that, while it has acted as a barrier between the north and
the south, stopping and turning aside the movements of
population, it has also preserved within its sheltered
recesses fragments of the different peoples who from time to
time have passed by it, or who have been driven by conquest
into it from the lower country. Thus it is a kind of
ethnological museum, where specimens may be found of countless
races and languages, some of which probably belong to the
early ages of the world; races that seem to have little
affinity with their present neighbours, and of whose history
we know nothing except what comparative philology can reveal.
Even before the Christian era it was famous for the variety of
its peoples. … No more inappropriate ethnological name was
ever propounded than that of Caucasian for a fancied division
of the human family, the cream of mankind, from which the
civilized peoples of Europe are supposed to have sprung. For
the Caucasus is to-day as it was in Strabo's time, full of
races differing in religion, language, aspect, manners,
character."
_J. Bryce,
Trans-caucasia and Ararat,
chapter 2._
CELESTINES,
CELESTINIANS.
A religious order founded by the hermit, Peter of Morone, who
afterwards, in 1294, became Pope, and took the name Celestine
V. The rules of the order were austere. It became widespread
throughout Europe, but was suppressed in France in 1766.
CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS, in England and Germany.
See PRINTING AND PRESS: A. D. 1695 (pages 2597 and 1602).
CENSUS, United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A. D. 1790 (page 3305); 1800 (page 3324), and after.
CHANCELLOR.
CHANCERY.
See LAW, EQUITY (page 1988).
CHARLEMAGNE'S EMPIRE.
See GERMANY: A. D. 687-800, 800, and
814-843 (pages 1436-1438); and (in this Supplement) ROME.
CHARLEMAGNE'S PALATINE SCHOOL.
See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL (page 689).
CHARTERHOUSE SCHOOL.
See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 712).
CHASE, Judge, Impeachment and trial of.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1805 (page 3329).
CHATHAM, John Pitt, Earl of, and the Walcheren expedition.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1809 (page 947).
CHATHAM, William Pitt, Earl of,
Speech on the repeal of the Stamp Act.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766 (page 3201).
CHICAGO UNIVERSITY, The founding of the.
See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 738).
CHILE.
The account of Chilean affairs given in volume 1 (pages
411-415) ends with the overthrow and suicide of the
dictatorial usurper, Balmaceda (September 20, 1891), the
triumph of the Congress party, and the election to the
Presidency of Admiral Jorge Montt. During the civil war which
had this termination, the representative of the United States,
Minister Egan, showed marked favor to Balmaceda and his party,
which irritated the Chileans and produced among them a hostile
feeling towards Americans and the American government. This
was increased by the action of Mr. Egan, after the defeat of
the Balmacedists, in sheltering a large number of refugees of
that party within the walls of the American legation.
{3695}
The same was done by other foreign representatives, but to no
such extent, except in the case of the Spanish legation. A
telegram sent by Mr. Egan on the 8th of October to the State
Department at Washington stated: "80 persons sought refuge in
his legation after the overthrow of the Balmaceda government;
about the same number in the Spanish legation, 8 in the
Brazilian, 5 in the French, several in the Uruguayan, 2 in the
German and 1 in the English. Balmaceda sought refuge in the
Argentine. All these have gone out except 15 in his own
legation, 1 in the German and 5 in the Spanish." Not venturing
to violate the privileges of the American Minister's
residence, the Chilean authorities placed it under police
surveillance, and arrested a number of persons entering the
premises. The Minister complained, and was supported in his
complaints at Washington, causing further irritation in Chile.
This was again greatly increased by his claiming the right,
not only to shelter the refugees in his residence, but to
protect them in their departure from the country. In that,
too, he was sustained by his government, and the refugees were
safely sent away. Meantime a more serious cause of quarrel
between the two countries had risen. A party of sailors on
shore at Valparaiso, from the United States ship Baltimore,
had been assailed by a mob, October 16, and two were killed,
while eighteen were wounded. The United States demanded
satisfaction, and much angry correspondence ensued, made
particularly offensive on the Chilean side by an insulting
circular which Señor Matta, the Chilean Foreign Minister,
issued December 13, and which he caused to be published in the
Chilean newspapers. But Señor Matta disappeared from the
Foreign Department soon after and his successor made
apologies. "On January 16th the Chilean authorities notified
Mr. Egan that they would withdraw any offensive passages in
the Matta circular, and had instructed their Minister in
Washington to express regret. The apology, thus expressed both
in Washington and Santiago, was stiff and ungraceful, perhaps
inadequate; but it was made in good faith. On January 20th,
evidently feeling that all was now serene, the Chileans
ventured, acting on a hint of Mr. Blaine's, to ask for Egan's
withdrawal as a 'persona non grata.' What, therefore, must
have been the dismay of the Chileans on January 23d, to
receive an official notice, which the newspapers dubbed an
'ultimatum,' containing the statement that the United States
Government was not satisfied with the result of the judicial
investigation at Valparaiso and still asked 'for a suitable
apology;' that for the Matta note there must be still another
'suitable apology,' without which the United States would
terminate diplomatic relations; and that the request for Mr.
Egan's withdrawal could not at that time be considered. It was
a bitter draught for any government; but threats of war were
resounding through the United States; American naval vessels
were hurriedly being made ready; coal and supplies were going
into the Pacific. There was power behind the note, and Chile
prepared to bend to the storm. The 'ultimatum' appears to have
reached the Chileans on Saturday, January 23d. On Monday,
January 25th, they sent an answer which could not possibly be
read as anything but a complete and abject apology on all the
three points." But on the same day on which this answer was
being forwarded, the President of the United States sent a
warlike message to Congress. "It rehearsed the whole
controversy at great length, submitted copious correspondence,
and ended with the significant phrase: 'In my opinion I ought
not to delay longer to bring these matters to the attention of
Congress for such action as may be deemed appropriate.' … It
is an unprofitable controversy as to whether the authorities
in Washington knew that an answer was on its way: if they had
read the correspondence they knew that an answer must come,
and that the Chilean Ministry must sent a peaceful answer. It
is therefore difficult to understand the purpose of the
President's message. … The effect … was to inflict an
unnecessary humiliation on Chile. Spanish-Americans have good
memories. Mexico still cherishes resentment for the war begun
against her forty-five years ago; and forty-five years hence
the Chileans are likely to remember the Balmaceda affair as
Americans remembered the impressment of American seamen by
Great Britain. We have the apology, but with it we have the
ill-will."
_A. B. Hart,
Practical Essays on American Government,
essay 5._
CHINA,
Education in.
See EDUCATION (pages 675 and 724).
CHINA,
Imperial Library of.
See LIBRARIES, MODERN: CHINA (page 2024).
CHINA,
Mediæval trade with India and the West.
See (in this Supplement) COMMERCE, MEDIÆVAL.
CHINA,
Paper Money, ancient.
See MONEY AND BANKING: CHINA (page 2200}.
CHINA,
War with Japan.
See (in this Supplement) COREA.
CHOLERA, Asiatic, The visitations of.
See PLAGUE: 19TH CENTURY (page 2543).
CHRISTIAN BROTHERS, The.
See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 739).
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: A. D. 1816-1886 (page 2939).
CID, The.
See (in this Supplement)
SPAIN: A. D. 1034-1090.
CIVIL SERVICE REFORM:
Progress in the United States.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1895 (page 3586).
CLARK UNIVERSITY, The founding of.
See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 738).
CLEVELAND, Grover.
Message on the Tariff question.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1884-1888 (page 3083).
Special Message on the National Finances.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1895 (page 3586).
COCHIN-CHINA.
See TONKIN(page 3141).
CODES, New York.
See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1848-1883, and 1848 (page 1979).
COINAGE.
See MONEY, &c. (page 2198).
COLET, John, and St. Paul's School.
See EDUCATION, RENAISSANCE (page 707).
COLLECTIVISM.
See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: DEFINITION OF TERMS (page 2933).
COLLEGES.
See EDUCATION (page 673) and the same in this Supplement.
