce a neces- sary of life escaped. Trcades guilds and trades unions, in the supposed interests of handicrafts, have interfered still more minutely with free production. Customs dues have prohibited altogether, or have much diminished, foreign imports, while by discriminative dues an attempt has been made to regulate intercourse with our colonies, and with free as distinguished from slave states. Monopolies or privileges of manufacture and of foreign trade have in innumer- able instances been granted to individuals and to com- panies, and navigation acts for two hundred years confined British commerce almost exclusively to native vessels and seamen. " The British Corn Laws excited and lived through thirty years of class animosity, and fell at length before the logic of famine and sedition. The cotton manufacture in its infancy had to struggle against opposition from fiscal im- pediments, but at length overcame the rivalry of the woollen 558 THE GROWTH A-\D VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. and linen trades, and eventually even benefited these older manufactures, to which its introduction was believed to have given the death-blow. Silk-weaving was anomalously protected. Brought to England by the French Protestant refugees, it was welcomed as a national boon, but for many generations, strangely implying that a blessing might be too widespread, the industry was jealously confined to Spital- fields and Coventry, each locality being again restricted to special branches of the art. " Experience of the protective principle, in all its bearings, is now so extensive that we are able to predicate the general results upon existing industry following upon its enforce- ment. It concentrates profits in the hands of a few, and in so far is successful in its aim. These profits are, at the best, abstracted from other branches of industry, in order to equalise suitable and unsuitable enterprises. Profits, however, are proportionate to the extent of trade, which, diminished by restricted competition, and suffering loss from every obstruction, essays to produce a vain semblance of prosperity by enriching individuals. Wherever protection has been adopted, its consequences have been less trade in its entirety, even if a forced market has been formed for home produce, which otherwise would have found no market at all. Wherever free trade has prevailed it has brought increased commercial intercourse, and has generated the most healthful stimulus to improvement, *' The crucial tests of the protective principle as an agent of production are — i. That its enactment should enrich individuals without equivalent cost to other members of the community. 2. That it should create some industries with- out equivalent disparagement to others. 3. That it should cause production where otherwise there would be none, or equalise the conditions of production, at a less cost than by any other means. Tried by these principles, the British Navigation Laws, as well as the Corn Laws, stand con- FREE-TRADE. 559 demned ; the first, as limiting competition, and therefore improvement, the second as enriching the few through the suffering of the many ; while, on the other hand, the mono- poly of the East India Company, the Hudson's Bay Com- pany, and many patent rights, granted for a term, and not in perpetuity, have been justifiable on the ground that the functions undertaken would, without legislative privileges, have been less economically, or not at all, performed." In the forcible language of Mr. Charles Tennant : — "The result of all this experience clearly shows that every relaxation of restrictive duties has been immediately followed by an expansion and increase of trade, much more than sufficient to compensate for the loss of the abandoned duties ; and that, so sensitive is trade to any restraints upon perfect freedom of action, the removal of any impediments, even in the minutest arrangements of official routine, is attended with immediate and sensible effects to the same end — the extension and enlargement of trade, with all the necessary consequences of increase in the rates of profits and wages, and of employment and comforts, to the work- ing classes. " With such experience of relaxing only the rigid rules of the present system, what may not be expected from the total abolition of all restrictive duties and other impediments to perfect freedom of trade in this country ? " Even the most sanguine advocate of free-trade could hardly have foreseen such vast results in so short a time from such small beginnings. " It is, therefore, impossible to calculate beforehand what would be the state of trade in a very few years from the date of its perfect freedom and independence. But this is certain, that, in the absence of any national calamity from other causes, this country would then be in a state of pros- perity unexanipled in any period of its past history ; and that, the example of this nation would be like a beacon of light to guide other nations of the world into the same track. 560 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. that all may be as one nation, with one and the same in- terest, mutually interchanging, for their mutual benefit, the varied and peculiar gifts of climate, soil, and produce, be- stowed on each by a bounteous Providence, whose gifts are limited by no measure, and who would have all Mankind as one People, looking to one and the same God, the Giver of all, and for the equal good of all. " This is the first step in the establishment of peace on the firm foundation of one common and equal interest. Na- tions, like individuals, must learn from experience. They will learn that, in the establishment of peace on earth they are all equally interested. The boundaries of kingdoms will then be of, comparatively, very little consequence, and when the people are duly impressed with all this, as proved to their own conviction, war will be no longer possible. Year by year they will be learning this through conse- quences which must convince them. They will feel in the freedom of trade their own freedom and worldly welfare, and they will learn to regard the rights and interests of others for the sake of their own, if for no higher and better motives. In this way savage and barbarous people will be first taught to appreciate the comforts of civilisation, and they, in their turn, will become the promoters of civilisation by the same means. Year by year, under this teaching, the shackles of slavery and serfdom must be loosened, and in the end drop off. Slaves and serfs must be set free because it will be seen to be for the interests of all that they should be free. Freedom of trade will then be valued and guarded with no less jealous care in all countries than personal free- dom now is in this country. To the freedom of the Press we shall owe freedom of Trade, and we shall know how to value both. We shall claim and exercise the right to buy and sell as freely as we now speak and write. We shall learn to respect the grand simplicity of the Divine Com- mandments, written on tablets of stone by the first Law- giver, and to submit ourselves more faithfully than we have MORALS OF COMMERCE. 5 6 I ever done before to the Divine Spirit of those ancient and eternal Laws, given for all people, for all times, under all circumstances, and so plain as to require no Commentators. We shall learn through these to see the unwise severity, the feeble folly, and often the wicked injustice of human laws ; and, in the enjoyment of our own natural and lawful rights, we shall learn to respect the natural and la^\'ful rights of others. We shall learn that, what is commonly called ' accommo- dating oneself to the prejudices of individuals, or showing a prudent respect ' for strange customs and peculiar habits of thought, or for moral characteristics of nations, is nothing but a just appreciation of the intellectual and moral develop- ment of the individuals or nations, and the right employ- ment, in each case, of precisely those agencies of civilisation which are fitted to be most effective. The work of legisla- tion will then be comparatively simple, and the line of duty plain. The necessity of making just laws and enforcing them will then be universally acknowledged and sup- ported, and there will be always a vast majority ready to enforce them. The complicated interests of society will then be no longer the miserable excuse for unjust and oppressive laws. Sovereigns and Governments will then find their own duties much more easy, and their own posi- tions much more secure ; — they will find their best security in the well-being and contentment of the People, and the People will find their greatest happiness in the preservation of peace and good order, which left them free to think and to act in all that concerned themselves alone ; to manage their own affairs in their own ways, and to enjoy the fruits of their own industry. " The People will then be encouraged to place confidence in sound principles, and they will regulate their o\vn con- duct more in accordance with reason and justice, — more consistently with humanity and prudence. They will learn to respect and apply, in the moral affairs of this world, those truths discovered through reason, which, in the physical III. 2 N 562 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. world, are revealed to us through the laws of nature, and they will proceed to act with the same confidence in the one as in the other. Thus, they will derive incalculable advantages, far beyond the present reach of human fore- sight. Irreconcilable difficulties in the present complicated state of human affairs will then be simplified, and by degrees all will become reconciled with reason and truth. Freedom of trade, being seen to work for the equal benefit of all, will be recognised and established all over the world with universal consent, and freedom of thought and action must follow by the same universal assent. " Thus, a mutually beneficial intercourse would be en- couraged with all civilised nations : all would contribute and receive : the bond of union would be always strength- ening, and would be held fast by one common interest. Thus it might be — thus it surely will be. It is only a question of time. But the sooner the better, for time must always be a question of life and death. We might then hope to see the world full of free nations, mankind a great family and household constituted of self-governing members, related to each other principally by voluntary ties — of affection and honour and mutual service. We might then hope to see national selfishness perish, and the whole world become a commonwealth of independent nations, with England foremost in the good work of promoting the spirit of human brotherhood." SUPPLEMENT. It is desirable to present the commerce, or total turnover, of countries, in direct ratio one to another, — for the purpose of comparison. Hence, the commerce of each (imports and exports), is here given in percentages, calculated from an assumed standard of ;^ 100,000, coo ; because that number is the most convenient, though, as is well known, it is below the turnover of the United Kingdom, the United States, and France. Thus, assuming the total commerce of any one country to be ;^8o,ooo,ooo, and that of another to be ;!