Volume Xviii Part 27 (1/2)

The computations, however, necessary in making use of these tables, were found to be very laborious and inconvenient; to obviate this difficulty, the nautical almanack, suggested by Dr. Maskelyne, was published, which is now annually continued. The longitude is thus ascertained to such a nicety, as to secure the navigator from any danger arising from the former imperfect modes of finding it; ”he is now enabled to make for his port without sailing into the parallel of lat.i.tude, and then, in the seaman's phrase, running down the port, on the parallel, as was done before this method was practised. Fifty years ago, navigators did not attempt to find their longitude at sea, unless by their reckoning, which was hardly ever to be depended on.”

Not long after the mariner's compa.s.s was employed, its variation was noticed; as it is obvious that, unless the degree and direction of this variation are accurately known, the compa.s.s would be of little service in navigation, the attention of navigators and philosophers was carefully directed to this point; and it was ascertained that the quant.i.ty of this variation is subject to regular periodical changes. By means, therefore, of a table indicating those changes, under different lat.i.tudes and longitudes, and of what are called variation charts, the uncertainty arising from them is in a great measure done away. Another source of error however existed, which does not seem to have been noticed till the period of Captain Cook's voyages: it was then found, ”that the variation of the needle differed very sensibly on the same spot, with the different directions of the s.h.i.+p's head.” Captain Flinders attributed this to the iron in the s.h.i.+p, and made a number of observations on the subject; these have been subsequently added to and corrected, so that at present the quant.i.ty of variation from this cause can be ascertained, and of course a proper allowance made for it. It does not appear that any material improvement has been made in the construction and use of the log,--that useful and necessary appendage to the compa.s.s,--since it was invented about the end of the sixteenth century.

These are the most important improvements in nautical knowledge and science, which renders navigation at present so much more safe and expeditious than it formerly was; there are, however, other circ.u.mstances which tend to the same object; the more full, accurate, and minute knowledge of the prevalent winds at different times of the year, and in various parts of the ocean; the means of foretelling changes of weather; and, princ.i.p.ally, a knowledge of the direction and force of the currents must be regarded as of essential advantage to the seaman. When to these we add, the coppering of s.h.i.+ps, which was first practised about the year 1761, and other improvements in their built and rigging, we have enumerated the chief causes which enable a vessel to reach the East Indies in two-thirds of the time which was occupied in such a voyage half a century ago.

Nor must we forget that the health of the seamen has, during the same period, been rendered infinitely more secure; so that mortality and sickness, in the longest voyages, and under great and frequent changes of climate, and other circ.u.mstances usually affecting health, will not exceed what would have occurred on land during the same time.

The great advantages which the very improved state of all branches of physical science, and of natural history, bestow on travellers in modern times, are enjoyed, though not in an equal degree, by navigators and by those who journey on land. To the latter they are indeed most important, and will princ.i.p.ally account for the superiority of modern travels over those which were published a century ago, or even fifty years since. It is plain that our knowledge of foreign countries relates either to animate or inanimate nature: to the soil and geology, the face of the surface, and what lies below it; the rivers, lakes, mountains, climate, and the plants; or to the natural history, strictly so called:--and to the manners, inst.i.tutions, government, religion, and statistics of the inhabitants.

Consequently, as the appropriate branches of knowledge relating to these objects are extended, travellers must be better able, as well as more disposed, to investigate them; and the public at large require that some or all of them should at least be noticed in books of travels. The same science, and many of the same instruments, which enable the seaman to ascertain his lat.i.tude and longitude, and to lay down full and accurate charts of the sh.o.r.es which he visits, are also useful to the land-traveller; they both draw a.s.sistance from the knowledge of meteorology which they may possess, to make observations on the climate, and from their acquaintance with botany and natural history, to give an account of the plants and animals. But it is evident that so far as the latter are concerned, as well as so far as relates to the inhabitants, the land traveller has more opportunities than he who goes on a voyage.

But there are other advantages enjoyed by modern travellers besides those derived from superior science: foreign languages are at present better and more generally understood; and it is unnecessary to point out how important such an acquisition is, or rather how indispensible it is to accurate information. The knowledge of the languages of the East which many of the gentlemen in the service of the East India Company, and the missionaries, possess, has been of infinite service in making us much better acquainted with the antiquities, history, and present state of those countries, than we could possibly have otherwise been. There is at present greater intercourse among even remote nations; and prejudices, which formerly operated as an almost insurmountable barrier, are now either entirely destroyed, or greatly weakened: in proof of this, we need only refer to the numerous travellers who have lately visited Egypt,--a country which it would have been extremely dangerous to visit half a century ago. At the same distance of time, natives of Asia or Africa, especially in their appropriate costume, were seldom or never seen in the streets of London, or, if seen, would have been insulted, or greatly incommoded by the troublesome curiosity of its inhabitants; now there are many such, who walk the streets unmolested, and scarcely noticed.