COLUMBIA COLLEGE, The founding of.
See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 730).
COMENIUS, and Educational Reform.
See EDUCATION, MODERN (page 739).
{3696}
----------COMMERCE: Start--------
COMMERCE:
Ancient.
The Earliest Records of Trade.
Probably the oldest commercial record that exists was found
sculptured on the rocks in the valley of Hammamat, east from
Koptos on the Nile. It relates to an expedition which was sent
out by the Pharaoh Sankh-ka-ra, to trade in the "land of
Punt." Dr. Brugsch fixes the reign of Sankh-ka-ra at about
2500 B. C., which is five or six centuries before the time
when Abraham is supposed to have lived. The "land of Punt" he
considers to have been the Somali coast of Africa, south of
the extremity of the Red Sea, on the Gulf of Aden. Other
writers maintain that it was southern Arabia. It was the "Holy
Land" of the Egyptians, from which their gods were supposed to
have anciently come. The trading expedition of Sankh-ka-ra was
commanded by one Hannu (a name which has a Phœnician sound)
and it is he who tells the story of it in the inscription at
Hammamat. "I was sent," he says, "to conduct ships to the
country of Punt, to bring back odoriferous gums." He then
describes the army of 3,000 men which accompanied him, and
narrates their march from Koptos to the Red Sea, through the
desert, at several stations in which they dug reservoirs for
water. "I arrived," he continues, "at the port Seba [believed
to be the harbor now called Koseir or Quosseir] and I made
transport vessels to bring back all kinds of products. I made
a great offering of oxen, cows and goats. When I returned from
Seba I executed the order of his Majesty; I brought him back
all kinds of products which I met with in the ports of the
Holy Land. I came back by Uak and Rohan. I brought back
precious stones for the statues of the temples. Never was a
like thing done since there were kings." It would seem from
this that Hannu's expedition opened the first direct trade of
the Egyptians with the land of Punt. But it is evident that
they already had knowledge of the country and of its products,
and it is probable they had formerly been receiving its gums
and precious stones through the traders of some other country.
Some seven or eight centuries after Hannu's voyage to Punt was
made, we obtain in the Bible a most interesting glimpse of the
trade then going on between Egypt and surrounding countries.
It is found in the story of Joseph. When Joseph's brethren
threw him into a pit, intending that he should be left there
to die, their plans were changed by seeing a "Company of
Ishmaelites from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and
balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt." Then Judah
said, "let us sell him to the Ishmaelites," and when these
"Midianites, merchantmen," as they are called in the next
verse, came near, the heartless brothers of Joseph drew him
out of the pit and sold him, to be taken as a slave into
Egypt. Now this story is found to agree well with other facts
that have been learned, and which go to show that some, at
least, among the ancient tribes in northern Arabia—the
Ishmaelites of the Bible—were great traders between the richer
countries that surrounded them. The Midianites and Edomites,
who occupied the region near the head of the Red Sea, were
especially the masters of that trade. Their poor land, which
gave them little to subsist upon, had one gift for its people
that went far toward making up for its barren poverty. It gave
them the camel—that strange and homely beast, which is better
fitted than any other for bearing burdens and for making long
journeys without food or drink. At a later day they acquired
the horse, from Media or from Mesopotamia, and bred that noble
animal to such perfection that Arabia was long supposed to be
its native home. But in Joseph's time the horse can hardly
have been in use among the Arabs, since it seems to have been
unknown in Egypt, which they constantly visited, until a
considerably later day. However that may be, the camel was
always the Arab's most useful servant—his carrier, his patient
burden-bearer, his "ship of the desert," as Eastern poets have
fitly named it. By the poverty of their country, by their
wandering disposition, by their possession of the camel, and
by their geographical situation, intermediate between several
of the richest regions of antiquity, these Arabs of the olden
time must have naturally been made a trading people, as early
as it became possible for trade to exist. To the west of them
was Egypt, with its fertile basin of the Nile and its
remarkable people, probably first among all races that we know
to rise out of barbarism and acquire order and industrial
arts. To the east, in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris,
were the fertile plains of Mesopotamia, where the second
oldest civilization that Is known was growing up. To the north
were Canaan and Gilead, the Scripture "land of promise," full
of vineyards, of pastures and of harvest fields, with wide
Syria beyond, and with Phœnician merchant cities just rising
along the coast of the sea. To the south, in their own
peninsula, was Arabia Felix, or Arabia the Blest, a famous
land of pleasantness and plenty in ancient days. With their
caravans of camels they traveled back and forth, very busily,
no doubt, through the desert, which needed no building of
bridges or making of roads. In one direction they carried the
barley, wheat, millet, flax and woven goods of Egypt; in
another, the honey, wine, wax, wool, skins, gums, resins and
asphalt of Canaan and Syria; in still another the more costly
freight of gold ornaments, precious stones, pearls, ivory,
ebony, spices and fragrant gums from the south. In all
directions, it is probable, they dragged poor unfortunates
like Joseph, whom they bought or kidnapped from home and
friends, to sell as slaves.
COMMERCE:
Babylonia.
"The industry of the Babylonians quickly attained great skill
and wide development. They were famous for their weaving in
wool and linen. The nations of the West agree in acknowledging
the excellence of the cloths and coloured stuffs of Babylonia.
Their pottery was excellent and the manufacture active; the
preparation of glass was not unknown; the ointments prepared
in Babylon were famous and much sought after, and the stones
cut there were highly valued. The products of Babylonian skill
and industry were first brought to their kinsmen in Syria, who
could offer oil and wine in exchange. In the Hebrew scriptures
we find Babylonian cloaks in use in Syria before the
immigration of the Hebrews into Canaan. … The rough material
required by Babylonian industry was supplied in the first
place by the Arabs, who exchanged their animals, skins, and
wool for corn and weapons.
{3697}
Wine, and more especially wood, of which there was none in
Babylonia, were brought by the Armenians from their valleys in
the north down the Euphrates to Babylon. Before 1500 B. C. the
commerce of the Arabs brought the products of South Arabia,
the spices of Yemen, and even the products and manufactures of
India, especially their silks, which reached the coasts of
Southern Arabia, to Babylon. The Babylonians required the
perfumes of Arabia and India to prepare their ointments. …
When the cities of Phenicia became great centres of trade
which carried the wares of Babylonia by sea to the West in
order to obtain copper in exchange, the trade between
Babylonia and Syria must have become more lively still. It was
the ships of the Phenicians which brought the cubic measure,
and the weights, and the cubit of Babylonia to the shores of
Greece, and caused them to be adopted there."
_M. Duncker,
History of Antiquity,
book 2, chapter 3 (volume 1)._
See, also, MONEY AND BANKING (page 2199).
COMMERCE:
Egypt.
"In ancient Egypt agricultural counted for more than
manufactures, and manufactures were of more importance than
commerce. The trade which existed was brisk enough as far as
it went, but it aimed at little more than the satisfaction of
local wants by the more or less direct exchange of commodities
between producers. The limited development of internal traffic
was due to two principal causes: the natural products of
different parts of the country were too much alike for much
intercourse to be necessary for purposes of exchange, and the
conformation of the country, in itself scarcely larger than
Belgium, was such as to give the longest possible distance
from north to south. … The Nile was the only known highway, so
much so that the language scarcely possessed a general word
for travelling; going southward was called 'going up stream,'
and a journey to the north, even by land into the desert, was
described by a term meaning to sail with the current. … While
internal traffic was thus brought to a minimum by natural
causes, foreign commerce can scarcely be said to have existed,
before the establishment of peaceable intercourse with Syria
under the new empire. The importation of merchandize from
foreign countries was a political rather than a commercial
affair. Such foreign wares as entered the country came as
tribute, as the spoil of war, or as memorials of peaceful
embassies. … The list of the spoil taken by Thothmes III.
gives a tolerably exhaustive account of the treasures of the
time. It includes, of course, bulls, cows, kids, white goats,
mares, foals, oxen, geese, and corn; then follow strange
birds, negroes, men and maid-servants, noble prisoners and the
children of defeated kings, chariots of copper, plated with
gold and silver, iron armour, bows, swords and other
accoutrements, leather collars ornamented with brass, gold and
silver rings, cups, dishes and other utensils, vessels of iron
and copper, statues with heads of gold, ell-measures with
heads of ivory, ebony, and cedar inlaid with gold, chairs,
tables and footstools of cedar wood and ivory, a plough inlaid
with gold, blocks of bluestone, greenstone and lead, 'a golden
storm-cap inlaid with bluestone,' jars of balsam, oil, wine
and honey, various kinds of precious woods, incense,
alabaster, precious stones and colours, iron columns for a
tent with precious stones in them, bricks of pure brass,
elephants' tusks, natron, and, finally, by way of curiosity,
from the land of the kings of Ruthen, three battle-axes of
flint."