£"io5, 000,000, a comparison between them is easily ex- pressed in the statements of, ''ratio, 80 per cent. : 105 per cent." Difference, 25 per cent. The statistics are given in "sterling," without reference to market prices, that is, whether in any one year, a sovereign sterling will or will not purchase more of any one commodity than at another time. ' England ' in the following paragraphs stands for " the United Kingdom." Portugal. Trade is principally with England, — nearly 50 per cent, of the whole, followed by France and Brazil. ^^ p. c. p. c. 1865, imports from England to Portugal equalled 2.07 — exports, 2.47 1870, „ „ „ 1.93 „ 3.02 1873. .. .. „ 2.93 „ 4.32 1881, ^ „ „ „ 2.09 „ 3.35 1S85, „ „ „ 1.75 „ 2,67 564 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. In 1870 the total trade of Portugal was under 5 per cent., in 1881 11.95 P^r cent, and in 1885 13.8 percent., showing a steady increase. Wijie is the chief export to the United Kingdom, followed by cork, ores, &c., and the imports are cotton goods, iron, coal, and other textiles. The quantity of wine sent into England in 1869 was .88, in 1870 .95, in 187 1 1.3 per cent, in value, and in 1881, after having risen to 1.43 per cent., the value fell again to .88 per cent., and kept about the same up to 1885, when it was ,91 per cent. Portuguese Colonies. — Macao is the most valuable : turning over recently, 4.85 per cent, followed by Angola, 1.06 per cent : Mozatubiqiie, .48 per cent. ; Cape Verds, .28 per cent ; St. Thomas, 6^r., .25 per cent, and Guinea^ .n per cent. Brazil. — The United Kingdom and the United States take each about 33 per cent, of the entire trade, followed by France and Germany. The staple product is coffee, then cotton, sugar, caout- chouc, &c., in exchange for manufactured textiles, iron, coal, &C. ■tU p. c. p. c. 1865, imports from England to Brazil equalled 5.65 — exports, 6.8 1S70, „ ,, ,, 5.36 „ 6.12 1875, .. .. .> 7-67 „ 7 1881, ,, „ „ 6.65 „ 6.34 1885, ,, ,, ,, 5.35 „ 4-1 The coffee exports show an almost unparalleled rise ; in 1830 the quantity shipped was under 400,000 bags, and in less than 40 years they rose (in 1867) to 2| millions of bags, valued at 8.77 per cent., while in 1885 the value was about 14.00 per cent Coffee to England has declined a little in late years, being valued in 1883 at i.i per cent., and in 1885 at .47 per cent SUPPLEMENT. 565 Spain. — Trade has steadily increased; it is divided in the following order, France about 48 per cent, of the whole trade, England about 35 per cent., and the United States about 10 per cent. The chief export to England is wine, followed by ores and fruit, in exchange for textiles, iron, and coal. *-^ p. c. p. c. 1865, imports from England to Spain equalled 2.35 — exports, 4.76 1870, „ „ „ 2.5 „ 6.06 1874, „ „ „ 4.0 „ 8.64 1881, „ „ „ 3.65 „ 10.03 In 1885 (after rising to 3.8 per cent, and 11.6 per cent), the imports from England to Spain equalled 3.16 per cent., and exports 9.46 per cent. The total trade averaged between 1865 and 1874, exports, 12 per cent, and imports, 19 per cent. ; in 1880 they rose to, exports, 25.75 per cent., and i?nports, 28.50 per cent. ; and in 1884, exports, 24.75 V^^ cent, and imports, 31.2 per cent The wine trade to England in 1870 equalled about i\ million gallons, valued at 2 per cent; these figures, after rising up to 1873, fell away, and in 1876 were 6| million gallons, but valued at the same figure; in 1880 the value fell to 1.47 per cent., and in 1885 to i per cent. Spanish Colonies. — Cuba atid Porto Rico. ■iri — p. c. p. c. 1870, imports from England equalled 2.51 — exports, 5.36 1873. .. » 2.75 „ 5.1 1874, M M i-i^5 .. 376 1885, „ „ 1.5 „ .98 The staph export is sugar, followed by tobacco, in ex- change for textiles. Philippine Islands. ■In — p. c. p. c. 1873, imports from England equalled .43 — exports, 1.42 1885, „ „ .95 „ .98 566 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. The staple exports are sugar, hemp, and tobacco, in ex= change for textiles. La Plata. — Commerce has very largely developed with the Argentine Confederation. The total imports in 1864 were 4.37 per cent., rising suddenly in 1865 to 5.42 per cent, and exports in 1865, 4.4 per cent., of which trade England had about half. Since this date, commerce has much increased, and is shared first by Great Britain, then by France (the imports from England being largest and the exports to France over- balancing those to England), followed at a long distance by Belgium, &:c. p. c. p. c. The total imports in 1881, equalled 11.00 — exports, 11.6 „ „ 1885, ,, 18.4 „ 16.4 ■tn p. c. p. c. 1870, imports from England were 2.34 — exports, 1.48 1874, ,, „ 3.12 „ 1.27 1881, ,, „ 3.34 „ .58 1882, ,, ,, 4.16 „ 1.23 1885, „ ,, 4.66 „ 1.88 The staple exports to England are animal products and grain, in exchange for textiles, coal, and machinery. Uruguay. — This country is one of England's best cus- tomers, and prosecutes an active commerce with, first Eng- land, then France, Brazil, the "States," Spain, &c. ■Iri p. c. p. c. 1866, the ^oxts from France x\ed.x\y equal- ling the imports from England and the " States " together. p. c p. c. The /^/a/ imports in 1874 equalled 5.7 — exports, 5.09 iSSi „ 5.8 „ 7-8 1S85 9-3 In— 1867, imports from England to Mexico equalled .81- 1870, „ „ „ .91 1874, „ „ „ 1. 12 1881, „ „ „ 1.6 1884, „ „ „ I.OI 1885, „ „ „ .8 7.16 -exports, 570 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Texas is now included in the Trade Returns of the United States, Netherlands. — Holland. — Trade is mainly carried on with Great Britain and Germany, after the Dutch colonies. With England, trade has gradually increased for the last quarter of a century. ±11 p. c. p. c. 1861, imports from England to Hollanc equalled 6.43- -exports, 7,7 1865, „ ^ „ 8.1 1 12.45 1870, „ 11.22 14-31 1874. 14.42 1446 1880, 9-24 .. 25.9 1884, „ 10.24 ,, 25.87 1885, 8.88 ., 25 The staple exports are dairy produce (butter and butterine alone equalled 4.46 per cent, in 1885), cattle, gin, manu- factures, &c., in exchange for textiles, yarn, &c. A great deal of the active trade is transit, for the Colonial movements between the two countries are very large. The total imports in 1872 equalled 105.46 per cent, and exports 103.76 per cent., made up of 65.38 per cent. general imports and 40.08 per cent. Jionie consumption imports, and 54.98 per cent, oi general exports and 48.78 per cent, of home produce exports. In 1880 the imports equalled 70 per cent, and exports 52.5 per cent. In 1885 the imports were 94 per cent and exports 70.88 per cent., these are Home consumption im- ports, and Home produce exports only. Colonies.— ^az'ia:. — Trade is nearly all with the Nether- lands, — equal to about 70 per cent. ; the rest of the trade is divided between England, France, the " States," and Ger- many. There is also interchange with China. In 1870, the total imports equalled 3.9 per cent., and exports 5.46 per cent. In 1873 the total imports equalled 6.72 per cent, and exports 9.07 per cent. ; from this date to 1885 the trade gradually increased, and in that year SUPPLEMENT. 571 the imports averaged 15 per cent, and exports 19 per cent. The staple exports are rice, sugar, coffee, indigo, spice, and all the usual East Indian produce. ■'■'^ p- c. p. c. 1870, imports from England to Java equalled .9 — exports, .26 X874, „ „ ,, 1.2 „ 1.3 iSSi, „ „ ,, 1.57 „ 2.66 1885, „ „ „ 1.57 „ 3 The staph export is sugar, in exchange for textiles and yarn, Belgium. — Commerce has been very active in this country and shows on the average steady increase : the transit trade is very large. The chief exports are cereals, cattle, flax, dairy produce, and iron work, with textiles, from the industrial centres : the imports being colonial produce, foreign wool, largely, and English manufactures. Belgian trade is mainly with countries in the following order, France, England, Holland, Germany, Baltic States, United States, South America, etc. In— 1864, the /(7/a/ imports equalled 27.55 P* c., and exports, 23.87 p. c. In 187 1, the total imports equalled 148.65 per cent., and exports 117.85. These large amounts are divided into general trade and home trade; thus general imports 97.57 per c&nt., general exports 82.31 per cent. Imports for home consumption 51.08 per cent., and exports of home produce 35-54 per cent. In 1884, total imports equalled 110.02 per cent, and exports 106.26 per cent., divided as above into ho/ne imports 56.57 per cent., exports 53.6 per cent., and transit 53.45 per cent, and 52.66 per cent. p. c. 2.86- p. c. -exports, 7.9 4.48 „ 11.24 6.21 .. 13-57 5.82 ., 15-04 7.08 ,, 11.5 7.8 ,, 1507 572 THE GROWTH AXD VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. In— 1866, imports from England to Belgium equalled 2. 1870, 1871, 1874. 1881, 1885, Besides the imports of home production England, sends a considerable value of colonial and foreign produce into Belgium, equalling in 1866, 3.92 percent and in 1885, 6.00 per cent., these figures must be added to the above to indi- cate the total movement of trade between Great Britain and Belgium. The staple exports to England are textile manufactures, flax, dairy produce, &c,, in exchange for iron, yarns, &c. Cotton is becoming an important article of commerce from Belgium to England. The output of coal has much increased in these two decades, the total in 1864 being just over 11,160,000 tons, and in 1884 just over 18,000,000 tons; 75 percent, of the ex- port of this commodity goes to the Netherlands. Other articles of export have fluctuated but little during the same period. Switzerland. — Commerce with Switzerland is necessarily through other countries. The year 1885 was the first year when statistics of trade were obtainable. In 1885, the total imports equalled 68.8 per cent, and exports 59.05 per cent. ; of these special coramtxct equalled imports 30.21 per cent., exports 26.4 per cent. Chief trade is with Germany, France, Italy, &:c. English traffic is of course included in the returns of one of these, or neighbouring, countries. Staple exports are cheese and dairy produce in exchange for cereals. The transit trade is also very large and increasing. Italy. — Commerce shows a steady increase, and is chiefly with France and Algiers, followed by the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, &c. In— SUPPLEMENT. p. c. p. c. 1867, the total imports equalled 33.23- -exports, 20.82 1870, ,. 33-71 „ 22.91 1874, „ 52-2 39-42 1881, .. 49-55 46-57 1884, ,. 52-7 „ 42.61 1885, ,, 58-31 „ 37-83 573 5-27 , 3-84 6.36 3-63 6.43 3-27 6.99 3-16 6.62 3 The principal exports are olives and oil, silk — both raw and manufactured — in exchange for cereals and textile manufactures. Silk of all sorts exported in 1875 equalled about 7 per cent., in 1885 10.76 per cent. Olive oil, fruits and wine exported in 1875 equalled about 4 per cent, in 1885 5.85 per cent. •^ri — p. c. p. c, 1865, vnports from England to Italy equalled 5.46 — exports, 3 1870, 1874, 1881, 1S84, 1885, The staple exports to the United Kingdom are olive oil, dairy produce, chemicals, fibres, fruits, sulphur, shumach, wine, &c., in exchange for textiles, coals, iron and machinery. Iron is worked to the extent of about a quarter of a million tons per annum ; sulphur to the extent of nearly lialf a million tons, and a value of 1.46 per cent.; and marble to a value of about i per cent France. — Trade is carried on mainly with Great Britain, followed at some distance by Belgium, Germany, Spain, &c. in i85o in 1870 in 1S81 in 1883 'Y\\.z gross turnover equalled 366 p.c. 545 p.c. 765 p.c. 642 p.c. being, for^^w^ra/ commerce, 200 ,, 320 ,, 427 ,, 355 ,, and for Jwrne produce and\ ,^-. ^^^ ^^„ ^5_ j.^- \ 160 ,, 225 ,, 33s ,, 287 ,, consumption, \ " -' " -jj >> / »' The ratio between imports and exports may be gathered 574 ^^-^ GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. from the following: — In 1881 imports equalled 433 per cent., exports 332 per cent. ; in 1885 imports 361 per cent., exports 281 percent., maintaining about the same proportion throughout. The movements of bullion are also heavy and not in- cluded in the above "commerce;" in 1885 the bullion import equalled 9.15 per cent, and export 5.13 per cent. In— i860, 1S65 1870, i873: 1880 1884 i88q p. c. p. c. imports from England to France equalled 5.25 — exports, 17. 