Commerce, which has derived such advantages from the progress of geographical knowledge, has in some measure repaid the obligation, by creating a much greater, more intimate, and more frequent mutual intercourse among nations; and by doing away with those prejudices and antipathies which formerly closed many countries effectually against Christian and European travellers: and to the zeal and perseverance of modern travellers, a.s.sisted as they are by commercial intercourse, we may reasonably hope that we shall, before long, be indebted for a knowledge of the interior of Africa. Those countries still imperfectly known in the south-east of Asia will, probably, from their vicinity to our possessions in Hindostan, be explored from that quarter. The encreasing population of the United States, and the independence of South America, will necessarily bring us acquainted with such parts of the new world as are still unknown.

But it is difficult to conjecture from what sources, and under what circ.u.mstances, the empires of China and j.a.pan will be rendered more accessible to European travellers: these countries, and some parts of the interior of Asia, are cut off from our communication by causes which probably will not speedily cease to operate. The barriers which still enclose all other countries are gradually yielding to the causes we have mentioned; and as, along with greater facilities for penetrating into and travelling within such countries, travellers now possess greater capabilities of making use of the opportunities thus enjoyed, we may hope that nearly the whole world will soon be visited and known, and known, too, in every thing that relates to inanimate and animate nature.

The progress of commerce during the last hundred years, the period of time to which we are at present to direct our attention, has been so rapid, its ramifications are so complicated, and the objects it embraces so various and numerous, that it will not be possible, within the limits to which we must confine ourselves, to enter on minute and full details respecting it; nor would these be consonant to the nature of our work, or generally interesting and instructive.

During the infancy of commerce, as well as of geographical science, we deemed it proper to be particular in every thing that indicated their growth; but the reasons which proved the necessity, or the advantage, of such a mode of treating these subjects in the former parts of this volume, no longer exist, but in fact give way to reasons of an opposite nature--reasons for exhibiting merely a general view of them. Actuated by these considerations, we have been less minute and particular in what relates to modern geography, than In what relates to ancient; and we shall follow the same plan in relation to what remains to be said on the subject of commerce. So long as any of the causes which tended to advance geography and commerce acted obscurely and imperfectly--so long as they were in such a weak state that the continuance of their progress was doubtful, we entered pretty fully into their history; but after a forward motion was communicated to them, such as must carry them towards perfection without the possibility of any great or permanent check, we have thought it proper to abstain from details, and to confine ourselves to more general views.

Guided by this principle which derives additional weight from the vastness to which commerce has reached within the last hundred years, we shall now proceed to a rapid and general sketch of its progress during that period, and of its present state.

From the first and feeble revival of commerce in the middle ages, till the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, the Italian republics, and the Hanseatic League, nearly monopolized all the trade of Europe; the former, from their situation, naturally confining themselves to the importation and circulation of the commodities supplied by the East, and by the European countries in the south of Europe, and the districts of Africa then known and accessible; while the latter directed their attention and industry to those articles which the middle and north of Europe produced or manufactured.

The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope gave a different direction to the commerce of the East, while at the same time it very greatly extended it; but as it is obvious that a greater quant.i.ty of the commodities supplied by this part of the world could not be purchased, except by an increase in the produce and manufactures of the purchasing nations, they also pushed forward in industry, experience, skill, and capital. The Portuguese and Spaniards first reaped the fruits of the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope; subsequently the Dutch; and at the period at which this part of our sketch of commerce commences, the English were beginning to a.s.sume that hold and superiority in the East, by which they are now so greatly distinguished. The industry of Europe, especially of the middle and northern states, was further stimulated by the discovery of America, and, indirectly, by all those causes which in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries tended to increase information, and to secure the liberty of the ma.s.s of the people. The invention of printing; the reformation; the destruction of the feudal system, at least in its most objectionable, degrading, and paralizing features; the contentions between the n.o.bility and the sovereigns, and between the latter and the people; gave a stimulus to the human mind, and thus enlarged its capacities, desires, and views, in such a manner, that the character of the human race a.s.sumed a loftier port.

From all these causes commerce benefited, and, as was natural to expect, it benefited most in those countries where most of these causes operated, and where they operated most powerfully. In Holland we see a memorable and gratifying instance of this: a comparatively small population, inhabiting a narrow district, won and kept from the overwhelming of the ocean, by most arduous, incessant, and expensive labour,--and the territory thus acquired and preserved not naturally fertile, and where fertile only calculated to produce few articles,--a people thus disadvantageously situated, in respect to territory and soil, and moreover engaged in a most perilous, doubtful, and protracted contest for their religion and liberty, with by far the most potent monarch of Europe,--this people, blessed with knowledge and freedom, forced to become industrious and enterprizing by the very adverse circ.u.mstances in which they were placed, gradually wrested from their opponents--the discoverers of the treasures of the East and of the new world, and who were moreover blessed with a fertile soil and a luxurious climate at home,--their possessions in Asia, and part of their possessions in America. Nor did the enterprising spirit of the Dutch confine itself to the obtaining of these sources of wealth: they became, as we have already seen, the carriers for nearly the whole of Europe; by their means the productions of the East were distributed among the European nations, and the bulky and mostly raw produce of the sh.o.r.es of the Baltic was exchanged for the productions and manufactures of France, England, Germany, and the Italian states.