_E. J. Simcox,
Primitive Civilizations,
book 1, chapter 3, section. 1 (volume 1)._
See, also, MONEY AND BANKING (page 2199).
COMMERCE:
India.
"It is said in the Rig-Veda that 'merchants desirous of gain
crowd the great waters with their ships.' And the activity in
trade, thus early noted, has continued ever since to be
characteristic of the country. Professor Lassen considers it
remarkable that Hindus themselves discovered the rich,
luxurious character of India's products. Many of the same
beasts, birds, and fragrant oils are produced in other
countries, but remain unnoticed until sought for by
foreigners; whereas the most ancient of the Hindus had a keen
enjoyment in articles of taste or luxury. Rajas and other rich
people delighted in sagacious elephants, swift horses,
splendid peacocks, golden decorations, exquisite perfumes,
pungent peppers, ivory, pearls, gems, &c.; and, consequently,
caravans were in constant requisition to carry these, and
innumerable other matters, between the north and the south,
and the east and the west, of their vast and varied country.
These caravans, it is conjectured, were met at border
stations, and at out-ports, by western caravans or ships bound
to or from Tyre and Egypt, or to or from the Persian Gulf and
the Red Sea. To the appearance of India goods in Greece,
Professor Lassen attributes the Greek invasion of India. … The
indirect evidence afforded by the presence of India's products
in other ancient countries, coincides with the direct
testimony of Sanskrit literature, to establish the fact that
ancient Hindus were a commercial people. The code of Manu
requires the king to determine the prices of commodities, and
also the trustworthiness of the weights and measures used. And
that the transactions contemplated were not restricted to
local products is evident from reference to the charges for
freight for articles in river boats, and the undetermined and
larger charges to which sea-borne goods were liable. The
account of King Yudhishthira's coronation in the Mahâbhârata
affords an instance of precious articles from distant lands
brought into India. So also in the Ramayana, we read that when
Rama and his brothers were married, the brides were clad in
silk from China. … Merchants are constantly being introduced
into Sanskrit fiction, and equally often into Buddhist legend.
They seem to have been always at hand to give variety and
movement to the monotony of daily life."
_Mrs. Manning,
Ancient and Mediæval India,
chapter 40 (volume 2)._
COMMERCE:
Phœnicians and Carthaginians.
"The Phœnicians for some centuries confined their navigation
within the limits of the Mediterranean, the Propontis, and the
Euxine, land-locked seas, which are tideless and far less
rough than the open ocean. But before the time of Solomon they
had passed the pillars of Hercules, and affronted the dangers
of the Atlantic. Their frail and small vessels, scarcely
bigger than modern fishing-smacks, proceeded southwards along
the West African coast, as far as the tract watered by the
Gambia and Senegal, while northwards they coasted along Spain,
braved the heavy seas of the Bay of Biscay, and passing Cape
Finisterre, ventured across the mouth of the English Channel
to the Cassiterides.
{3698}
Similarly, from the West African shore, they boldly steered
for the Fortunate Islands (the Canaries), visible from certain
elevated points of the coast, though at 170 miles distance.
Whether they proceeded further, in the south to the Azores,
Madeira, and the Cape de Verde Islands, in the north to the
coast of Holland, and across the German Ocean to the Baltic,
we regard as uncertain. It is possible that from time to time
some of the more adventurous of their traders may have reached
thus far; but their regular, settled and established
navigation did not, we believe, extend beyond the Scilly
Islands and coast of Cornwall to the north-west, and to the
south-west Cape Non and the Canaries. The commerce of the
Phœnicians was carried on, to a large extent, by land, though
principally by sea. It appears from the famous chapter [xxvii]
of Ezekiel which describes the 'riches and greatness of Tyre
in the 6th century B. C., that almost the whole of Western
Asia was penetrated by the Phœnician caravans, and laid under
contribution to increase the wealth of the Phœnician traders.
… Translating this glorious burst of poetry into prose, we
find the following countries mentioned as carrying on an
active trade with the Phœnician metropolis:—Northern Syria,
Syria of Damascus, Judah and the laud of Israel, Egypt,
Arabia, Babylonia, Assyria, Upper Mesopotamia, Armenia,
Central Asia Minor, Ionia, Cyprus, Hellas or Greece, and
Spain."
_G. Rawlinson,
History of Phœnicia,
chapter 9._
"Though the invincible industry and enterprise of the
Phenicians maintained them as a people of importance down to
the period of the Roman empire, yet the period of their widest
range and greatest efficiency is to be sought much
earlier—anterior to 700 B. C. In these remote times they and
their colonists [the Carthaginians especially] were the
exclusive navigators of the Mediterranean: the rise of the
Greek maritime settlements banished their commerce to a great
degree from the Ægean Sea, and embarrassed it even in the more
westerly waters. Their colonial establishments were formed in
Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, the Balearic Isles, and Spain. The
greatness as well as the antiquity of Carthage, Utica, and
Gades, attest the long-sighted plans of Phenician traders,
even in days anterior to the first Olympiad. We trace the
wealth and industry of Tyre, and the distant navigation of her
vessels through the Red Sea and along the coast of Arabia,
back to the days of David and Solomon. And as neither
Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians, or Indians, addressed
themselves to a sea-faring life, so it seems that both the
importation and the distribution of the products of India and
Arabia into Western Asia and Europe were performed by the
Idumæan Arabs between Petra and the Red Sea—by the Arabs of
Gerrha on the Persian Gulf, joined as they were in later times
by a body of Chaldæan exiles from Babylonia—and by the more
enterprising Phenicians of Tyre and Sidon in these two seas as
well as in the Mediterranean."
_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 18._
"The Commerce of Carthage may be conveniently considered under
its two great branches—the trade with Africa, and the trade
with Europe. The trade with Africa … was carried on with the
barbarous tribes of the inland country that could be reached
by caravans, and of the sea-coast. Of both we hear something
from Herodotus, the writer who furnishes us with most of our
knowledge about these parts of the ancient world. … The goods
with which the Carthaginian merchants traded with the African
tribes were doubtless such as those which civilized nations
have always used in their dealings with savages. Cheap finery,
gaudily coloured cloths, and arms of inferior quality, would
probably be their staple. Salt, too, would be an important
article. … The articles which they would receive in exchange
for their goods are easily enumerated. In the first place
comes … gold. Carthage seems to have had always at hand an
abundant supply of the precious metal for use, whether as
money or as plate. Next to gold would come slaves. … Ivory
must have been another article of Carthaginian trade, though
we hear little about it. The Greeks used it extensively in
art. … Precious stones seem to have been another article which
the savages gave in exchange for the goods they coveted. …
Perhaps we may add dates to the list of articles obtained from
the interior. The European trade dealt, of course, partly with
the things already mentioned, and partly with other articles
for which the Carthaginian merchants acted as carriers, so to
speak, from one part of the Mediterranean to another. Lipara,
and the other volcanic islands near the southern extremity of
Italy, produced resin; Agrigentum, and possibly other cities
of Sicily, traded in sulphur brought down from the region of
Etna; wine was produced in many of the Mediterranean
countries. Wax and honey were the staple goods of Corsica.