77 11.64 > 37-6 173 , 43-34 iS-6 41-97 16.75 . 37-43 14.98 . 35-7 These movements do not include colonial or foreign goods sent from England, but solely home productions. In 1884, Great Britain sent over other merchandise to the value of 9.6 per cent., and in 1885 to the value of 8 per cent. The staph exports to the United Kingdom include dairy produce, wine, silk, other manufactures, &c., in ex- change for manufactured textiles, coal, fuel, iron, and machinery. Exported to England in — 1872 1874 1883 1885 p.c. p.c. p.c. p.c. alue q{ Silk . . .9.15 II. 14 6.66 5-97 ,, Wool manufacture . 2.8 2.87 3-96 5-23 ,, Dairy produce . 3.31 5-95 4.07 3-92 ,, Leather . . .1.08 1.25 1.65 1.09 „ IVine . . . 2.72 2.61 2.7 2.64 ,, Brandy . . • 1-3 1.41 0.98 1.22 The total silk exports equalled- - p.c. p.c. p c. p.c. p.c. In i8S6, 19.6 ; 1874, 19 ; 1878, 9. I ; 18S4, 9-5 1885, 8.9. SUPPLEMENT. 575 The total woollen exports equalled — p.c. p.c. p.c. p.c. p.c. In 1S65, 15.S5; 1874, 14; 1878, 12.4; 1884, 13.4; 1885, 13.3. The total wine exports equalled — In 1874, 9.5 p. c. ; 1884, 9.5 p. c. ; 1S85, 10.2 p.c. The weight of silk cocoons in 1881 equalled about 9^ million kilogrammes; in 1885, about 7 million kilo- grammes; in 1886, about 8^ million kilogrammes. The quantity of cafie sugar imported in 1883 equalled about 108^ million kilogrammes; in 1885, about 210^ million kilogrammes. The quantity of home made beet sugar in 1884 equalled about 322I million kilogrammes; in 1885, about 225^ million kilogrammes. Among cereals, wheat is the chief crop, but rye and buckwheat are grown _/yr export. Average total ivine yield up to 1885 about 700 million gallons per annum. Home mining produces about 20 millions of tons of coal and 4 million tons of iron : neither of these anything like suffices for home consumption, consequently the import from England is very large. The French Colonies include Algeria, Senegambia, Re- union, Cochin-China, Tonquin, Guiana, Martinique, &c. For Algerian trade, see p. 593. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire- land. — The commerce of the United Kingdom has rami- fications in every directioa Previous to 1865, trade had gradually increased ; in 1830, the total imports equalled 46.3 per cent., exports, 69.7 per cent.; in 1840, imports, 67.5 per cent., exports, 116.5 per cent.; in 1850, imports, 100.5 PS'' cent., exports, 197.3 per cent.; in 1855, imports, 143.5 P^^ cent., exports, 116.7 per cent.; in i860, imports, 210.5 per cent., exports, 164.52 per cent 576 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Total E.vports of Exports of Total Year. Imports. Home Produce. Foreign Produce. Exports. p. c. p. c. p. c. p. c. 1865 271.07 I6S-84 53- 218.84 1868 295-4 179.68 48.1 227.7S 1S70 303-25 199-58 44-5 244.08 1872 354-7 256.25 5833 314-58 1874 370.08 239-55 58. 1 297.65 1878 368.77 192-85 52.64 245-49 1880 411.23 223.06 63-34 286.4 1882 413-02 241.47 65.2 3C6.67 1884 390.02 233-02 62.94 295-96 1885 370.97 213.00 57-36 270.36 1886 349-38 212.37 56-1 268.47 Imports and exports include every available commodity, both raw material and manufactured articles. The relative position of any country with regard to the total commerce of Great Britain can be seen from the special paragraphs for each country. Imports rank in the following order : — food products, raw materials for textile manufactures, manufactured goods, &c. Exports rank as follows : textiles, metals and their pro- ducts, manufactured goods, raw materials, &c. Movements of bullion and specie are not included in the above tabulated list ; these vary, but the average of the last ten years is 23.5 per cent, imports and 24 per cent, exports. The mercantile marine in i860 numbered 4,300,000 tons, in 1870, 5,500,000 tons, in 1880, 6,300,000 tons, and in 1885, 7,200,000 tons. The average yearly output of coal from 1 875-1 885 was about 145,000,000 tons. The average yearly output of iron from 1 875-1885 was about 16,500,000 tons. SUPPLEMENT. C^-JJ Railway mileage in iS6o equalled 10,400 miles ; in 1870, 15,500; in 1880, 18,000; and in 1885, 19,200 miles. The contract time for the mail service from London to Bombay is now (1887) 16 days 17 hours 45 minutes. The contract time for the mail service from London to Shanghai is now (1887) 37 days 13 hours 45 minutes. English colonies and dependencies are, in the order of their trade — India, Australasia, British North America, Cape Colony, Straits Settlements, Hong-Kong, West Indies, Ceylon, British Guiana, West Africa, &c. The West Indies. p. c. p. c. Toialimpons from England in 1881 equalled 5.82 — exports, 5.68 18S4 „ 6.93 „ 6.72 ,, » ,, 1885 „ 5.6 „ 5.77 The imports are the most important to Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados, Bahamas, Sec. The exports are the most important from Trinidad, Jamaica, Grenada, Leeward Isles, &c. Agriculture is the staple industry throughout the West Indies. Principal exports are sugar, rum, molasses, coffee, cocoa, fruits. Sec. Principal imports are textiles, hardware, &c Railways in the West Indies in 1885 extended 145 miles. India. — Trade in our great dependency shows a large increase from the middle of the nineteenth century. •l-n — p. c. p. c. 1865, the /"^/a/ imports equalled 49.51 — exports, 69.47 1870, „ „ 46.88 „ 53.5 ., 1874, „ „ 384 „ 56.8 -' 1880, „ „ 51.4 „ 69.1 1885, „ „ 67.02 „ 85.09 III. 2 O 578 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. These figures include merchandise and treasure ; for comparison, in — p ^ p c. 1865, the imports of merchandise equalled 28.15 — bullion, 21.36 ,, „ exports „ ,, 68.03 ,, 1.44 1S70, „ imports „ „ 32.93 ,, 13.95 ,, exports „ „ 5247 „ 1-03 1880, „ imports „ „ 3974 >, "•66 ,, „ exports „ „ 67.17 ,, 1.93 Commerce is carried on principally with England, China, France, &c., the United Kingdom taking the bulk. In — p. c. p. c. 1865, imports from England equalled 18.27— exports, 37.4 1S70, „ ,, 19-3 .. 25.09 1S74, ,, ,, 24.08 „ 31.2 18S0, ,, ,, 3045 >. 30-12 1885, ,, „ 29.28 „ 31.88 The sfaj>/e exports to England are wheat, seeds, jute, tea, cotton, indigo, rice, teak, &c., in exchange for textiles, coal, iron and machinery. C(7//'o« exported in 1865 to England, equalled 12.14 p. c. ; 1870, 9.43 p. c. ; 1874, 10.32 p. c. ; 1881, 4.36 p. c. ; 1885, 2.9 p. c. /ute equalled, 1874, 3.54 p. c. ; 1884, 3.56 p. c ; 1885, 3.24 p. c. /iiee „ „ 3.24 p. c. ; ,, 2.14 p. c. ; ,, 1.8 p. c. Indigo ,, ,, 1.66 p. c. ; ,, 2.14 p. c. ; ,, 1.83 p. c. Tea „ „ 1.57 p. c. ; „ 3.72 p. c. ; ,, 3.73 P- c Wheat via.s not considered a staple much before 1878; the export, however, soon became very important, equalling in 1881, 3.85 per cent, and in 1885, 4.59 per cent. Ceylon. — Trade is mainly with England and India. In— p. c. p. c. 1870, /t;/^/ imports equalled 4.63— exports, 3.8 1874, .. » 5-7 .. 4-68 1881, „ „ 442 » 34 1884, „ „ 4-8i „ 3-i6 1885, „ „ 4-23 n 3-35 SUPPLEMENT. 579 The principal exports are coffee, cocoa, cinchona, oil, tea, gems, &c. ; and imports coals, iron, and textiles, ■'■'' p. c. p. c. 1870, English imports into Ceylon equalled -g— exports, 3.45 1874, „ „ „ 1. 16 „ 3.6 1881, „ „ „ .8 „ 2.13 1884, „ „ „ ,74 „ 2.37 1885, „ „ „ .53 „ 2.39 The staple export to England is coffee — followed by cocoa-nut-oil, spices, tea, gems, cinchona, cacao, &c. ; in exchange for coals and iron and textile manufactures. Coffee exports in 1870 equalled 2.8 per cent. ; in 1874, 2.87 per cent. ; in 1879, 3.00 per cent. ; in 18S2, 1.63 per cent. ; in 1884, .98 per cent.; and in 1885, .93 per cent. p. c. p. c. Cocoa-nut-oil m 1874 equalled .17 in 1S85, .12 Cinnamon „ „ .12 ,, .08 Straits Settlements. — Trade is carrieii on mainly with England, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, India, Sec, p. c. p. c. The /^/j/ imports in 1S81, equalled 16.99 — exports, 13.96 „ „ 1884, „ 20.04 >> 18.67 ,} ,, 1885, „ 19.77 .. 18.00 The principal exports are tin, sugar, spices, india-rubber, and all East Indian produce, and imports opium, tex- tiles, &c. Iri — p. c. p. c. 1881, imports, England to Settlements equalled 2.56 — exports, 3. 78 1S84, „ „ „ 2.63 „ 4.62 1885, „ „ „ 2.55 „ 444 The sfapk exports are tin, spices, india-rubber, cutch, iSzc, in exchange for coals, iron, and textiles. 580 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Australasia. — Neio South Wales. — Trade is chiefly carried on with England and her possessions. in p.c. p.c. 1870, total imports equalled 7.76 — exports, 8.00 1874, „ „ 9.26 „ 8.67 1881, „ „ 17.4 „ 16.05 1884, „ „ 22.8 „ 18.25 1885, „ „ 23.3 „ 16.54 The principal exports are wool, coal, tin, «S:c. ; and im- ports, manufactured textiles, iron, &c. Trade with England is as follows : — J-fl""" p.c. p.c. 1870, imports from England equalled 2.6 — exports, 3.7 1874, „ „ „ 4-38 » 3-9 1881, „ „ „ l-Z „ 7-7 1884, „ „ „ 8.4 „ 9.00 1885, „ „ „ 9-1 » 7-15 The sfaj>/e export is wool — followed by copper, tallow, animal products, wine, &c. IVool export to England in 1870 equalled 2.8 per cent. ; in 1874, 2.6 per cent. ; in 1881, 5.3 per cent. ; and in 1885, 5 00 per cent. The weight of wool exported to England in 1881 was 87,470,000 lbs. ; in 1883, 100,630,000 lbs; in 1884, 120,220,000 lbs.; and in 1885, 110,106,000 lbs. out of a total export of 178,400,000 lbs. Wine was made in 1885 to the extent of over half a million of gallons. South Australia. — iri p. c. p. c. 1870, the total imports equalled 2.03 — exports, 2.42 1874, „ „ 3-97 ,. 3-S7 1881, 1882, 1884, 1885, 5-22 4-4 6.7 . 5-36 5-75 6.6 5-55 5-64 SUPPLEMENT. 58 1 The principal exports are copper, wheat, flour, wool, wine, &c. ; and imports, textile and other manufactures. Trade with the United Kingdom was as follows : — In— J.11 p. c. p. c. 1870, imports, England to South Australin, equ; illed .82- -exports, 1.24 1873, 2.00 3-22 1874, 1-9 2.6 1881, „ „ „ 2.3 3-2 •885, f> 1) ), 2.24 346 The staple export is wool, followed by wheat, flour, copper, wine, &c., in exchange for textile and iron manu- factures, machinery, &c. Wool export to England in 1870 was valued at .93 per cent.; in 1872, 1.12 per cent. ; in 1874, 1.65 per cent.; in 1881, 2.35 per cent. ; in 1884, 1.98 per cent. ; in 1885, 1.51 per cent. The fofal export of wool in 1874 equalled 1.76 per cent; and in 1885, 1.6 per cent. The weight of wool exported in 1874 was 31,653,000 lbs.; and in 1885, 45.367,066 lbs. Wheat a}id flour exported in 1873 equalled 1.7 per cent. ; in 1874, 1.2 per cent.; in 1885, 2.16 per cent.; of which the value sent to England equalled in 1874, .34 per cent. ; in 1881, .49 per cent. ; in 1884, .Z^ per cent. ; and in 1885, 1.6 per cent. Copper wSiS exported in 1873 equal to .77 per cent. ; in 1874, .7 per cent.; and in 1885, .13 per cent. ; of which the value to England equalled in 1874, .43 per cent. ; in 1884, .18 per cent. ; and in 1885, .9 per cent. Agriculture is the staple industry. Mining operations are also well attended to. The vine is now successfully cultivated, and in 1884, 582 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. 473)535 ga-llons of wine were produced; while in 1885 the yield had risen to 600,000 gallons. Victoria. — Commerce is principally carried on with Eng- land and the other colonies, Ceylon, France, China, the United States, Belgium, &c. In— 1S65, the tota: 1870, 1S74, 1S81, 1S84, 1885, p. c. p. c. imports equalled 13.26 — exports, 13.15 12.46 „ 12.47 16.95 1544 16.72 16.25 19.2 , 16.05 18.04 15-55 The principal exports are, wool, gold, wheat and flour, animal products, &c., and imports, textiles, sugar, timber, &c. Trade with England was as follows : — in — p. c. p. c. 1865, the imports from England equalled 5.73 — exports, 4.4 1870, „ „ ,, 4-3 .. 