From the middle of the eighteenth century, the commerce of the Dutch began to decline; partly in consequence of political disputes among themselves, but princ.i.p.ally because other nations of Europe now put forth their industry with effect and perseverance. The English and the French, especially, became their great rivals; first, by conducting themselves each their own trade, which had been previously carried on by the Dutch, and, subsequently, by the possessions they acquired in the East. The American war, and soon afterwards the possession of Holland by the French during the revolutionary war, gave a fatal blow to the remnant of their commerce, from which it has not recovered, nor is likely at any time to recover, at least nearly to its former flouris.h.i.+ng state. For, as we have remarked, the Dutch were flouris.h.i.+ng and rich, princ.i.p.ally because other nations were ignorant, enslaved, and dest.i.tute of industry, skill, and capital.

England took the place of the Dutch in the scale of commercial enterprise and success: the contest between them was long and arduous; but at length England attained a decided and permanent superiority. She gradually extended her possessions in the East; and after expelling the French from this part of the world, became in reality the only European sovereign power there.

The manufactures of England, those real and abundant causes and sources of her immense commerce, did not begin to a.s.sume that importance and extent to which they have at present reached, till the middle, or rather the latter part of the eighteenth century; then her potteries, her hardware, her woollens, and above all her cotton goods, began to improve. Certainly the steam engine is the grand cause to which England's wealth and commerce may be attributed in a great degree; but the perfection to which it has been brought, the multifarious uses to which it is applied, both presuppose skill, capital, and industry, without which the mere possession of such an engine would have been of little avail.

At the termination of the American war, England seemed completely exhausted: she had come out of a long and expensive contest, deprived of what many regarded as her most valuable possessions, and having contracted an enormous debt. Yet in a very few years, she not only revived, but flourished more than ever; it is in vain to attribute this to any other causes but those alone which can produce either individual or national wealth, viz. industry, enterprize, knowledge, and economy, and capital acquired by means of them. But what has rendered Britain more industrious, intelligent, and skilful than other nations?--for if we can answer this question, we can satisfactorily account for her acquisition of capital; and capital, industry, and skill existing, commerce and wealth must necessarily follow.

Britain enjoys greater political freedom, and greater security of property than any other European nation; and without political freedom, the ma.s.s of the people never can be intelligent, or possess either comprehensive views or desires; and where views and desires are limited, there can be no regular, general, and zealous industry. Unless, however, security of property is enjoyed, as well as political liberty, industry, even if it could spring up under such circ.u.mstances, must soon droop and decay. It is a contradiction in terms to suppose that comprehensive views and desires can exist and lead to action, when at the same time it is extremely doubtful whether the objects of them could be realized, or, if realized, whether they would not immediately be destroyed, or torn from those whose labour, and skill, and anxious thought had acquired them.

But there are other causes to which we must ascribe the extension of British manufactures and commerce; of these we shall only enumerate what we regard as the princ.i.p.al and the most powerful: the stimulus which any particular improvement in manufactures gives to future and additional improvements, or rather, perhaps, the necessity which it creates for such additional improvements; the natural operation of enlarged capital; the equally natural operation of encreased wealth among the various cla.s.ses of the community; the peculiar circ.u.mstances in which Britain has been placed since the termination of the war which deprived her of her American colonies; and, lastly, her national debt. A short view of each of these particulars will, we believe, sufficiently account for the present unparalleled state of British manufactures and commerce.

The direct effect of improvement in the mode of manufacturing any article, by the introduction of a more powerful machinery, is to encrease the quant.i.ty, and to lower the price of that article. Hence it follows, that those who manufacture it on the old plan must be undersold, unless they also adopt such machinery; and as knowledge, both speculative and practical, has greater chance to improve in proportion as it is spread, from this cause, as well as from the more powerful cause of rival interests, wherever improvements in manufactures have begun and been extended, they are sure to advance.