Corsican slaves, too, were highly valued. The Iron of Elba,
the fruit and the cattle of the Balearic islands, and, to go
further, the tin and copper of Britain, and even amber from
the Baltic, were articles of Carthaginian commerce. Trade was
carried on not only with the dwellers on the coast, but with
inland tribes. Thus goods were transported across Spain to the
interior of Gaul, the jealousy of Massilia (Marseilles) not
permitting the Carthaginians to have any trading stations on
the southern coast of that country."
_A. J. Church and A. Gilman,
The Story of Carthage,
part 3, chapter 3._
A high authority on questions of intercourse in ancient times
throws doubt on the supposed African caravan trade of the
Carthaginians—as follows: "There seems no doubt that the
existing system of caravan trade dates only from the
introduction of Islamism into Africa. It was the Arabs who
first introduced the camel into Northern Africa, and without
camels any extensive intercourse with the interior was
impossible. The Negro races have never shown any disposition
to avail themselves of this mode of transport, and at the
present day the commerce of the interior is carried on almost
entirely by Moorish, that is, by Mohammedan, traders. The
spread of Islamism has doubtless led to increased
communication from another cause, the necessity for the
Mohammedan inhabitants of the outlying and detached regions of
the continent to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. Even in the
most flourishing times of the Carthaginians they do not appear
to have made any use of camels; and as late as the days of
Strabo the communications with the tribes of Western Africa
who dwelt beyond the Sahara were scanty and irregular. In the
time of Herodotus there is certainly no indication that either
the Carthaginians or the Greeks of the Cyrenaica had any
commercial intercourse with the regions beyond the Great
Desert."
_E. H. Bunbury,
History of Ancient Geography,
chapter 8, note I (volume 1)._
See, also, PHŒNICIANS (pages 2530-2534);
and CARTHAGE (pages 392-395).
{3699}
COMMERCE:
Jews.
Beginning early in his reign, Solomon made great and
enlightened efforts to promote the commerce and industries of
the people of Israel. "To increase the land traffic, he had
small cities built in advantageous localities, in which goods
of all sorts in large quantities were kept in suitable
storehouses; a practice similar to that which had from ancient
times prevailed in Egypt. … They were established chiefly in
the most northern districts of Israel, towards the Phœnician
boundaries, as well as in the territories of the kingdom of
Hamath, which was first conquered by Solomon himself.—The main
road for the land traffic between Egypt and the interior of
Asia must have been the great highway leading past Gaza and
further west of Jerusalem to the Northern Jordan and Damascus.
Here it was joined by the road from the Phœnician cities, and
continued as far as Thapsacus, on the Euphrates. This was
entirely in the dominions of the king; and here, under the
peaceful banner of a great and powerful monarchy, commerce
could flourish as it had never flourished before. It was
clearly for the improvement of this route, which had to
traverse the Syrian desert on the north, that Solomon built,
in a happily chosen oasis of this wilderness, the city of
Thammor, or Tadmor, of which the Greek version is Palmyra.
There is not a single indication that this city was of
importance before Solomon's time, but from that era it
flourished for more than a thousand years. … For any distant
navigation, however, Solomon was obliged to rely on the aid of
the Phœnicians, inasmuch as they were in that age the only
nation which possessed the necessary ability and inclination
for it. It is true that the idea of competing with the
Phœnicians upon the Mediterranean could hardly have occurred
to him, since they had long before that time attracted all the
commerce upon it to themselves, and would scarcely have
desired or even tolerated such a rival. … But the Red Sea,
which had been thrown open to the kings of Israel by the
conquest of the Idumeans, offered the finest opportunity for
the most distant and lucrative undertakings, the profit of
which might perfectly satisfy a nation in the position of
Israel in the dawn of maritime activity; and on their part,
the Phœnicians could not fail to be most willing helpers in
the promotion of undertakings which it lay in the hands of the
powerful king of Israel entirely to cut off from them, or at
any rate to encumber with great difficulties. In this way the
mutual desires and needs of two nations coincided without any
injury to the one or the other. … Phœnician sailors were at
first, it is true, the teachers of the Israelite. It was they
who aided them in constructing and manning the tall ships,
which, destined to distant voyages upon uncertain seas, needed
to be strongly built; but yet how many new ideas and what
varied knowledge the nation would in this way acquire! The
ships were built in Ezion-geber, the harbour of the town of
Elath (or Eloth), probably on the very spot where Akaba now
stands. The cargo brought back each time from the three years'
voyage consisted of 420 talents of gold, besides silver,
ivory, red sandal-wood, apes, and peacocks, probably also nard
and aloe."
_H. Ewald,
History of Israel,
volume 3, page 261-264._
COMMERCE:
Greeks.
"When the Greeks had established themselves, not only on the
peninsula, but also on the islands and on the east coast of
the Ægean Sea, their navigation was greatly extended. That
this, even in the first half of the 8th century, was
profitable in its results, we see from the instance of Dius of
Cyme, the father of Hesiod, who maintained himself in this
manner. The works of art in which Lydia and Caria excelled,
together with the products and manufactures of the east, which
reached the western coasts of Asia, the products of these
coasts, and wine and oil from Lesbos and Samos—all these could
be shipped from the Greek maritime cities of Asia Minor, and
carried to the peninsula. It was through this commerce … that
Chalcis and Eretria laid the foundation of their greatness. To
what proportions it had attained, even in the course of the
8th century, we find from the mint marks of Phocæa and Cyme,
the standards of Chalcis and Eretria, the coins and weights
and measures of Phidon of Argos. … From the middle of the 8th
century, the Greeks no longer merely practised navigation;
they became, in an eminent sense, a maritime nation. At the
time when Sinope and Trapezus were founded in the east, Naxos,
Catana, and Syracuse in Sicily, and Cyme in Campania, a
nautical discovery had already been made, by means of which
the Greeks surpassed the Phœnicians, the ancient voyagers of
Syria; this was the building of triremes. To what an extent
and proficiency must seamanship have attained, what importance
naval battles must have assumed, to give rise to the attempt
to replace the ancient war vessels by others of a far more
powerful kind! When the first triremes were built at Corinth
and Samos, about the year 700 B. C., Greek cities already
existed on the southern shore of the Black Sea, on the coasts
of Thrace, in Corcyra and Sicily; the southern coast of Italy
had also been colonised. The products of Greek industry,
pottery, implements, and weapons, were advantageously bartered
on the coasts of the Thracians, Scythians, Illyrians,
Sicilians, and Oscans, for the fruits of the soil, and for the
cattle of those regions. The need of the means of exchange
must have given great encouragement and impetus to
manufactures in the Greek cities of the peninsula, on the
coasts of Asia, and in the newly-founded Asiatic settlements
themselves. … Navigation and commerce must have become
permanent occupations. And the great increase of manufactures
must also have given employment to numbers of the country
people. Thus there grew up under the very rule of the
aristocracy a powerful rival to itself; a nautical, artisan,
commercial class, side by side with the land population. If
the protecting walls of the chief place of the canton had
previously been sought only in time of need, in case of
surprises or hostile landings, the new industrial classes were
now settled together in the harbours and centres of trade.
Handicrafts, navigation, and commerce, could not exist without
one another. In the maritime cantons on the east of the
peninsula, and in the cantons on the coasts of the
Peloponnesus, there sprang up simultaneously with the burgher
class a town population."