578 1874, 1S81, 1884, 1885, 6-93 6.23 6.66 6.7 7.00 9.01 7.67 5 33 The staple exports to England are wool and gold, followed by wheat and flour, meat, &c., in exchange for textiles, iron, machinery, &c. Wool was exported to England in 1865 of a value equal to 3.99 per cent. ; in 1870, 4.7 per cent. ; in 1872, 4.27 per cent.; in 1874, 5.65 percent.; in 1881, 7.3 per cent; in 1884, 5.73 per cent. ; in 1885, 3.98 per cent. The weight of wool exported in 1865 was 43,600,000 lbs. ; in 1870, 64,220,000 lbs. ; in 1874, 86,215,000 lbs. ; in 1881, 108,800,000 lbs. ; in 1884, 99,350,000 lbs. ; and in 1885, 83,200,000 lbs. SUPPLEMENT. 583 Queensland. I"— p.c. p.c. 1870, total imports equalled 1.58 — exports, 2.53 1873. ., „ 2.88 „ 3.54 1881, „ „ 4.06 ,. 3.54 1884, „ „ 6.39 „ 4.67 1885, „ „ 6.42 „ 5.24 The principal exports are wool, gold, &c. ; and imports, textiles. -'■^ p.c. p.c. 1870, imports from England equalled .34 — exports, .72 1874. ., » ,. .87 „ .9 1S81, „ „ „ 1.28 „ 1. 12 1884, „ „ „ 2.07 „ 1.68 1885, „ „ „ 2.45 „ 1.65 The .y/^// 1-55 1884, ,, ,, 1.66 ,, 1.47 1885, ,, „ 1.76 „ 1.31 The principal exports are wool, fruits, timber, hops, tin, and gold, in exchange for textile and iron manufactures, &c. In — p. c. p. c. 1870, imports from England equalled .19 — exports, .38 1874, „ „ -36 ,, .44 1881, ,, ,, .34 „ -51 1884, „ ,. -52 „ .37 1885, ,, ,, 46 ,, .3 The staple export is wool. IVool \v3iS exported to England in 187 1 of a value equal- ling .28 per cent. ; in 1874, .35 per cent. ; in 1881, .41 per cent. ; in 1884, .32 per cent. ; and in 1885, .26 per cent. The / » » » 44 .. 3-54 1881, „ „ „ 3.7 „ 5.12 1884, „ „ „ 3.7 „ 6.01 1885, „ „ „ 3.9 „ 5.14 The staple exports are wool, cereals and flour, gum, tallow, frozen carcasses, &c. Wool exports to England in 1870, equalled 1.75 per cent. ; in 1872, 2.07 per cent. ; in 1874, 2.88 per cent. ; in 1881, 3.47 per cent. ; in 1884, 3.79 per cent. ; and in 1885, 3.26 per cent. The weight of wool exported in 1870, was 30,750,000 lbs.; in 1874, 48,210,000 lbs.; in 1881, 59,370,000 lbs.; in 1884, 75,400,000; and in 1S85, 78,600,000 lbs. Russia. — Trade is carried on chiefly with England and Germany. p. c. p. c. 1863, the ioial imports equalled 20.72 — exports, 22.33 1865, ,, ,, 22.05 ,, 29.2 1870, „ „ 49.00 „ 54.28 1880, ,, ,, 64.46 ,, 51.62 1884, ,, ,, 54.67 „ 59.87 This summary shows a vast extension of commercial transactions in twenty years. The staple exports are cereals, flax, hemp, other agricul- tural produce, &:c. ; and imports, all miscellaneous goods, coal, iron, &c. Trade with England was as follows : — ^^ p. c p. c. 1865, imports from England to Russia equalled 2.92 — exports, 17.38 1870, „ ,, „ 7.00 „ 20.56 1874, „ „ „ 8.77 „ 1S.93 1882, „ „ „ 5.77 ,, 21.05 X885, „ „ ,, 4.22 ,, 17.71 586 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. The staple exports to England are cereals, flax, hemp, wood, tallow, &c., in exchange for coal, machinery, tex- tiles, &c. The value of cereals exported to England in 1870 equalled 8.66 per cent. ; in 1874, 6.12 per cent. ; in 1881, 4.87 per cent. ; in 1885, 8.77 per cent. p. c. p. c. flax exported in 1874 equalled 3.46; and in 1885, 2.9 Wood „ „ 4-33 .. 3-04 Hemp „ „ .62 „ .38 Scandinavia. — Norway. — Commerce is carried on chiefly with Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, &c., and has steadily increased. p.c. p.c. ■The /^/^Z imports from 1870-75 averaged 6.5 — exports, 5. iSSo-Ss „ 8.8 „ 6.38 The principal exports are fish and timber; and the im- ports cereals, textiles, &c. Trade with the United Kingdom is as follows : — -Iri — p.c. p.c. 1870, imports from England to Norway equalled .98 — exports, 1.85 1S72, 1874, 1876, 1880, 1882, 1884, i88q, 1.42 2-37 2.01 , 3.00 I.5I 2.68 1.25 2.72 1.4 2.92 1-5 3.01 1-33 2.83 The staple export is wood in exchange for coal, iron, and textiles. Sweden. — Commerce is chiefly carried on with the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Germany, &c., and shows considerable increase. In— SUPPLEMENT. p.c p.c. 1868, the total imports equalled 7.65- -export.', 6.64 1870, „ „ 7.87 8.47 1873, » ., 15-08 12.32 1880, „ „ 15.7 12.5 1881, „ „ 16.00 12.4 1884, „ „ 18. 1 132 587 The principal exports are timber, animals, cereals (oats), metals, &c., and imports, textiles, cereals, coal, &c. Trade with the United Kingdom is as follows : — In— p. c. 1868, imports from England to Sweden equalled .62 — exports, 4.4 1870, 1874, 187S, 1880, 1884, 1885, 3-4 1.68 1.94 2-35 2.18 6.4 8.48 6.85 8.26 751 8.1 The staple exports to England are timber, oats, iron, and dairy produce, in exchange for textiles, coal, &c. Denmark. — Trade is carried on mainly with Germany, Great Britain, Scandinavian States, &c. The staple exports to Great Britain are agricultural and dairy produce, cattle, &c., in exchange for textiles, coal, and iron. The total imports in 1872 equalled 6.4 per cent., and exports 4.75 per cent, suddenly rising until — In— 1880, imports equalled 12.6 p. c. — exports, 10.9 p. c. 1885, ,, 15.23 p. c. ,, 10.00 p. c. In unison with this general increase of trade, commerce with the United Kingdom rose — -'■" p. c. p. c. 1865, imports from England to Denmark equalled 1.26 — exports, 2.28 1870, „ „ „ 2.00 „ 3.05 1874, .. „ „ 2.5 „ 3.9 1S81, „ „ „ 2.01 ,. 5.25 1885, „ „ „ 1.9 „ 4.82 588 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Colonies. — Denmark possesses Iceland, Greenland, and three islands in the West Indies — these latter being the most valuable, exporting many millions of pounds of sugar, with the accompanying commodities of rum and molasses, besides coffee and other produce. AuSTRO-HuNGARY. — Trade direct with Great Britain is comparatively small, although it would doubtless show more, were it possible to collect all the merchandise which ultimately finds its way to England, but which is included in the export transit trade of other countries; the geogra- phical position of Austria fully explains this. All goods sea-borne have but a small coast outlet, whereas goods carried by rail have either an outlet through Germany for the Baltic and North Sea ports, or Italy for the Mediter- ranean ports, or France for the mail lines. The staple exports to the United Kingdom are cereals (chiefly barley) and flour, in exchange for cotton and textile manufactures, iron, coal, &c. In- p. c. p. c. 1855, the total imports equalled 23.6 — -exports 23.2 1S62, ,, 25.00 30.9 1865, 25.07 34.06 1870, ,, 42.5 39-13 1876, 43.08 42.47 1S80, >i 51-12 56-33 1884, 51-05 57.62 1885, „ 46.5 56.00 This statement (which does not include bullion or specie) shows that trade gradually increased, and with a great even- ness between import and export values. In — p. c. p. c. 1865, imports from England to Austria equalled .72 — exports, .67 1870, „ „ „ I.71 ». i-i (A fall, after rising in the two preceding years to over 2 per cent, on imports.) 1876, „ „ „ .78 „ .85 1880, ,, „ ,, .6 „ 1.43 1885, „ „ „ .78 „ 2.16 SUPPLEMENT. 589 Trade favours, first, Germany, then Turkey, Italy, Russia, England, &c. Transactions in colonial produce and other articles of merchandise are large, and the transit trade from central Europe to Trieste is considerable ; the value of the whole transit trade in 1884 equalled 25.91 per cent. The move- ments in merchandise include cereals, agricultural produce, fibres, leather, and some manufactures. Germany. — The total turnover of German commerce in 1882 equalled 320.4 per cent, and in 1885, 295.95 percent. The tra7isit trade is very considerable, amounting to an annual value of about 628.5 P^^" cent. Trade is mainly with the United Kingdom, Austria, Bel- gium, Russia, . .. -44 .. -7 1881, „ ,, .27 „ .25 1885, ,, ,, .43 „ .48 The staple exports to England are maize, beans, and gum, with oil and almonds in exchange for textiles. Algeria. — Trade is mainly with France — about 65 per cent, of the whole, — followed by Spain, Italy, England, &c. The principal yield is agricultural produce, — cereals, vine and its products, olives, tobacco, &c., — with some iron and other ores. ••■^ p. c. p. c. I S67, the /t'/a/ imports equalled 7.5 and exports, 3.88 1870, „ „ 6.9 „ 4.97 1873. .. » 8.27 „ 6.1 1881, „ „ 1 1. 98 „ 6.00 1885, „ ,, 8.8 „ 7.9 The trade with the United Kingdom was as follows : — In— i86r, the import 5 from En p. c. gland to ) p. c Algeria equalled \.Oo, exports .02 1S65, •09, .12 1870, ,, .12, •23 1874, •05, ■5 1881, „ )> •?!' •75 1885, •35. .88 The staple exports to England are fibres, minerals, ores, and cereals (chiefly barley) in exchange for coals and textiles. Tiaiis. — The principal exports are to Italy, France, Great Britain, (Sec, and consist of olive oil, cereals, sponges and esparto. The total turnover (18 74-1884) averaged 2.4 per cent, per annum. Ill 2 p 594 ^^-^ GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. The imports in 1885 equalled i.i per cent., and exports .88 per cent. •'•^ p. c. p. c. 1 88 1, imports from England to Tunis equalled .07 and exports .2 1885, „ „ ,, .08 „ .15 The staple export to England is esparto. Railway mile- age is under 300 miles. Liberia. — Trade returns under this head include the whole of the " West Coast of Africa," — except British possessions, — with its exports of palm oil, nuts and kernels, ivory and india-rubber. The imports frorn — p. c. p. c. England to Africa (W. C), 1870, equalled .8 — exports, 1.45 1874. ., -76 „ 1.82 1S81, „ .82 „ i.s » ., 1884. ,. !•" >i »-4 1885, „ .78 „ 1.13 The staple export is palm oil, in exchange for textiles. West Africa — -Iri — p. c. p. c. 1881, imports to the whole British coasts equalled 1.25 — exports, 1.34 1884, „ ,, ,, 1.73 „ 1.72 1885, „ „ „ 1.42 „ 1.56 The staple exports are ground nuts, seeds, palm oil, kernels, ginger, wax, india-rubber, gold, and gum ; and im- ports, textiles and manufactures. Cape Colony with Natal. — Commerce is chiefly carried on with Great Britain. Ari — p. c. p. c. 1870, total imports equalled 2.23 — exports, excluding treasure, 2.57 1873. 1881, „ 1884, 188=;, 5-45 i> 4.01 9.22 )i 4-14 5-25 1) 3-94 4-77 i> 3-i6 includin g treasure, 5 1 1 SUPPLEMENT. 595 Treasure exports during these years varied between i and 2 per cent. The principal exports are wool, ostrich feathers, diamonds, copper, hair, wine, &c., and imports textile manufactures, &c. Trade with the United Kingdom was as follows : — including In treasure. p. c. p. c. l870,imports from England to Cape Colony equalled 1.55 — exports, 2.43 1874. " .. " 3-53 .. 