Part 11 (2/2)

{50} Ma.r.s.eilles was founded soon after the city of Rome, but it was a government of itself, and made no part of ancient Gaul. The Gauls were warlike barbarians. The inhabitants of Ma.r.s.eilles were polished, like the inhabitants of other towns that enjoyed commercial wealth.

They were always allies, and steady friends to the Romans, whom they never abandoned.

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than to any intrinsic strength of its own, did the eastern empire owe its long preservation.

A new channel for this varying commerce of the East, was opened, as civilization extended to the north of Europe, and this chiefly on account of the very small supply that was obtained through the Mahomedan countries.

Goods were transported by land from Hindostan and China, to Esterhabad, situated on the south-east corner of the Caspian Sea; from whence they were carried in vessels to the north-east corner of the same sea, and from thence by the Wolga and the Don; two rivers which rise in Russia, and, after nearly meeting together, fall into the Caspian Sea, and the Black Sea. By ascending the Wolga a short distance, and descending the Don, with only a few miles of land- carriage, the produce of India arrived at the Black Sea, and Constantinople became the emporium of the Indian trade. This was a great stroke to Venice and Genoa, {51} which rivalled each other in bringing the Asiatic commodities, for the supply of Europe, through the old channels. This jealousy of each other, and of Constantinople, was at its height when the crusades carried most of the princes and n.o.bles of Europe to Venice and Constantinople. The Venetians, merely a mercantile people, with little territory or power, neither gave nor received umbrage from those warlike chiefs; but it was not so with Constantinople, the seat of a great empire; so that the crusaders and Venetians united against that power, and the eastern emperors were compelled to divide their city into four parts: the sovereignty of one part fell to the lot of the Venetians, who, for more than half a century, had by this means a decided superiority over both its rivals, and engrossed nearly the whole commerce of the East. The Genoese and Greek emperors now found

-- {51} In the chart which I have given, Venice and Genoa are put together, as if one, though they were rivals, and the prosperity of the one injured the other; but as nearly situated the same, and neither being considered as a nation, but merely as an abode of commerce, I did not think it necessary to distinguish them in the general history more than the variations that take place between the different cities of the same country. If, however, I should do the chart on a large scale, I should certainly separate them, and shew their rises and falls minutely.

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it their interest to unite against Venice, and the Genoese, by supporting their ally with money, expelled the Venetians from Constantinople. The imperial family was reinstated, and the Genoese had the suburbs of Pera as a reward for their a.s.sistance. This quarter of the city the Genoese fortified, and the Venetians were compelled to return to their old channels by Egypt and Syria. {52}

During those contests, Florence arose, and became a rival both to Venice and Genoa; and some degree of civilization, or, at least, a taste for the luxuries and produce of the East was brought into the north of Europe by those who returned from the crusades. The consumption of Asiatic produce in the North, occasioned depots to be established, and Bruges and Antwerp became to the north, what Venice and Genoa were to the south of Europe. The Hans Towns rose to wealth and opulence just about that period; but the effects of wealth acquired by commerce in the north were found to be different from what they had been in southern climates. Italy was going to decay, while three of its cities were increasing in splendour; but, in the north, the riches acquired by the cities set industry at work: manufactures were improved, and affluence and the comforts of life became more generally diffused than they had ever before been, or than they are in the southern countries even at the present day.

While Constantinople was thus rivalling the cities of Italy, a new revolution took place there, which overturned the Greek empire, and established that of the Ottomans.

When Mahomet II. mounted the throne, the Genoese were expelled from Pera, {53} and Venice regained the preponderance in eastern

{52} The depot of India commerce being in the Crimea, which is near the mouth of the Wolga, is a strong reason for believing the trade was carried on through the Caspian Sea; but it has been a.s.serted, that the chief route was directly by land from the Tigris to the Black Sea. This seems a very good way; but, in that case, why cross the Black Sea to go to the Crimea? Any one who looks at the map will be able to judge that as being very unlikely. Doctor Robertson, however, has taken no notice of this difficulty. Two things are certain: that the depot was in the Crimea, and that merchants never go out of their road without having some cause for doing it. The reader must then determine for himself.

{53} Before the Genoese were expelled, their insolence and avarice had time to display themselves in their full extent; about the year thirteen hundred and forty, says an eye-witness, [end of page #57]

(Nicepho[r/i]as [illeg.] Gregoras,) they dreamed that they had acquired the dominion of the sea, and claimed an exclusive right to the trade of the Euxine, prohibiting the Greeks to sail to the Chersonesus, or any part beyond the mouth of the Danube, without a licence from them.

The Venetians were not excepted, and the arrogance of the Genoese went so far as to form a scheme for imposing a toll on every vessel pa.s.sing through the Bosphorous.

commerce, which she maintained, till the discovery of the pa.s.sage by the Cape of Good Hope, which opened a new channel, more certain, much less expensive, and not so liable to interruption from the revolutions that nations are liable to. It is deserving of observation, that whatever alterations took place in the channel through which the India trade was carried on, whatever were the vicissitudes or the difficulties, the trade itself never was suspended; so great was the propensity of those who were affluent in the West, to enjoy the productions of the East. {54}

The vicissitudes of this eastern commerce were thus very great in former times. The wealth and arrogance which the possession of it produced, and the envy it excited, may, in general, be ascribed as the cause; indeed it is not certain whether the envy of the Genoese, at the success of the Venetians, did not make them, in an underhand manner, favour those attempts to find out a new channel which might destroy the prosperity of a haughty and successful rival. {55}

Whether it was so or not, it is certain that the discovery of the pa.s.sage by the Cape of Good Hope was not accidental; but that the Portuguese were induced to listen to the proposal of trading to India by that route, under the certainty of rivalling the greatest commercial city of the world, if she should succeed.

Though no new channel can now be expected, and the present one is every day becoming more easy and frequented, yet the capricious s.h.i.+ftings of the India trade were not ended by this new discovery.

Instead of the contest being, as formerly, between cities situated on

{54} The prices of Asiatic produce were exorbitant. Silk was sold for its weight in gold; and a Roman emperor refused his empress the luxury, or rather the splendour, of a silk gown.

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