_M. Duncker,
History of Greece,
book 4, chapter 2 (volume 2)._
{3700}
"Between 700 B. C. and 530 B. C., we observe … an immense
extension of Grecian maritime activity and commerce—but we at
the same time notice the decline of Tyre and Sidon, both in
power and traffic. The arms of Nebuchadnezzar reduced the
Phenician cities to the same state of dependence as that which
the Ionian cities underwent half a century later from Crœsus
and Cyrus; while the ships of Miletus, Phokæa and Samos
gradually spread over all those waters of the Levant which had
once been exclusively Phenician. In the year 704 B. C., the
Samians did not yet possess a single trireme: down to the year
630 B. C. not a single Greek vessel had yet visited Libya. But
when we reach 550 B. C. we find the Ionic ships predominant in
the Ægean, and those of Corinth and Korkyra in force to the
west of Peloponnesus—we see the flourishing cities of Kyrene
and Barka already rooted in Libya, and the port of Naukratis a
busy emporium of Grecian commerce with Egypt. The trade by
land—which is all that Egypt had enjoyed prior to
Psammetichus, and which was exclusively conducted by
Phenicians—is exchanged for a trade by sea, of which the
Phenicians have only a share, and seemingly a smaller share
than the Greeks. Moreover the conquest by Amasis of the island
of Cyprus, half-filled with Phenician settlements and once the
tributary dependency of Tyre—affords an additional mark of the
comparative decline of that great city. In her commerce with
the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf she still remained without a
competitor, the schemes of the Egyptian king Nekos having
proved abortive. Even in the time of Herodotus, the spices and
frankincense of Arabia were still brought and distributed only
by the Phenician merchant. But on the whole, both political
and industrial development of Tyre are now cramped by
impediments, and kept down by rivals, not before in operation.
… The 6th century B. C., though a period of decline for Tyre
and Sidon, was a period of growth for their African colony
Carthage, which appears during this century in considerable
traffic with the Tyrrhenian towns on the southern coast of
Italy, and as thrusting out the Phokæan settlers from Alalia
in Corsica."
_G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 21._
"It is a remarkable fact in the history of Greek colonies that
the exploration of the extreme west of the Mediterranean was
not undertaken either by the adventurers who settled at Cyme,
or by the powerful cities of Sicily. A century or more elapsed
from the foundation of Syracuse before any Greek vessel was
seen on the coast of Spain or Liguria, and when the new
beginning was made, it was not made by any of the colonies,
Chalcidian, Dorian, or Rhodian, which had taken part in the
discovery of the West. It was the Phocaeans of Ionia,
Herodotus tells us, who first made the Greeks acquainted with
the Hadriatic, with Tyrrhenia, Iberia (Spain), and Tartessus
(the region round Cadiz). The first impulse to these distant
voyages arose from a mere accident. At the time of the
foundation of Cyrene, about the year 630 B. C., a Greek of
Samos, by name Colaeus, when on his way to Egypt, was carried
by contrary winds beyond the pillars of Heracles to Tartessus.
There he found a virgin market, from which he returned to
realise a profit of 60 talents (£12,000), an amount only
surpassed by the gains of Sostratus of Aegina, who was the
premier of Greek merchants. But this was the beginning and the
end of Samian trade to the West; why they left it to the
Phocaeans to enter into the riches which they had discovered,
we cannot say, but within thirty years of this date, the
enterprising Ionian town sent out a colony to Massilia near
the mouth of the Rhone, in the district known as Liguria. …
The mouth of the Rhone was the point where all the routes met
which traversed France from the English Channel to the Gulf of
Genoa. Of these Strabo specifies three. Merchandise was
carried by boats up the Rhone and Saône, from which it was
transferred to the Seine, and so passed down the river; or it
was taken by land from Marseilles (or Narbo) to the Loire; or
again carried up the Aude and transported thence to the
Garonne. By one or other of these routes, the wares collected
by the Gaulish merchants—more especially the tin, which they
imported from Britain—was brought into the Greek market, if
indeed it was not carried on pack-horses straight across the
narrowest part of the country. The importance of these lines
of transit at a time when the western Mediterranean was held
by the Carthaginians, and the northern Hadriatic by the
Tyrrhenians, can hardly be over-estimated. The colonists
extended their borders by degrees, though not without severe
contests with the Ligurians and Tyrrhenians by sea and land.
New cities were founded to serve as outposts against the
enemy; Agatha in the direction of the barbarians of the Rhone;
Olbia, Antipolis, and Nicaea in the direction of the Salyans
and Ligurians of the Alps. They also spread themselves down
the coast of Spain."
_E. Abbott,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 13._
COMMERCE:
Rome.
"Rome, placed like a mightier Mexico in the centre of her
mighty lake, was furnished with every luxury and with many of
her chief necessaries from beyond the waters; and cities on
every coast, nearly similar in latitude and climate, vied in
intense rivalry with each other in ministering to her
appetite. First in the ranks of commerce was the traffic in
corn, which was conducted by large fleets of galleys, sailing
from certain havens once a year at stated periods, and pouring
their stores into her granaries in their appointed order. Gaul
and Spain, Sardinia and Sicily, Africa and Egypt were all
wheat-growing countries, and all contributed of their produce,
partly as a tax, partly also as an article of commerce, to the
sustentation of Rome and Italy. The convoy from Alexandria was
looked for with the greatest anxiety, both as the heaviest
laden, and as from the length of the voyage the most liable to
disaster or detention. The vessels which bore the corn of
Egypt were required to hoist their topsails on sighting the
promontory of Surrentum, both to distinguish them from others,
and to expedite their arrival. These vessels moreover,
according to the institution of Augustus, were of more than
ordinary size, and they were attended by an escort of war
galleys. The importance attached to this convoy was marked by
the phrases, 'auspicious' and 'sacred,' applied to it. … A
deputation of senators from Rome was directed to await its
arrival at the port where it was about to cast anchor, which,
from the bad condition of the haven at Ostia, was generally at
this period Puteoli in Campania.
{3701}
As soon as the well-known topsails were seen above the horizon
a general holiday was proclaimed, and the population of the
country, far and near, streamed with joyous acclamations to
the pier, and gazed upon the rich flotilla expanding gaily
before them. The vessels engaged in this trade, however
numerous, were after all of small burden. The corn-fleets did
not indeed form the chief maritime venture of the
Alexandrians. The products of India, which had formerly
reached Egypt from Arabia, and were supposed indeed in Europe
to have come only from the shores of the Erythræan Sea, were
now conveyed direct to Cleopatris or Berenice from the mouths
of the Indus and the coast of Malabar, and employed an
increasing number of vessels, which took advantage of the
periodical trade winds both in going and returning. The
articles of which they went in quest were for the most part
objects of luxury; such as ivory and tortoise shell, fabrics
of cotton and silk, both then rare and costly, pearls and
diamonds, and more especially gums and spices. The consumption
of these latter substances in dress, in cookery, in the
service of the temples, and above all at funerals, advanced
with the progress of wealth and refinement. The consignments
which reached Alexandria from the East were directed to every
port on the Mediterranean; but there was no corresponding
demand for the produce of the West in India, and these
precious freights were for the most part exchanged for gold
and silver, of which the drain from Europe to Asia was
uninterrupted. The amount of the precious metals thus
abstracted from the currency or bullion of the empire, was
estimated at 100,000,000 sesterces, or about £800,000 yearly.
The reed called papyrus, the growth of which seems to have
been almost confined to the banks of the Nile, was in general
use as the cheapest and most convenient writing material, and
the consumption of it throughout the world, though it never
entirely superseded the use of parchment and waxen tablets,
must have been immense. It was converted into paper in Egypt,
and thence exported in its manufactured state; but this
practice was not universal, for we read of a house at Rome
which improved on the native process, and produced what Pliny
calls an imperial or noble out of a mere plebeian texture.