3-63 1881, „ „ „ 5.9 „ 4.94 1884, „ „ „ 3.05 „ 5.3 1885, „ „ „ 2.84 „ 3.83 The staple exports to England are wool, copper, feathers, &c., in exchange for manufactures. ?F<7^/ exported in 1870 equalled 1.84 percent. ; in 1874, 2.56 per cent.; in 1881, 3.03 per cent.; in 1884, 2,7 per cent., and in 1885, 1.7 per cent. The weight of wool exported in 1870 was 28,814.000 lbs. ; in 1874, 34,830,000 lbs. ; in 1881, 47,160,000 lbs. ; in 1884, 45,500,000 lbs., and in 1885, 38,850,000 lbs. Natal. — Trade is almost exclusively with Great Britain. ^^ p. c. p. C. 1870, the total imports equalled .43 and exports, .38 1873, „ „ .86 „ .65 1880, „ „ 2.34 „ .9 1884, „ „ 1.67 „ .96 1885, „ „ 1.52 „ .87 The principal exports are cereals, arrowroot, feathers, hair, wool, &c., and imports machinery. Ari — p. c. p. c. 1870, the imports from England equalled .31 and exports, .44 1874, „ „ .77 „ .66 1881, „ „ 1.2 „ .47 1884, „ „ 1.05 „ .64 18S5, „ „ .99 „ .62 596 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Transvaal or South African Republic. — Commerce is carried on chiefly with England, the exports consisting of wool, ostrich feathers, ivory, cattle and products, gold, &c. The total imports equal about .6 per cent., and exports .6 per cent. Mozambique^ see Portuguese Colonies, page 564. Zanzibar. — Trade is principally carried on with England, Germany, America, France, Arabia, &c. Before 1870 trade was practically nil, but has increased greatly since steam communication opened out the ports. p. c. p. c. The /le, tea, is as follows : — In— 1864, exports from China to England, I12J mill „ The /i'i'fl/ export equalled, 170 1866, exports from China to England, 127J 1870, ,, „ 123 1874, ,, ,, I27i 1881, „ „ I5if 1885, „ „ I3ii Exports of silk show a marvellous rise in certain years, being in — 1867, valued at .05 per cent. ; 1868, valued at .08 per cent. 1869, „ .3 „ 1S70, ,, .65 1871, „ 1.7 „ 1872, „ 2.00 „ 1873, „ 3.00 „ falling away in 1874 to 2.00 per cent., and continuing without much fluctuation up to 1881, when they stood at 1.78 per cent; in 1884 valued at 2.6 per cent. ; and in 1885 I per cent. The total turnover of Chinese trade does not show much variation in twenty years, being valued in 1864 at 64 per cent, and in 1885 at 55 per cent., fluctuating between these two points in the interim. Hong Kong. — Commerce is carried on principally with England and colonies, the United States, Germany, &c. The English imports in 1870, equa „ 1874, „ „ 1881, „ 1884, ,, 18S5, p. c. p. c. led 3.4 — exports, .28 3-65 » .75 3.61 „ 1 01 3-22 „ 1.05 3-76 „ .97 The staple export is tea, — followed by all Chinese and Eastern goods in exchange for all English commodities. SUPPLEMENT. 5^9 Tea export in 1874, equalled .39 per cent., and in 1885, .4 per cent. Hong Kong is an emporium, and it is estimated that the trafisit value of goods equals at least twenty millions sterling per annum. Japan. — Since the opening of the ports to international trade, commerce has wonderfully developed ; trade is carried on in about equal amounts with the United Kingdom and the United States, followed by China and France, &c. In 1872 the total "turnover" was about lo.i per cent. • in 1874, 8.8 per cent. ; and in 1885, 12.88 per cent. ; the iffiports from 1872-1878 exceeding the exports by about 2 per cent., from this time gradually assimilating until in 1885 the reverse was the case, the exports exceeding the imports by 2 per cent. The exports consist of silk, tea, copper, cuttle-fish, rice, coal, &c., and the imports, textiles (about 50 per cent.), sugar, minerals, and mineral oils, &c. ^^ p. c. p. c. 1870, the imports from England to Japan equalled 1.6 — exports, .09 1874, ,, ,, „ 1.28 „ .54 1881, ,, ,, ,, 2.82 „ .67 1885, ,, ,, ,, 2.00 „ .5 The staple exports to England are silk, tobacco, copper, earthenware, &c., in exchange for iron and textiles. APPENDIX. Views of some Economists on National Debt. Malthus. The policy of national debts is discussed by Malthus in his "Principles of Political Economy," c. vii. A national debt is obnoxious to three considerable objections — (i) the interference with production caused by a heavy weight of taxation, (2) the danger to property resulting from the commonly received impression as to the burdensome character of the debt, and (3) the intensification of the evils which would result from any changes in the currency. On these grounds it might be advisable to diminish the debt gradually, and to guard against any future increase of it. But very great evUs would arise from any sudden removal of the debt. To cancel it at a stroke would be a gigantic robbery. To pay it off" suddenly would throw a great mass of capital into the market ; profits would fall ; and productive employment of capital be checked, until by its extensive migration or destruction no more remained in existence than the industrial circumstances of the country required. The fundholders, Alalthus thinks, form a large body of unproductive consumers, and the stimulus afforded to industry by their presence would be lost when they ceased to be national creditors. J. S. Mill. Mr. IMill examines this subject in two parts of his great work on Political Economy, viz., in Book I. c. 5, and Book V. c. 7. In the former place he discusses the question, whether extraordinary expenditure should be provided for by loans or by additional taxation. APPENDIX. 60 1 Loans are not more obnoxious than taxation, in so far as tbey are drawn, not from the productive capital of the countrj', but from capital attracted from other countries, or which would not have been saved but for the inducement held out by the loan itself. When both loans and taxes would fall upon the productive capital of the country, the latter is the more judicious form of raising the sum required, because the taxes once paid, no further payments are necessar}', while in the case of loans there would be tlie annual payment of the interest. There is a sure index, viz., a rise in the rate of interest, when government loans trench upon productive capital. The second of the two passages referred to treats of the question in its general aspect. Expenses, in their very nature of a temporary character, should be met from present resources ; but when expenditure is incurred with a view to future benefit, there is not in a progressive country any injustice in imposing a share of the cost upon those who are to share in the benefit. The argument brought forward in opposi- tion to the payment of a national debt, viz., that in paying the interest there is no loss but only a transfer, is not decisive of the question. In as far as the national creditors are foreigners there is a loss ; and when the national creditors are native citizens, the transfer being compulsory is not advantageous : it disturbs trade, diverts capital from produc- tive employment, and much of the sum taken from the taxpayer being necessary to meet the expenses of collection, is therefore a clear loss. Mr. Mill examines the two principal modes that have been proposed for paying off a national debt ; first, by a general contribution levied upon all members of the society in proportion to their wealth ; second, by an increase of taxation and a devotion of the surplus to the payment of the debt. The first scheme is practically inapplicable, and unjust in its operation. The second, subject to certain modifications, is accepted by Mr. Mill. By experimental reductions taxation should be so arranged that the largest net return is obtained at the least cost to the taxpayer. Keeping taxation at the scale thus determined, all the sur- plus revenue which accrues through the growth of the country in ■wealth should be appropriated to the reduction of the debt, the first portions paid off being such as were incurred upon the most onerous terms. Some economists have defended a national debt, on the plea that it afforded a secure investment for the small savings of the less wealthy classes of the community. Mr. Mill thinks that this need is yearly diminishing, and also that the want could be met by the institution of a national bank of deposit and discount, with branches all over the country. 6o2 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. D. RiCARDO. Ricardo treats of the question of National Debts in his " Principles of Political Economy and Taxation," c. xvii. ; and in his "Essay on the Funding System" (Collected works, by McCulloch, pp. 515 et seq.). In the first-named part of his writings he shows that the real burden of a debt hes less in the annual payment made for interest than in the original loaQ. The capital of the debt was so much deducted from the productive funds of the nation. Ricardo brings two principal objec- tions against the loan system generally : first, that it tends to render nations unthrifty ; and secondly, that when a nation has to pay a large sum annually as interest of debt, taxation may become so heavy as to induce capitalists to remove their capital from the country. In this way a large increase to the national debt might cause such an exodus of capital, as to bring the nation to the verge of bankruptcy and ruin. The " Essay on the Funding System " is devoted to tlie discussion of two questions — that of a sinking-fund, and that of the best means of providing for additional expenditure caused by war. The history of the English sinking-fund is sketched at considerable length. The first was established under the administration of Sir Robert Walpole in 1716, but within twenty years it was broken in upon to meet the current expenses of the Government, and though it continued to exist down to 1786 it produced little or no effect upon the debt. Mr. Pitt's scheme, which replaced Walpole's, provided for the appropriation of one million annually to the formation of a sinking-fund. This million was to accumulate until it amounted to four millions, when it was to be devoted each year to the purchase of public funds, and by this means effect annually the extinction of a considerable amount of debt. In 1792 Mr. Pitt's scheme was subjected to a modification, which provided for the creation of a sinking-fund of i per cent, on all loans mad2 ; and in this way it was computed that every debt would be extinguished in forty-five years from its creation. In Ricardo's opinion had Mr. Pitt's scheme, with this addition, been fairly carried out, very considerable progress would have been made in the extinction of the National Debt. But it was altered so much by financiers who strove to win public applause by temporary rather than permanent, though more deferred, reduction of the weight of taxation, that it lost its distinctive features and became practically inoperative. Three capital objections have been brought against sinking-funds, which Ricardo meets and answers. They are — first, that there would be a glut of capital caused by the repayment of large amounts of the national debt in the later years of the existence of a sinking-fund ; second, that prices would in some cases fall to a ruinous extent by large APPENDIX. 603 remissions of taxation, suddenly made when the sinking-fund had come into full operation ; and third, that the capital taken from the community in the form of additional taxation, to provide for the fund, would be more productive in the hands of individuals, than in those of the commissioners of the fund. Reverting to the second question, that of providing for the additional expenditure rendered necessary by war, Ricardo shows that this may be done in three ways : taxation to the required amount may be levied each year ; the amount needed may be borrowed each year and funded, thus creating a perpetual charge on the revenue ; or the amount may be borrowed, and at the same time means taken to create a fund, which should extinguish the debt in a limited number of years. The first mode is objectionable, because of the excessive taxation it would render necessary each year ; the second is economically bad, because it creates a perpetual burden ; and therefore the third is to be preferred ; for it would be less burdensome each year than the first, less durable than the second. T. B. Say. •' ^ This distinguished French economist treats of the question of national debts in a chapter entitled, " De la Dette publique " (Traite d'Economie politique, Livre iii. ch. 10). Public loans differ from private in this respect : while the latter are generally made with a view to an increase of production, the former are usually employed in unproductive purposes. There is a sophism in the assertion sometimes made, that state debts are owed by the right hand to the left. Before the Government borrowed and de- stroyed the capital of the individual, there existed two productive capitals and revenues. After the loan, the state has to take from the taxpayers the sum necessary to pay the interest of the borrowed capital. The lender still