That this is not theoretical doctrine requires only an appeal to what has been effected, and is yet effecting in Britain, to prove. A very curious, interesting, and instructive work might be written on the improvements in the cotton machinery alone, which have been made in this country during the last forty years: we mean interesting and instructive, not merely on account of the tacts relative to mechanical ingenuity which it would unfold, but on account of the much higher history which it would give of the mechanism of the human mind, and of the connections and ramifications of the various branches of human knowledge. In what state would the commerce of Great Britain have been at this time, if the vast improvements in the machinery for spinning cotton had not been made and universally adopted?--and how slowly and imperfectly would these improvements have taken place, had the sciences been unconnected, or greater improvements, which at first were unseen or deemed impracticable, not been gradually developed, as lesser improvements were made. The stimulus of interest, the mutual connection of various branches of science, and above all the unceasing onward movement of the human mind in knowledge, speculative as well as practical, must be regarded as the most powerful causes of the present wonderful state of our manufactures, and, consequently, of our commerce.

2. The natural operation of enlarged capital is another cause of our great commerce. There is nothing more difficult in the history of mankind--not the history of their wars and politics, but the history of their character, manners, sentiments, and progress in civilization and wealth--[as->than] to distinguish and separate those facts which ought to be cla.s.sed as causes, and those which ought to be cla.s.sed as effects. There can be no doubt that trade produces capital; and, in this point of view, capital must be regarded as an effect: there can be as little doubt, that an increase of capital is favourable to an increase of commerce, and actually produces it; in this point of view, therefore, capital must be regarded as a cause. As in the physical world action and reaction are equal, so are they, in many respects, and under many circ.u.mstances, in the moral and intellectual world; but, whereas in the physical world the action and reaction are not only equal but simultaneous, in the moral and intellectual world the reaction does not take place till after the immediate and particular action from which it springs has ceased.

To apply these remarks to our present subject, it is unnecessary to point out in what manner trade must increase capital; that capital, on the other hand, increases trade, is not, perhaps, at first sight, quite so obvious; but that it must act in this manner will be perceptible, when, we reflect on the advantages which a large capital gives to its possessor. It enables him to buy cheaper, because he can buy larger quant.i.ties, and give ready money; buying cheaper, he can sell cheaper, or give longer credit, or both; and this must ensure an increase of trade. It enables him immediately to take advantage of any improvement in the mode of manufacturing any article; and to push the sale of any article into countries where it was before unknown. Such are some of the more important effects on commerce of large capital; and these effects have been most obviously and strikingly shewn in the commercial history of Britain for the last thirty years, and thus give a practical confirmation to the doctrine, that capital, originally the creature of trade, in its turn gives nourishment, rigour, and enlarged growth to it.

3. Encreased wealth among the various cla.s.ses of the community, may be viewed In the same light as capital; it flows from increased trade, and it produces a still further increase of trade. The views, and desires, and habits of mankind, are like their knowledge, they are and must be progressive: and if accompanied, as they generally are, by increased means, they must give birth to increased industry and skill, and their necessary consequences, increased trade and wealth.

Had the views, desires, and habits of mankind, and especially of the inhabitants of Europe and the United States, continued as they were fifty years ago, it is absolutely impossible that one half of the goods manufactured in Great Britain could have been disposed of; and unless these additional and enlarged views, desires, and habits, had been accompanied with commensurate means of gratifying them, our manufactures and commerce could not have advanced as they have done. Minutely and universally divided as human labour is, no one country can render its industry and skill additionally productive, without, at the same time, the industry and skill of other countries also advance. No one nation can acquire additional wealth, unless additional wealth is also acquired in other nations. Before an additional quant.i.ty of commodities can be sold, additional means to purchase them must be obtained; or, in other words, increased commerce, supposes increased wealth, not only in that country in which commerce is increased, but also in that where the buyers and consumers live.

4. Since the termination of the American war, Britain has been placed in circ.u.mstances favourable to her commerce: the human mind cannot long be depressed; there is an elasticity about it which prevents this. Perhaps it is rather disposed to rebound, in proportion to the degree and time of its restraint. It is certain, however, that the exhaustion produced by the American war speedily gave place to wonderful activity in our manufactures and commerce; and that, at the commencement of the first French revolutionary war, they had both taken wonderful and rapid strides. The circ.u.mstances, indeed, of such a country as Britain, and such a people as the British, must be essentially changed,--changed to a degree, and in a manner, which we can hardly suppose to be brought about by any natural causes,--before its real wealth can be annihilated, or even greatly or permanently diminished. The climate and the soil, and all the improvements and ameliorations which agriculture has produced on the soil, must remain: the knowledge and skill, and real capital of the inhabitants, are beyond the reach of any destroying cause: interest must always operate and apply this knowledge and skill, unless we can suppose, what seems as unlikely to happen as the change of our climate and soil, the annihilation of our knowledge and skill, or that interest should cease to be the stimulating cause of industry; unless we can suppose that political and civil freedom should be rooted out, and individual property no longer secure.

Circ.u.mstances, however, though they cannot destroy, must influence, beneficially or otherwise, the wealth and commerce of a country; and it may happen that circ.u.mstances apparently unfavourable may become beneficial.