With respect to other articles of general use, it may be
remarked that the most important, such as corn, wine, oil, and
wool, were the common produce of all the coasts of the
Mediterranean, and there was accordingly much less interchange
of these staple commodities among the nations of antiquity
than with ourselves, whose relations extend through so many
zones of temperature. Hence, probably, we hear of none of
their great cities becoming the workshops or emporiums of the
world for any special article of commerce. The woollens indeed
of Miletus and Laodicea, together with other places of Asia
Minor, were renowned for their excellence, and may have been
transported as articles of luxury to distant parts; but Africa
and Spain, Italy and parts of Greece, were also breeders of
sheep, and none of these countries depended for this prime
necessary on the industry or cupidity of foreigners. The
finest qualities of Greek and Asiatic wines were bespoken at
Rome, and at every other great seat of luxury. The Chian and
Lesbian vintages were among the most celebrated. … Again,
while the clothing of the mass of the population was made
perhaps mainly from the skins of animals, leather of course
could be obtained abundantly in almost every locality. When we
remember that the ancients had neither tea, coffee, tobacco,
sugar, nor for the most part spirits; that they made little
use of glass, and at this period had hardly acquired a taste
for fabrics of silk, cotton, or even flax, we shall perceive
at a glance how large a portion of the chief articles of our
commerce was entirely wanting to theirs. Against this
deficiency, however, many objects of great importance are to
be set. Though the ruder classes were content with wooden cups
and platters fashioned at their own doors, the transport of
earthenware of the finer and more precious kinds, and from
certain localities, was very considerable. Though the Greeks
and Romans generally were without some of our commonest
implements of gold and silver, such for instance as watches
and forks, it is probable that they indulged even more than we
do in personal decoration with rings, seals, and trinkets of a
thousand descriptions. … The conveyance of wild animals,
chiefly from Africa, for the sports of the amphitheatres of
some hundreds of cities throughout the empire, must alone have
given occupation to a large fleet of ships and many thousand
mariners. Nor were the convoys smaller which were employed to
transport marble from the choicest quarries of Greece and Asia
to many flourishing cities besides the metropolis. … After due
deduction for the more contracted sphere of ancient commerce,
and the lesser number of articles, for the extent also to
which the necessaries and conveniences of life were
manufactured at home in the establishments of wealthy slave
owners, we shall still readily believe that the
inter-communication of the cities of the Mediterranean, such
as Corinth, Rhodes, Ephesus, Cyzicus, Antioch, Tyrus,
Alexandria, Cyrene, Athens, Carthage, Tarraco, Narbo and
Massilia, Neapolis and Tarentum, Syracuse and Agrigentum, and
of all with Rome, must have been a potent instrument in fusing
into one family the manifold nations of the empire. … In the
eyes of the Orientals and the Greeks, the mistress of lands
and continents, the leader of armies, and the builder of roads
was regarded as the greatest of all maritime emporiums, and
represented in their figurative style as a woman sitting
enthroned upon the waves of the Mediterranean. The maritime
aspect thus assumed by Rome in the eyes of her subjects beyond
the sea, is the more remarkable when we consider how directly
her ancient policy and habits were opposed to commercial
development. … The landowners of Rome, in the highday of her
insolent adolescence, had denounced both commerce and the arts
as the business of slaves or freedmen. So late as the year 535
a law had been passed which forbade a senator to possess a
vessel of burden, and the traffic which was prohibited to the
higher class was degraded in the eyes of the lower. … It was …
by following the natural train of circumstances, and by no
settled policy of her own, that Rome secured her march across
the sea, and joined coast to coast with the indissoluble chain
of her dominion. On land, on the contrary, she constructed her
military causeways with a fixed and definite purpose. … The
population of Gaul crept, we know, slowly up the channel of
the rivers, and the native tracks which conveyed their traffic
from station to station were guided by these main arteries of
their vital system.
{3702}
But the conquerors struck out at once a complete system of
communication for their own purposes, by means of roads cut or
built as occasion required, with a settled policy rigidly
pursued. These high roads, as we may well call them, for they
were raised above the level of the plains and the banks of the
rivers, and climbed the loftiest hills, were driven in direct
lines from point to point, and were stopped by neither forest
nor marsh nor mountain."
_C. Merivale,
History of the Romans,
chapter 39._
COMMERCE:
Gaul under the Romans and after the fall of the Empire.
"In the second century of our era, in the time of Trajan and
the Antonines, Gaul with its fertile fields, its beautiful
meadows, its magnificent forests, was one of the best
cultivated countries of the Roman world. It exported into
Italy grain from Aquitaine, Celtique and from the country of
the Allobroges (Dauphiné), flax from Cadurques (Quercy) and
Bituriges (Berry), hemp from Auvergne and the valley of the
Rhône, spikenard from Provence (valeriana celtica according to
M. Littré) renowned in the Roman pharmacopœia, oak and pine
from the immense forests which still covered the Pyrenees, the
Cevennes, the Alps, the Jura, the Vosges and nearly all the
north of Gaul (forest of Ardennes), horses from Belgium, wool
from the Narbonnaise, cheese from the Alps and from Nîmes,
hams and salt provisions from Séquanaise (Franche-Comté), and
the Pyrenees. The wines of the Narbonnaise and the valley of
the Rhône, often adulterated and little relished by the
Italians, were notwithstanding one of the principal objects of
commerce in the interior of Gaul, in Great Britain and
Germany. The oysters of the Mediterranean and even those of
the Atlantic and the Channel which the ancients had perhaps
found means of keeping in fresh water, figured upon the tables
of the gourmets of Rome. We know that long before the
conquest, the Gauls took gold from the sands of their rivers
and that in certain regions (Upper Pyrenees), territory of the
Tarbelles, and Val d'Aoste, territory of the Salasses, they
extracted gold from the auriferous rocks by processes quite
analogous to those which are now employed by the great
Californian companies. These mines which were yet in existence
under Augustus were not long in being exhausted, but the iron
of Berry, Sénonais, Perigord, Rouergue, the valley of the
Rhône and of the Saône, the copper of the Pyrenees
(Saint-Etienne-de-Baïgorry), of the Alps (country of the
Centrons, now Upper Savoy), of the Cevennes (Cabrieres in
Hérault and Chessy in Rhône), the tin of Limousin, the
argentiferous lead of the territory of the Rutènes (Rouergue),
of the Gabales (Gévaudan), of the Centrons, etc., were mined
and wrought with a skill which placed the metallurgy of Gaul
in the first rank of the industries of the empire. These
mining operations, superintended by the State, although they
belonged to the proprietors of the soil, were often directed
by companies which combined the working of the metal with its
extraction from the ore. One which had its seat at Lyons is
known to us by many inscriptions. Textile industries were not
less flourishing than metallurgy, the manufacture of
sail-cloth was carried on all over Gaul; the bleached linens
of Cahors, the carpets of the Narbonnaise, the sagums of
mingled bright colors were renowned even in Italy. The
progress of commerce had followed that of agriculture and
manufacture. The network of Roman roads planned by Agrippa was
completed and four roads accessible to carriages or beasts of
burden, crossed the Alps by the passes of the Little (Graius
Mons) and of the Great Saint-Bernard (Summus Penninus), of
Mount Genèvre (Mons Matrona) and of the Argentière: the
Corniche road stretched along the Mediterranean from Genoa to
Marseilles: those of the pass of Pertus (Summa Pyrenoeco), of
the valley of Aran, of the Somport, of Roncevaux, and from
Lapurdum (Bayonne) to Pampeluna connected Gaul to Spain. …
Notwithstanding the competition of new roads, river navigation
had retained all its activity. … We know from inscriptions of
a certain number of associations for water transportation
which appear to have played a great rôle in the interior
commerce of Gaul from the first century of our era. The
boatmen of the Rhône, the Saône, the Durance, the Seine, the
Loire, the Aar, an affluent of the Rhine, formed corporations
recognized by the State, organized on the model of cities,
having their regulations, property, elective chiefs, and
patronized by great personages who charged themselves with
defending their interests against the Roman authorities. The
most celebrated, If not the most important of these
associations, is that of the Nautæ Parisiaci, the memory of
which has been preserved to us by the remains of an altar
raised, under Tiberius, at the point of the Isle of the City
(the ancient Lutetia) and found in 1711 under the choir of
Notre-Dame. … The two great commercial ports of the
Mediterranean were Narbonne and Arles, after Marseilles had
lost her maritime preponderance and was only a city of
science, luxury and pleasure. … Immense labor upon embankments
and canalization which had thrown within Narbonne the mass of
the river and deepened the maritime channel made of the
metropolis of the Narbonnaise one of the safest ports upon the
coast of Gaul. It communicated with the Rhône by the
navigation of the lakes (étangs) which at that time extended
without interruption to the western mouth of the river, with
the ocean by the course of the Garonne, navigable from
Toulouse (Tolosa). The port of the Garonne was then as now
Bordeaux (Burdigala) which already had intercourse with Great
Britain and Spain. Aries, connected with the sea by the canal
of Marius and perhaps also by the small arm of the Rhône and
the navigation of the lakes (étangs), was a maritime port and
at the same time the outlet for the navigation of the Rhône
which was prolonged by the Saône as far as Chalon
(Cabillonum). Upon the banks of the river rose the wealthy
cities of Tarascon, Avignon (Avenio), Orange (Arausio),
Vienne. Lyons is the commercial and also the political
metropolis of Gaul, the seat of the most powerful
manufacturing and commercial companies; the boatmen of the
Saône and the Rhône, the wine merchants, the mining and
smelting company of the valley of the Rhône. Above Chalon,
four great commercial routes start from the valley of the
Saône. The first ascends the Doubs as far as Besançon
(Vesuntio) and terminates at the Rhine near Augst (Augusta
Rauracorum), where the river is already navigable.