receives his revenue ; but that of others has been diminished to a like amount in order to pay him his. Loans are either payable within a limited time [remboursables'] or perpetual. As the former have been usually framed, they are virtually lotteries, and are radically vicious, and little resorted to by modern financiers. If government loans consisted for the most part of small capitals, which would not otherwise be productively employed, and if, when bor- rowed, the Government applied these capitals to production, loans would be defensible. They are also advantageous when they permit a necessary and profitable expenditure, large in amount, to be spread over a term of j'ears. This advantage, however, is very liable to be 604 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. abused, by casting on posterity burdens which the present generation ought legitimately to bear. Loans divert capital from production to unprofitable consumption. A large national debt is objectionable, on the score of oflfering an inducement to gambling speculations, and of placing, to some degree, under government control a large body of fundholders. On the question of the reduction of a national debt, M. Say points out the economical unsoundness of sinking-funds \^des caisses d'amor- tissement\. Their effect has not at all been what was anticipated ; they have been diverted from their destined purposes, and have fostered the increase rather than the diminution of indebtedness. A state, like an individual, has but one mode of clearing itself from debt — viz., to devote to that object all excesses of income over expendi- ture. In order to render this effective, every expense should be kept at the lowest point consistent with the proper performance of the duties of a government. Adam Smith. The question of national debts is examined by Adam Smith in his " Wealth of Nations," Bk. v. c. 3, " Of Public Debts." In feudal times there was no necessity for resorting to this mode of providing for the national expenditure. As feudality disappeared, loans began to come into fashion. Wasteful of their revenues in times of peace, sovereigns were compelled to borrow in time of war. Contempo- raneously with the need for loans, arose both the ability and the inclination on the part of capitalists to lend. Governments borrowed upon two kinds of credit ; they set apart a particular source of income as a security for the debt, or they mortgaged some one or more sources of income to provide for the repayment. The former mode gave rise to what is known as the unfunded or floating debt ; the latter to the funded or consolidated debt. Funded debts differed thus — the fund mortgaged would be sufficient to pay off both the principal and the interest of the debt in a limited number of years, or would be sufficient to provide for the payment of the interest only. The first constitutes what is called terminable annuities ; the second, perpetual annuities. Having thus touched upon the general question, Adam Smith details with great minuteness the growth of the English debt, and the insignificant diminution made in it during periods of peace. Passing to the consideration of modes of paying off or reducing national debts, he reprobates the plan, not uncommon in earlier times, of raising the denomination of the coinage. By this raeaas, while the nominal APPENDIX. 605 amount repaid was equal to that borrowed, the real repayment fell below the amount of the loan in proportion to the depreciation of the currency. He then proceeds to propound his own scheme for the extinction of the English national debt. A readjustment of taxation would, perhaps, produce some augmentation of the revenue ; but this would have a comparatively trifling effect upon such a debt as that of England. The Colonies have, however, benefited by the expenditure which rendered the creation of a debt necessary, while they remain exempt from all taxation for Imperial purposes. By extending the British system of taxation to the Colonies, there would be a large augmentation of the revenue, and the surplus thus arising should be applied to the reduction of the debt. This increased taxation would, by its very nature, be but temporary ; for when it had effected the purpose for which it was imposed, the taxes would be remitted, and at the same time, there would have disappeared the heavy burden, before necessary to pay the interest of the debt. The territorial acquisitions of the East India Company might also be rendered available for the same object. Adam Smith is decidedly opposed to the policy involved in the creation of a debt. It is a fallacy to suppose that no detrimental results follow from what some economists have called making payments by the right hand to the left. Productive capital is diminished, industry is embarrassed, and numerous instances can be adduced to show that " the practice of funding has gradually enfeebled every state which has adopted it." If Great Britain appears to be an exception, and the load of debt she has incurred seems to be borne with ease, it must not be argued from this, that the burden might be safely increased without causing disturbance and distress. Macau LAV, It might not be without interest to give in this connection the views of one of our gi-eat historians, who in the course of his work has to narrate the history of the origin of the English national debt. Lord Macaulay (History, vol. vi. c. 19) has devoted a short but brilliant paragraph to this topic. He shows how a long series of states- men and economists alike, with each fresh addition to the debt, pre- dicted the close approach of bankruptcy and ruin. There was a double fallacy in the arguments of these " prophets of evil." They regarded a state debt as precisely analogous to a debt owed by an individual ; and they made no allowance for the continual improvement in the resources of the country. Macaulay's own conclusion is " that we find 6o6 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. it as easy to pay the interest of eight hundred millions as our ancestors found it to pay the interest of eighty millions," and that "a long ex- perience justifies us in beUeving that England may in the twentieth century be better able to support a debt of sixteen hundred millions, than she is at the present time to bear her present load." The effect of the system of funding is considered by Macaulay as salutary, in giving " intelligence an advantage over brute force, and honesty an advantage oyer dishonesty ; " for " the power of a society to pay debts is pro- portioned to the progress which that society has made in industry, in commerce, and in all the arts and sciences which flourish under the benignant influence of freedom and of equal law. The inclination of a society to pay debts is proportioned to the degree in which that society respects the obligations of plighted faith." Tennant. " If the sum received in dividends on the national debt were paid in taxes, and if these two sums precisely coincided in amount, and if there were no expenses of collection, and if the taxes did not interfere -with the production of wealth, the national debt would not diminish the national wealth, though it could not augment it. " It would be a mere matter of distribution. " But the expense of collecting th-; national revenue, and the inter- ference of taxation with production, are so much pure loss, and by the removal of these two sources of expense and loss, we should be richer if we were relieved of the national debt. " To relieve ourselves of the national debt may not be conveniently within our power ; to relieve ourselves, however, of the worst conse- quences of it is easily within our power. ** But, still the fact remains that the national debt — now, in round numbers, about ^800,000,000 — is a mortgage laid upon taxes; and this is a great evil, as also a great breach of the much boasted, but much violated English constitution; for it is the great privilege of each House of Commons in turn to exact taxes at pleasure, and no exist- ing House has any right to engage that taxes shall be voted by its successor. " Our national debt is, therefore, a national evil, and has been fixed on us and posterity by unconstitutional means ; but this evil, great as it is, is often exaggerated in its evil effects, and made to appear to be a greater evil than it really is." * • "The People's Blue Book, or Taxation, as it is, and as it ought to be," by C. Tennant. . ). 188 iving 1800 w . I860 1886 1 CENT X i, " PTwenida/ 1 - Aggyna Babytt<>i± Palmyri ^ ^ m H Carthage ■ B 1 1 ■ 1 1 1 ^QVPi ■ am Ba Oreece m Wl.._. g II ■ Alexandria _^^m-T - Rome _Q-f— - IMBIHV T Byzantine and L i ■ 1 ■ ^ Arab Staten i , "IJJt 1 _| 1^ Denmark and 1 1 Flemish T"" +.... f*3 ■ 4VVi 1 - ^an« toum« :^ [ 1 I 1 i 1 O iffW- ■IHH X Portugal i ^,-..-1 T Holland liiil ^^^^B Jb ranee 1 i^H^H H^^H Jingland, nlStonCOl Ghort shewing the Rise, Progress, Cidmination and Decline of Commercial Nations, from IBOO before Christ to A J). fftienuui CarUtaye Egypl 6nx« ■ j 1 ■ i ■ i A. ■ 1 i isr & I O I j T Ld: H X) I .S] V A. 3L 1UI03DESIT RECENT CortAayfl 'J Alexandria llaUar, h - : - - - - i B = = = = i — - :i ^ B t h Alexandria tUvublic* -^ 1 5 iza- . ^^ ^1^ ""^ t44 ' ^ ^tt^ ^ =s ?? T i \ I lU hI"!™' o Spain ^ ^ ^ __ _^ ^^ i Spain Portugal ^ ^i W^ Portugal BOland ^ ^IITI !M Holland Franct I ^^ IIHIMir Fraiici Ungiarui Rturia ,. i m IP iiiiii"»im S: s a; ^..^ ■■■■■■yn-^^^H and Germany iiiiiiiiii''"'7— pgD China and IIPIIIIIlMiiH China Japan Working of Metalt ; rude warfare; rowing and sailing ; tUlage ; weaving ; writing ; trade. Feudality ; monopoly ; agriculture ; Compass; Gunpowder; Pri^Oing; Commerce. Qp«i« ; Chemistry ; Steam : Cotton. Telegraphy, Photography ^ r INDEX, Aalborg, 153. Aarhuus, 153. Abdarrahman, 88. Abd-el-Kader, 506. Abo, steam vessels of, 441. Abyssinia, 507, 521. Acadia, 237. Acapulco, 196. Acre, 502, 520. Adelaide, 435. Aden, 511. Adolphu?, Gustavus, 300. Adrianople, 518. Afghanistan, 524. Afghan war, 430. Africa, 90-93, 500-511; French settlements in, 244. Agricultural implements, Ameri- can, 4S7, 494, Aidin, 516. Aigues-Mortes, 126. Aitzema, 212. Aix la Chapelle, 482. Albany, 435. Albuquerque, Alphonso d', i8a Alcock, Sir Rutherford, 546. Aleppo, 520. Alexander the Great conquers Tyre, 14; Babylon submits to him, 27 ; Carthage besieged by ^'•"j 35 ; Persia conquered, 41; Alexandria founded, 42. Alexandretta, 518. Alexandria, 42-45, 7 1, 92, 502, 503. Alfred the Great, 132, Algiers, 503, 505. Alhambra, Palace of, 88, 89. Alison's History of Europe,quoted, 386. Almaden, quicksilver mines of, 460. Almeida, Francesco d', iSo. Alsace, dyeing at, 440. Altmuhl, 514. Altona, 465. Alva, Duke of, 193. Amalfi, 109, 1 10. Amasis, 40. American Revolution, its origin, 276. Amerigo Vespucci, 186. Amiens, treaty of, 351, 384. Amoor, territory of, 444, 541. Amoy, Chinese trading port of, 538- Amsterdam, 144, 145, 152, 351. Anatolia, Turkey carpets of, 515. Ancona, trade of, no, 376. Andalusia, 192. Antwerp, 128, 150, 202-206, 353, 364, 368. Appendix, 600. Apulia, 381. Arabia, 520. Arabian caravanserais, $2 ; high state of civilisation, 84 ; manu- factures and commerce, 85, 86 ; caravan routes, il>. ; conquest of Spain, 87. Arabs, 82-90. Archangel, trade of, 294, 437. Archimedes, 43, 54. Argentine Republic, 339-341. Aristotle, 35. Armada, Spanish, 205. 6o8 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Asia Minor, 526. Asiatic Russia, regions of, 445. Assam, tea planting at, 430. Assiento Treaty, 199. Assignats, French, 382-3. Association, Dutch commercial, 355, 359, 360. Assyria, 22-28. Astrakhan, 444. Atahualpa, murder of. 1 89. Athens, 50, 51 ; benefits conferred on civilisation by, 55. Aubert discovers Newfoundland, 238. Auckland, 436. Augsburg, 313. Australia, 325 ; discovery of gold in, 417 ; wool its chief export, 433 ; chief towns and ports, 434-436. Austria, 317, 455. Avars, 75. B Baalbek, 15. Babylon, 24, 519 ; magnitude and opulence of, 24; trade and manu- factures of, 25 ; river and mari- time traffic, 26 ; taken by Cyrus and Alexander, 27 ; decline "and ruin, 28. Babylonia, 22-28. Baden, 464, 470. Bagdad, 52, 85. Bahia, 331. Balboa, Nunez de, 186. Balsam of Peru, 347. Baltic trade, 443, 454. Baltimore, Lord, 274. Bank of England established, 2SS. Bantam, 209. Barbary, go. Barbary States, 503. Barcelona, 1 17-120, 193, 336. Bardewick, 157. Barks, cascarilla and Peruvian, 343, 347- Barter, 3, 6, lo, 32, 167. Basle, 374. Bassorah, 520. Batavia, 357. Bavaria, 317. Beetroot sugar, 390, 461, 48 1. Belgium, separation of, from Hol- land, and its consequences, 364 ; dense population, railways, and national loyalty, 365 ; manufac- tures, mineral resources, 366, 367; trade with England, France, Germany, and the United States, 367-369- Bergen, 152, 153, 164, 451. Berlin, 482 ; Berlin and Milan decrees, 352, 384, 385. Bernadotte, 448. Beyrout, 502, 518 520. Bilbao, 336. Biorko, 151. Black Sea trade, Russian, 437. Blake, Admiral, 504. Bocca, 507. Bohemia, 314; sheep rearing in, 455 ; linen and glass manufac- tures of, ib. Bokhara, 523, 524. Bolivia, productions of, 344 ; manufactures, 345 ; German trade, ib. Bombay, 429. Bordeaux, 128, 408. Bornholm, 302. Bornou, kingdom of, 508. Boschooer, 306. Boulogne, 408. Bourbon, 245-246 ; Bourbon princes, 197-201 Boyards, 155. Braganza, House of, 182. Brandy distilling, 454. Brazil, 184, 467 ; independent empire of, 330 ; gold, iron, and diamonds, 331 ; principal com- mercial towns, ib. ; exports of raw produce, imports from Europe, 332 ; Brazilian tariff, 333- Breadstuffs, American, 486, 495. Bremen, 315, 320, 341, 354, 483. Bricks, 24. Brindisi, 407. Brisbane, 435. British India, 427-432. Brittany, 401. Bronze, Corinthian, 52. Bruges, 128, 148, 149, 177. INDEX. 609 Brunn, 458. Brunswick, 313. Brussels, lace manufaclures of, 366. Bucentaur, marriage ceremony of land and sea, on board of, 98. Buddha, priests of, 530- Buenos Ayres, 339 ; foreign trade of, 340. Bulgarians, 76. Bull, Papal, in favour of Spain, 187. . Bullion introduced, 3. Burgher class, 173. Burmah, 536. Burton, J. H. M., quoted, 270, 271. Byrsa, 34. Byzantine empire, 73-81. Byzantium, 52, 53. Cabot, John, 20S. Cabral, Alvarez, 1 1 5. Cabrillo, 497. Cabul, 522. Cachar, tea-planting at, 430. Cadiz, 192, 197, 198, 336. Cairo, 93, 503. Cajeput oil, 357. Calabria, 381. Calais, 408. Calcutta, 282. Calico, Russian, 440. Callao, shipping of, 342 ; Salinas or salt ponds, 343. Cambray, cambric of, 401. Cambyses, 40, 46. Canada, 325; limber trade of, 442. Canaries, 1 1 3. Candace, Queen of Ethiopia, 47. Candahar, 524. Canton, 453, 538. Cape Breton, 241, 242. Cape Colony, 509. Cape of Good Hope discovered, 177. Cape Town, 509. Caraccas Company, 197. Caravan trade, 7,8, 17, 52, 87, 92; resting places, 520. Ill Carthage, 29 ; its territory, ik ; its agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, 30-33 ; govern- ment, religion, and overthrow, 34-36. Cartier, Jacques, 238, 239. Cashgar, 524, Cashmere shawls, 401, 406, 439, 522, 526. Castes, origin of, 3 ; Egyptian, 38. Catalonia, 1 18-120, 198, 336. Catherine II., 437. Cattle rearing, 504, 519. Caucasus, Russian occupation of, 445- Cavendish, voyage of, 263. Cayenne, 242. Central America, 348. Cerne, 32. Ceylon, 180, 351, Chaldea, 27. Charlemagne, loi, 130, 13S, 156, 170. Charles III., Spain under reign of, 199, 200. Cherson, exports of timber from, 442. Child, Sir Josiah, 280. Chili, republic of, 341 ; exports and imports, 342 ; silver and quicksilver mines, ib. ; horses, railway and steam service, ib. China, Arabian trade with, 94 ; opium consumption, 428 ; cot- ton cultivation, ib. ; antiquity of Chinese, 528 ; husbandry chief occupation, ib.; Chinese manu- factures, 530-535; home and foreign trade, 535, 536 ; opium war, 539 ; statistics of the tea trade, 541 ; exodus of Chinese to Australia and California, 543. China-ware, 531. Christiana, University of, 449. Civilisation, primaeval, 2-5. Cleopatra, 44 Clive, Lord, 281, 282. Coal and iron on the Rhine, 483 ; abundant in China, 530. Coal, opposition to its use, 134. Cobden Treaty, 408. Cobija, port of, 345, 2 Q 6lO THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Coca, dried leaf of, 345. Coffee, 85, 521 ; Biazilian, 331 ; Java, 356. Coins, 4, 17, 56. Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 231-236, 391- Cologne, 158, 313, 480. Colombia or new Granada, 346. Colonial history of France, 238- 248 ; of England, 272-291. Colonial trade, French, 411. Columbus, 120-124, 187. Commerce, ancient, 1-72; peiiods of, 10-12 ; mediaeval, 73-178 ; German, 156-161. Commercial supremacy, decline of Dutch, 221-224. Confucius, 528. Congo coast, Portuguese trade on, 330. Constantinople, 73-81, 458, 512, 516. Consuls, 56. Contents, xi.-xlvi. Continental system, 438, 465, 526 ; of Napoleon, 382-387; its failure and impolicy, 3S7, 388. Coote, Sir Eyre, 282. Copenhagen, 299, 305 ; bombard- ment of, 452. Coptos, starling- point for cara- vans, 44. Coracles, 26. Cordova, 87, 89. Corinth, 51-55. Corn laws, repeal of, 420. Cornwailis, Marquis of, 2S2. Corsairs, 503. Corsica, 31. Cort, puddling furnace invented by, 286. Cortez, Fernando, conquers Mex- ico, 188. Cotton, Brazilian, 331 ; French, 403 ; British, 427 ; Indian, ib. ; Russian, 439, 440 ; Aus- trian, 458 ; United States, 4S6, 487, 491 ; Egyptian, 500; Chinese, 533. Courland and its colonies, 296- 298. Cracow, 463. Crassus, wealth of, 60. Crete, 19, 53. Crimean war, 444, 514. Cromwell, 216, 266-269. Crookes, Wdliam, on beetroot sugar, 390. Crusades, influence of, 171, 174. Cuba, 324, 466; its valueto Spain, 337 ; exports and imports, 337, 338. Cuen9a, paper made at, 192. Cyprus, 19, 53. Cyrus, 27, 40. D D'Almagro, Diego, 189. Damascus, 86, 521. Danes, husbandry their chief na- tional occupation, 452 ; wool- lens and cottons, not enough for home consumption, 453 ; brandy distilling prosperous, a surplus for exportation, 454 ; Danish toll for trade to the Baltic abolished, 454, 455 ; a round sum contributed by the States and the dues capitalised, ih. Dantzic, 315, 484. Danube, Turkish trade on, 514. Davis Strait, 214. Debt, laws of Greeks relative to, 56. Delft, 142. Demerara, 352. Denmark, 153, 164, 301 ; ib., colonies of, 305 ; separation of, from Norway, 447 ; provinces wrested from, by Prussia, 454 ; trade now concentrates itself at Copenhagen, ib. De Tocqueville, 121. Deventer, 143. Diarbekir, 518, 519. Diaz, Bartholomew, 114. Dido, 29. Diego Cam, 114. Dieppe, 408. Djecima, 545. Dog, eaten by Chinese, 530. Doge of Venice, 96, 97, 99. Dort, 140. INDEX. 6ii Douai, manufactures of, 401. Dragovit, 157. Drake, Sir Francis, 497 ; voyages of, 263. Draper, Dr., quoted, 1 88. Drobak, trade of, in Norway ice, 451. Dupleix, 247, 248. Dutch Boers, 509. Dutch East India Company, 211 ; West India Company, 211. Dutch, flourisliing condiiion of their home and foreign trade, 363- East India Company, 351, 538 ; French, 246-248; ib., Englisli, 278-282. Ebboe, 507. Ecuador, 346. Egga, 507. 508. Egypt, 500-503 ; antiquity of, and dependence on Nile, 37 ; arts and manufactures, 38 ; agricul- tureand commerce, 39 ; hierogly- phics, 40 ; conquest of, by the Persians, ib. ; population and architecture, 4I ; Alexandria founded, 42 ; the Ptolemies, 42-44; library at Alexandria, 45 ; its destruction by tlie Arabs, 92 ; effect of Arab rule on Egyptian commerce, ib. Elizabeth, England under,26l-266. Elsinore, 1 53. Emanuel the Fortunate, 179. Emigration, 426 ; extension of commerce through, 4, 5. England, earliest manufactures of, 131 ; bad roads and disturljed state of the country, 132 ; oriL;in of the English navy, ib. ; feucial system and monasteries, 1 33, 134 ; merchant-princes, 135 ; wars of the Roses, 136 ; acces- sion of the house of Tudor and foundation of England's pros- perity laid, ib. ; sketch of her commercial history, 257-291 ; French trade with, 408. Enkhuizen, 142, Enns, Lower, 459. Erasmus, quoted, 258. Eratosthenes, 44, Erfurt, alliance of, 516. Esthonia, 162, 298. Estremadura, 200. Ethiopia, 45-47. Etruria, 64, 65. Etruscan pottery, painting, sculp- ture, 65, Euphrates, 26, 27. European and Asiatic Turkey, 512-520. Euxine, ports of the, 438. Exmouth, Lord, exoediuon of, 503 Factory system in America, 495. Fellaheen, 501. Feudal system, 133, 168. Fez, 91, F'inmark, government of, 450, Fiscars, cutlery of, 441. Fisheries, Dutch, 211, 215; of United States, 488. Fiume, outlet of Hungarian pro- duce, 463. Flaxmanulacturein Belgium, 367. Flax-spinners, Bohemian, 458. Flemmgs, 147-149. Florence, 107-109. Florida, 186, 200. Food, primitive sources of, i. Formosa, 539. Fostat, 92. Foulahs, empire of, 508. France, 125-129, 226-256 ; issue of assignats during the revolu- tionary war, 382 ; Suspect and Maximum, Laws of, 383 ; re- storation of the Bourbons and expenses of the war, 393 ; re- vival of French industry, 394 ; French agriculture, 395 ; manu- factures in iron, 398 ; silk trade, 399 ; trade wiih England, Ger- many, and the United States, 40S-41 1. Frankfort-on-the-Main, 313; fairs at, 455 ; manufactures and trade of, 483. Frederick William, 311. 6 I 2 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. French Revolution, 488. Frisian manufactures, 13S ; extent of territory and warlike charac- ter, 139. Frobisher, Martin, 262. Fulton, first steamboat launched by, 490. Fundah, 507. Furs, Russian trade in, with Cliina, 541. Gai.atz, 515. Galleons, Spanish, 191. Gallicia, 463. Gamiiia, 245. Geneva, watches of, 373, 406. Genoa, its early history, 103 ; Russian and Crimean trade, ib. ; manufactures, power, and wealth, ib. ; conquers Pisa, but is itself conquered by Venice, 104 ; exports of, 376 ; conii- nenlal trade of, 377 ; Russian trade with, 437. Genoese voyagers, 177. Georgia, cotton plant introduced, 486. Germany, 307-318, 464-484; French trade with, 409. Ghent, 149, 1 50. Gibbon, quotation from, 73. Gibraltar, 479. Glass, manufactories of, Austrian, 459 ; manufacture, P'rench, 405. Goa, 180, 210, 330. Gol)elins carpets, 406. Gold coast, 509. Gold, discoveries of, 417. GothenburjT, 451. Gouda, 142. Government, first form of, 3. Granada, 87, 90, 1 92. Gravosa, 463. Greece, its geographical position, 48 ; commercial settlements of, 49 ; early Greek pirates, 50 ; Athens and Corinth, 51 ; bene- fits conferred on civilisation by the Greeks, 54. Gresham, Sir Thomas, 265. Grocers' Hall, 289. Grotius, 212. Guadalou]3e, 244, 324, 411. Guano, Peruvian, 343. Guiana, 187. Guilds, origin of, 169, 170. Guinea Coast, 508. Gunpowder, 534; invented, 175. II Haarlem, 141. Habitations, fixed, 2. llalberstadt, 465. Hallam, 52, 81, I18, 120. Ilamburi,', 314, 320, 449, 483. Hanover, 405. Ilanseatic League, 159, 161 ; its influence and utility, 166, 167. Hastings, Warren, 282. Ilavannah, 338. Havre, 407. Hawkins, Captain J., 261. Hayti, 243. Heemskerk, Jacob Van, 2IO. HelsinL;fors, 437 ; cutlery manu- factured at, by Englishmen, 441. Hemp, American, 487. Herat, 8, 87;. Hercules, Pillars of, 19. Herodotus, 19, 32, 82. Herring-fisheries, 145-147. Hides, salted and dried, 332. Hiero, 65. Hieroglyphics, 22, 39, 40, 45. Iliogo, 546. History, ancient, summary of, 66- 72 ; mediseval do., 168-178. Hobart Town, 435. Holland, trade of, 129, 140 ; and Belgiuin, united, 351; separated, 355 ; commerce of, with Japan, 545- Holstein, 304, 454. Homer, 18. Hong-Kong, 538. Hoorn, or llorn, 141, Horse-racing at Pekin, 543. Household furniture, 496. Houtman, Cornelius, 209. Hudson, Henry, 209. Hungary, 459, 462. Hunter, life of, i. Ilyder Ali, 282. INDEJ<. 