{3703}
The second follows the valley of the Saône and descends by the
Moselle, navigable above Trèves (Augusta Trevirorum), and by
the Meuse, toward the middle and lower valley of the Rhine. …
The third route, that from the Saône to the Loire, set out
from Chalon, crossed Autun (Augustodunum), and reached the
Loire above Orleans (Genabum, later Aurelianum). Goods
embarked upon the river arrived, after a voyage of 870
kilometers (2,000 stades), at Nantes (Portus Namnetum) which
appears to have been substituted, about the beginning of the
first century, for the ancient port of Corbilo and which was
also in intercourse with Great Britain. The fourth route, that
from the Saône to the Seine, crossed Autun, was there divided
into two branches which went by way of Avallon and Alise to
meet at Sens (Agedincum) on the Yonne, and descended the Seine
to its mouth by Melun (Melodunum), Paris (Lutetia) and Rouen
(Rotomagus). This was the shortest route between the new
province of Britani and the Mediterranean; but the ancients,
notwithstanding the progress in navigation, always distrusted
long passages by sea; so the principal emporium of commerce
with Britani was not Caracotinum (Harfleur), the port of the
Seine, but Gesoriacum, later Bononia (Boulogne), which is
distant only 50 kilometers from the English coast. It was
there that Caligula erected that gigantic pharos known to the
middle-ages under the name of the tower of Odre and which
existed until 1645. … When one thinks of Gaul in the second
half of the 5th century, after those great streams of invasion
which swept it for fifty years, one easily fancies that the
flood has carried everything away, that the Roman institutions
have disappeared, that private fortunes are swallowed up in a
frightful catastrophe, that the barbarians have enslaved the
Gallo-Romans, that social life is suspended, manufactures
ruined, commerce interrupted. This picture which responds to
the idea we form of a barbarian conquest, is necessarily
exaggerated, because the Germanic invasion was not a conquest.
The Germans who established themselves upon the Roman
territory, those even who had employed force to make a place
for themselves within it, did not consider themselves
conquerors, but subjects and soldiers of the Empire: they
dreamed so little of destroying it that they aspired to serve
it whether it would or no. Notwithstanding the decadence of
manufactures and the inevitable disorders which weakness of
the central power brings in its train, commerce appears to
have preserved a certain amount of activity. In the 6th
century, post stages still existed. Upon the Roman roads,
maintained and repaired by the Merovingians, heavy wagons
which served for the transportation of goods and travelers
circulated with their teams of oxen or horses. Royal decrees
commanded the preservation of towing-paths along navigable
rivers; the rivers had remained the high-ways of interior
commerce, and the boatmen's companies of Roman Gaul had
perhaps survived the fall of the imperial domination. The
ports of the Atlantic, Bordeaux and Nantes, those of the
Channel, Alet (between Saint-Malo and Saint-Servan), Rouen,
Quantovic (Etaples or Saint-Josse-sur-Mer?) on the bay of the
Canche, Boulogne, were in relations with the Visigoths and the
Suevi of Spain, the Irish, the Frisians, and received in
exchange for the wines, honey, madder, grains and linens of
Gaul, oils and lead from Spain, metals and slaves from Great
Britain, coarse cloths from Ireland and finer fabrics which
they were beginning to make in Frisia. Marseilles, Arles,
Narbonne, the great ports of the Mediterranean, were always
the depots for the trade of the Orient, where their vessels
went for spices, silks, papyrus from Alexandria, cloths and
carpets from Antioch and Laodicea, which their merchants
exchanged in part for money, in part for metals, honey,
saffron, almonds and linens from southern Gaul, coral brought
from Italy, and amber brought overland from the borders of the
Baltic. The conquests of the Franks, masters of central and
southern Germany, had opened to commerce two new roads: one,
by the Danube, stretched away to the frontiers of the Eastern
Empire and to Constantinople through the countries occupied by
the fierce tribes of the Avars and the Bulgarians; the other
arrived by Thuringia in the regions where the Slav tribes,
Sorbs (Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, Pomerania) and Wends
(Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Carinthia) dominated. In these
uncultivated countries, covered with forests and marshes, in
the midst of these warlike peoples, the merchants could risk
themselves only in large caravans, sword at the side and lance
in hand. These distant and perilous expeditions were
attractive to the adventurous spirit of the Frank race. …
Faith, as well as ambition, found its account in these
journeys to the countries of the pagan. On the way, they
distributed religious images to the heathen, they tried to
convert them while profiting by them. … This mingling of
commerce and religion is one of the characteristic traits of
the middle ages, as it is of antiquity. The most ancient fairs
of Gaul, that of Troyes which was in existence as early as the
5th century, that of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, that of
Saint-Denis, which goes back to the time of Dagobert (629),
were at the same time pilgrimages. This latter the most
celebrated of all, under the Merovingians, was held outside
the walls of Paris, between the churches of Saint-Martin and
Saint-Laurent, upon the lands watered by the brook
Ménilmontant; it was opened on the festival of Saint-Denis and
continued four weeks, in order to permit, says its charter,
merchants from Spain, Provence and Lombardy and even those
from beyond the sea, to take part in it. … The fair of
Saint-Denis was the rendezvous of merchants from all parts of
Gaul and Europe. Beside the wines and oils of the South might
be seen the honey and wax of Armorica, the linens and madder
of Neustria, the metals of Spain and England, the furs of the
North, the products of the royal manufactories; but the
choicest goods were the spices, pepper, tissues of silk and of
cotton, jewels, enamels, goldsmiths' work, which came from the
Orient by the Mediterranean ports, more rarely by way of the
Danube, and whose guardians were the Syrians or Jews destined
to hold so great a place in the commerce of the middle ages.
The Syrians,—and under this name the Franks comprehended,
without doubt, all merchants native to Egypt or Roman
Asia,—formed powerful communities at Marseilles, Narbonne,
Bordeaux; at Paris they had sufficient influence to enable one
of them, Eusebius, to succeed in purchasing the episcopate, in
591. … As to the Jews, a great number were already established
in Gaul before the fall of the Roman Empire, but their
prosperity dates only from the epoch of disorganization which
followed the barbarian invasion."
_H. Pigeonneau,
Histoire du Commerce de la France
(translated from the French), tome 1, livre 1._
{3704}
COMMERCE: Mediæval.
Early trade with China.
"During the Tang Dynasty the intercourse between China and
other considerable powers was not only closer but conducted on
more nearly equal terms than at any other time. … The
neighbouring kingdom of Tibet is first mentioned in the annals
for 634 A. D. as sending ambassadors with tribute and being
able to raise a large and formidable army. … Appeals from
Persia and India for help against the Saracens were addressed
to China more than once in the 7th and 8th centuries; and the
heir apparent to the Persian throne resided for a time as
hostage at the court of China. … But for the physical
structure of the continent, which isolates India and China,
while freezing Tibet and nomadizing Tartary, the spread of
Arab conquest round or across the desert would have reached a
point near enough to bring about a collision with China. As it
was, a general impetus was given to foreign travel and foreign
commerce; and … colonies of traders established themselves in
the southern ports, as well as along the continental trade
routes. … About the year 700 A. D. a market for strangers was
opened at Canton, and an imperial commission appointed to levy
duties. In 714 A. D. we hear of a petition of foreign
merchants, arriving by way of the southern sea, which is
forwarded from the coast in quite modern fashion for the
emperor's consideration. It set forth all the precious things
which the merchants could bring from the countries of the
West, and represented them as only desirous of collecting
medicinal drugs and simples. Unfortunately for the traders,
they arrived at the beginning of a new reign, when a vigorous
attempt had been made to put down the luxury of the court. …
It was concluded to take no further notice of the petition.