613 Ice trade of Dibbak and Wenham Lake, 451. Idaho, mineral wealth of, 499. Idda, 507 Idria, quicksilver mines of, 460. Imperial Canal in China, 536. Incas, native Peruvian kings, 189. Independent Tartary, 523. India, and Australia, 427 ; over- land route to, 503. Indian ink, 534. Indigo, 428. Industrial exhibitions, French ori- gin of, 396. Inequalities, social, their origin, 2' 3- . Inquisition, Spanisli, 193. Interchange, first commencement of, 4. Ireland, 137, 271, 283. Irkutsk, 445. Iron, 3. Iron Gate, 514. Iron industry, French, 398 ; Rus- sian, 439 ; Swedish, 450 ; Prus- sian, 481. IsabeMa II., Queen of Spain, 335. Ismail Paslia, 501. Italian republics, 95-111. Italy, commerce of its principal provinces and cities, 37S-3'So ; agriculture and iron trade, 38 1. Ivan the Terrible, 292. Ivory carving, Chinese, 535. J Jacquard loom, 399. James I., 266. Japan, 400, 544-548 ; discovery of, 181. Java, Chinese trade with, 356 ; exports and imports, ib. ; bene- fits resulting to Dutch industry through the Javanese trade, 356- 361. Javanese edible birds' nests, 536. Jenkinson, Anthony, overland journey of, 261. Jerked beef, 332. Jews, extensive Phoenician land traffic of, 15, 16. Joliba, 508. Jupiter Amnion, worship of, 47. Justinian, Emperor, 74, 77. Jute, 429. Jutland, 304, 454. K Kabyles, 506. Kampen, 143. Kaolin Clay, 531. Katunga, 508. Kazan, 155. Kiachta telegraph, 543. Kiel, treaty of, 447 ; exports and imports, 483. Kiev, 155. Kin-lie-ciiin, porcelain furnaces 5 Nelson, Admiral, 334. Netherlands, 138-150, 165, 202- 225, 351- Nevada, mineral wealth of, 99. Newfoundland, 241. New Granada, 187 ; trade with United Kingdom and Europe, 346-347 ; mineral wealth, ih. New Orleans, British repulse, 489. New York, origin of, 209. New Zealand, progress of com- merce in, 436. Niebuhr, 138. Niemen districts, despoiling of, 466. Nigritia, 507. Nijni-Novgorod, 439; annual fair at, 444, 524. Nile, 8, 37. Nimeguen, 143. Nineveh, 23. Noort, Olivier Van, 209, 210. Norway, 152, 153, 163; enforced union of, with Sweden, 447 ; Norwegian constituiion and Par- liament (Storthing), 448 ; the union prosperous, 449 ; the social and commercial difference be- tween the two countries, ib. ; prohibitive tariff adopted, 450 ; backward state of agriculture in Norway, 451 ; exports and im- ports of Norway, 452. Nova Scotia, 239, 240. Novgorod, 154. Nuremburg, 313. Nystadt, Palace of, 298. O Odessa, 437. Ojeda, Alonzo d', 186. Oleron, laws of, 151, 167. Ophir, 18. Opium, 538. Oporto, Wine Company^ 1S4 ; wine trade of, 329. Oranges, St. Michael, 328. Orders in Council, 385, 490. Ormuz, 180, 263, 278. Osaka, 546. Ostend, 353, 369, 480. Otho, Bishop of Bamberg, 169. Ottoman Asia, 518. Overland, trade, earliest, 7 ; route to India, 416, 503 ; Russian trade, 444. Pacific Ocean, discovery of, 186. Palmyra, 15. Paper-making in United States, 488 ; in China, 533. Paraguay, Republic of, 345. Parana, 346. Pari?, porcelain, glass, and paper manufactures of, 405 ; its special manufactures, 407. Pasc'-", silver mines of, 343. Pashas, Turkish, 515. Pastoral life, 2. Penn, William, 274. Penza, factories of, 439. Pernambuco, 331. Persia, 521. Peru, 342 ; conquest of, 189 ; value of its guano, 343 ; mineral pro- ducts and wool, ib. ; exports and imports, 343, 344. Peruvians, revolt of, 200. Peshawur, 525. Pesth, 462. Peter the Great, 292-296 ; indus- tries founded by, 439. Philadelphia, 485. Philip II. and III. of Spain, 193- 195- . Philippine Islands, 196. Phoenicia, land trade of, 14-16 ; commercial products, 17, 18; maritime trade, 18-21. Piedmont, 381. Pilgrim Fathers, 274. Pilgrims, Arabian, 83. Pisa, 103, 105-107. Pittoff, Russian calico printer, 440. Pizarro, Francisco, conquers Peru, 189. Plato, legend related by, 176. Poland, 296, 445. Pombal, Marquis de, 1S4. Pondicherry, 247. Poor Laws, English, history of, 422. 6l6 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OF COMMERCE. Porcelain, 405, 531-532. Port Said, 543. Porto Rico, 334, 338. Portuj^al, II2-I16, 179-185; pros- perity of, at commencement of French Revolution, 327 ; Napo- leonic era, ib. ; subsequent history of kingdom, 328 ; trade of, with United Kingdom, 329 ; slow progress of Portuguese com- merce, 330. Portuguese, maritime enterprise of, 113; empire in America, 330 ; driven from Japan, 544. Potosi, silver mines of, 189, 344. Potteries, French, 405. Prague, 463. Primogeniture, abolished in France, 395. Printing, invention of, 175; paper, ib. ; Chinese Block, 534. Prussia, 470. Psammetichus, 40. Ptolemies, 42-44. Puerto Bello, 199. Punjaub, 525. Quebec founded, 240. Queen of Spain, 335. Queensland, 435. Quesnay, Francois du, 251, 252. Quicksilver, 209, 326, 343. R Ragusa, 463. Railways, in Spain, 336 ; Russian 444; Austrian, 456 ; German, 480. Raleigh, Sir Walter, 211, 257, 272, 273- Rangoon, 432. Rawlinson, Sir H., quoted, 529, Redout Kaleh, line of, 523. Reformation, 176. Repartimientos, 1 9 1. Reuss, 470. Revel, 437. Revolutions, French, 301 ; Ame- rican, 276. Rhenish coal, 468. Rhode Island, first cotlun mill erected in, 486. Rhodes, Colossus of, 53, 54. Rice, 429 ; paper, preparation of, 534- Riga, 1 62 ; export timber from, 438, 442. Rio de Janeiro, exportation of coffee, 331. Rio de la Plata, 186. River commerce, 8. Rock crystal, lenses made, 531' Roeskilde warriors, 153. Romagna, trade of, 376. Romanoff, Michael, 293. Romans, war their principal oc- cupation, 58 ; commerce and manufactures not honoured, 59 ; luxurious living of,6o, 61; roads, aqueducts, and banks, 53; down- fall of Western Roman Empire, ib. Rome, 58-63. Roses, Wars of the, 271. Rostock, port of, 316. Rotterdam, 144, 364. Runjeet Singh, 526. Rune, 154. Russia, political and commercial history and prmcipal towns, 153-155 ; character of, 292 commerce of, 292-298, 323 manufactures of, 437-440; ex ports to the United Kingdom 441 ; agricultural statistics, ib. forests a source of wealth, 442 navy and mercantile fleet, ib. overland trade with Asia, 444 Polish provinces ol Russia, 445 Ryswick, Peace of, 247. Saccatoo, 508. Salonica, 518. Salt works, 460. San Domingo, 243. San Francisco, 498. Santiago, 342. Sardinia, 31, 376. Saw mills, American, 48 7. Saxony, 312 ; wool of, 466 INDEX. 6t7 Scandinavia, 151-153, 299 306, 447-452. Scheldt dues abolished, 368. Scherer, quotation from, 191. Scherzer, Dr. Karl, quoted, 431. Schiedam, distilleries of, 363. Schleswig, 454. Schwartz, Russian dyer, 440, Schwarzburg, 410. Scotland, 136, 137, 269. Segovia, 192. Selden, 212. Serampore, 453. Setubal, lake of, 328. Seville, 190, 192, 197, 198. Sevres, porcelain of, 405. Shanghai, 540. Shipbuilding, American, 496. Shipping, entering ports of Russia, .443-444- Siberia, 445. Sicily, 93, 94, 3S0. Sidon, 13. Sierra Morena, 198. Sikhs, 525. Silesia, linens of, 458. Silk manufactures, 227-231. Silk trade, French, 399; Austrian, 459; Chinese, 532. Silkworm, 74, 172. Singapore, 431. Sluys, port of, 149. Smuggling, 199, 207, 325. Smyrna,British trade with, 5 18,523. Solomon, 15, 16. Soudan, 506. Southern Africa, 509. South Netherlands, 224, 322. South-Sea Bubble, 255, 289, 289- 291. Spain, physical advantages of, for commerce, 117 ; maritime dis- coveries of, through Columbu'^, 123, 124 ; 186-201 ; war with England, 334 ; navy destroyed by Nelson, ib. ; Spanish civii war, ib. ; exports and imports, 335 ; commerceof chief Spanish towns, 336, 337 ; Spanish colo- nies in South America, 337. Spanish Main, territories on, 339 ; their yield of precious metal ib. III. St. Domingo, insurrection, 327. St. Petersburg, 437. Stars and stripes of American flag, 485. State schools in Germany, 481. States-General, 212. States of the Church, 379. Statistical supplement, 563-599. Stavoren, ancient greatness of, 139. Steamboat, first, 490. Stettin, 484. Stockholm, 451. Stock-jobbing, 219, Storthing (Parliament), 448. Suez Canal, 501, 503, 521 ; an- cient, 8. Sugar, Brazilian, 327. Sulina mouth of the Danube, 514. Sully, 391 ; Duke of, 229. Sumptuary laws, 173. Swabia, 311, Sweden, 151, 152, 163, 300, 301 ; home manufactures of, 450 ; iron and timber, ib.; trade with United Kingdom, 451 ; agri- cultural industry, ib. ; cause of its backward state, ib. Switzerland, primitive industries, 370 ; Swiss goods, English de- mand for, 372 ; exports and imports, 373-374- Sydney, 434. Syene, 92, Sylhat, tea planting at, 430. Syracuse, 54. Tabasco, 188. Tabasheer, 530. Tacitus, 131. Tallow, 442. Taprobane or Ceylon, 180. Tammerfers, spinning mills of, 441. Tartary, Independent, 523. Tasmania, 435. Tea, 279 ; statistics of, 541. Terra Firma, 187. Terre Neuve, 241. Texas, 350. Texel, island of, 351. Thiity Years' War 309, 323. 2 R 6l8 THE GROWTH AND VICISSITUDES OCF OMMERCE. Thucydides, 50. Tien-tsin, 543. Tilsit, peace of, 438. Timbuctoo, kingdom of, 50S. Tippoo Sahib, 282. Tobacco, 283, 317; Brazilian, 332 ; Cuban, 337. Tours, 225. Trade, maritime coasting, 8, 9 ; British, magnitude of, 421. Tradition, ancient, Alpine valley, 5- Trafalgar, battle of, 334. Traffic, land and river, 7, 8, 66. Tranquebar, 305, 306. Transport or carrying trade, 215- 219. Transylvania, quicksilver yielded by, 460. Travellers, first traders, 4. Treaty of Tien-tsin, 539. Trebizond, 520, 523. Trieste, 457, 463. Tripoli, 299, 303. Troyes, 126, 127. Tuaricks, 303. Tula, cannon foundries of, 439. Tulipomania, 220. Tunis, 504. Turgot, 251-253, Turkestan, 523. Turkey, 512. Tuscany, 376, 381. Tylos, 26. Tyre, 13, 14, 16. U Udal right, 451. Ukase, Russian, 439, Ulster, 283. Ungrians, 76. United States, independence of, recognised by Great Britain, 486 ; rise and development of American agriculture, manu- factures, and commerce, 486- 496. Upper Peru, or Bolivia, 344. Ural mountains, mines of pla- . tinum in, 439. Uruguay, 34 I. Utrecht, 144 ; treaty of, 320. V Valencia, 190, 201, 337. Valenciennes lace, 402. Valparaiso, shipping of, 341. Van Arnim, 308. Van den Bosch, Governor of Java, 359- Van Neck, 209. Varna, 516. Vasa, Gustavus, 299. Vasco de Gama, discoveries of, 115- Veneiia, 462 ; trade of, 377. Venezuela, 187, 346. Venice founded, 95 ; its commer- cial greatness, 96 ; its govern- ment, 97 ; merchant fleet, 99 ; arts and geographical dis- coveries, loi ; decline of its commercial power, 102, 177, 318 ; depressed state under Aus- trian rule, 377 ; her incorpora- tion with Italy, 378. Vera Cruz, 190, 191. Verviers, 459, Vienna, 462. Vikings, 154, 304. Vineta, 151, 157. Vintages of France, 397. Virginia, 272, 273. W Waghorne, Lieutenant, 503. Wallace, Sir William, 136. Wallachia, 514. War, influences of, unfavourable to commerce, 71. Warsaw, 446. Warwijk, Vice-Admiral, 209. Washington, General, 485. Waterloo, battle of, 3S4. Weavers, 227. Weight, first payments in gold and silver made by, 4. West Coast settlements, 509. West India Company, 21 1. Westphalia, Peace of, 218. Whale fisheries, 213. White Sea, discovery of, 260-261. Wieliczka, rock salt mines of, 460. William I., King of Holland, 355. INDEX. 619 Willoughby, expedition under, 208. Wisby, maritime laws of, 151, 164, 167 ; description of the city, 152. Wolfe, General, 240. Wolsey, custom of, 258. Wool, Peruvian, 343 ; Bolivian, 345- Woollens, French, 401 ; Austrian, 458 ; American, 495. Woisley, Benjamin, 211. Writing, origin of the art of, 17, iS. Wurtemberg, 317. X Xeres, 337. Yarkand, 524, 536, Yarns, statistics of French, 402. Yarriba, kingdom of, 507. Yedo, 546. Yemen, 85. Yokohama, 546. Yucatan, 186. Yunnan, metallic ores of, 531. Zacatecas, silver mines of, 1S9. Zamorin, 115. Zanzibar, 510. Zealand, 454. Zehra, Palace of, 89. Zeyla, 510. Zierikzee, 140. Zlataust, 439. Zollverein, history of, 470 ; an- tagonistic to British industrial supremacy, 550. Zurich, cotton fabrics of, 370. THE END. PRINTED By G. PHILIP AND SON, LIVEKFOOt. I