Foreign trade continued to exist on sufferance, but so far as
the Chinese were concerned, it was limited by the attitude of
the Government to a moderate exportation of staple
commodities, paid for in foreign coin or precious metals. What
China had to sell was much more important to the Western
nations than anything she or her rulers could be prevailed
upon to buy; and so long as the trade dealt with surplus
manufactures, like silk, or natural products, like musk or
rhubarb, and did not endanger the local food supply, it was
not interfered with. In 794 A. D. complaints were made that
trade was leaving Canton for Cochin China, but the traders'
schemes for recovering or pursuing it were discouraged by the
Government, which opined that there must have been intolerable
extortions used to drive it away, or a want of natural
inducements to bring it, and quoted the Shoo: 'Do not prize
strange commodities too much, and persons will come from
remote parts.' Arab geographers and travellers of the 9th
century show what a development had been reached by foreign
commerce under this modified freedom. The Jewish merchants
described by Ibn Khordadbeh as speaking Persian, Latin, Greek,
Arab, Spanish, Slavonic, and Lingua franca, and trading by sea
and land to the remotest regions, had their representatives at
Canton; and the four trade routes, enumerated by Sir Henry
Yule, enabled all the great commercial communities to try
their hand at the China trade. The first of these routes led
from the Mediterranean over the Isthmus of Suez, and onwards
by sea; another reached the Indian sea viâ Antioch, Bagdad and
Bussora and the Persian Gulf; a third followed the coast of
Africa by land from Tangiers to Egypt and thence by Damascus
to Bagdad, while the fourth led south of the Caspian Sea and
north of the central Asian desert to the gates of the Great
Wall. The Chinese traders either met the Western merchants at
Ceylon, or themselves came as far as the mouth of the
Euphrates."
_E. J. Simcox,
Primitive Civilizations,
book 4, chapter 12, section 2 (volume 2)._
COMMERCE: Mediæval.
The Arabs.
The earliest date to which any positive statement of
intercourse between the Arabs and the Chinese "appears to
refer is the first half of the 5th century of our era. At this
time, according to Hamza of Ispahan and Masudi, the Euphrates
was navigable as high as Hira, a city lying south-west of
ancient Babylon, near Kufa, (now at a long distance from the
actual channel of the river), and the ships of India and China
were constantly to be seen moored before the houses of the
town. Hira was then abounding in wealth, and the country
round, now a howling wilderness, was full of that life and
prosperity which water bestows in such a climate. A gradual
recession took place in the position of the headquarters of
Indian and Chinese trade. From Hira it descended to Obolla,
the ancient Apologos, from Obolla it was transferred to the
neighbouring city of Basra, built by the Khalif Omar on the
first conquest of Irak (636), from Basra to Siraf on the
northern shore of the gulf, and from Siraf successively to
Kish and Hormuz. Chinese Annals of the Thang dynasty of the
7th and 8th centuries, describe the course followed by their
junks in voyaging to the Euphrates from Kwangcheu (Canton). …
The ships of China, according to some authorities, used to
visit Aden as well as the mouths of Indus and Euphrates. I do
not think that either Polo or any traveller of his age speaks
of them as going further than Malabar, the ports of which
appear to have become the entrepôts for commercial exchange
between China and the west, nor does it appear what led to
this change. Some time in the 15th century again they seem to
have ceased to come to Malabar. … The Arabs at an early date
of Islam, if not before, had established a factory at Canton,
and their numbers at that port were so great by the middle of
the 8th century that in 758 they were strong enough to attack
and pillage the city, to which they set fire and then fled to
their ships. Nor were they confined to this port. … In the 8th
century also the Arabs began to know the Chinese not only as
Sinæ, but as Seres, i. e. by the northern land route. …
Besides … communication by land and sea with Arabia, and with
the various states of India, … there existed from an old date
other and obscurer streams of intercourse between China and
Western Asia, of which we have but fragmentary notices, but
which seem to indicate a somewhat fuller mutual knowledge and
freer communication than most persons probably have been
prepared to recognise. Thus, China appears to have been well
known from an early period to the Armenians."
_H. Yule,
Cathay and the Way thither, preliminary essay
(volume 1), pages lxxvii-lxxxii._
{3705}
After the Arabs began their career as a conquering people,
under Mahomet and his successors, and took possession of the
great ancient fields of Asiatic and African commerce, with its
highways and its capital seats, from Ispahan to Palmyra,
Damascus, Baalbec, Tyre, Alexandria, and the old Carthaginian
ports, they quickly caught the large ideas of trade that were
then opened up to them. They improved the early caravan routes
and established new ones in many directions. They dug wells,
made cisterns and built caravansaries, or public places of
shelter for travelers and traders, along the important desert
roads. The pilgrimages which their religion encouraged had a
lively traffic connected with them, and by spreading one
language and one set of customs and laws over the wide region
which they ruled, they helped commerce as the Romans had done.
From Bagdad, the new capital city which they built on the
Tigris, nearly opposite the deserted ruins of Babylon, on the
other side of the Chaldean plain, they carried on direct trade
with India, through Afghanistan; with China by three routes
through Bokhara, or Tartary; with Siberia and with Russia, to
the very center of it, through the agency of the Turkish and
Tartar races. This city of Bagdad became a marvel of
magnificence under the early Arabian caliphs. Other cities of
Asia that acquired importance in manufactures or trade, or
both, during the period of Arabian power, were Ispahan, in
Persia, the woolens and linens from which were equally noted
for their fineness; Damascus, in Syria, which produces cutlery
of steel, and especially sword blades, that have never been
surpassed, and which gave the name of "damasks" to certain
raised patterns in linen that are well known by that term to
this day; Herat, in Afghanistan, which was famous for its
carpet looms and for its cultivation of saffron and
assafœtida; Balkh and Khotan, in Bokhara, the former of which,
on the banks of the Oxus, was a populous seat of trade between
China, India and the West. From its great antiquity, Balkh was
called "the mother of cities." In their native country, the
Arabs, during this brilliant period of their history,
increased the ancient trade which they had carried on by sea,
with India, on one hand, and with the eastern coasts of
Africa, on the other. They extended the latter far south of
the limits of ancient Ethiopia, and even to the island of
Madagascar. There are few settlements now existing on the east
African coast, below the straits of Babel-Mandeb, which were
not of Arabian origin. The pilgrimages to Mecca, their holy
city, where the remains of Mahomet were interred, made that a
great market and both industry and commerce were enlivened
throughout the Arabian peninsula. As masters of Egypt, the
Arabians reorganized with fresh vigor the ancient caravan
traffic with central Africa and with the countries on the
Upper Nile. Alexandria, it is true, lost much of its former
importance. This was owing, in part, to the bitter hostility
that existed between the Mahometans and the European
Christians, which broke up, for a long period, nearly all open
commerce between the two. But Alexandria was also hurt by the
rise of new Arabian cities, in Egypt and on the Barbary coast,
which drew away some of the trade that had centered almost
wholly at Alexandria before. Cairo, the modern capital of
Egypt, stood first among these and became a wealthy seat of
many manufactures and of much commercial exchange. The
interior caravan traffic of Egypt centered principally at
Syene, while Temnis and Damietta were busy productive towns.
Within the old Carthaginian dominions, west of Egypt, on the
Mediterranean, the Arab conquerors revived a traffic quite as
extensive, perhaps, as the greatest that ancient Carthage had
controlled. Not far from the site of that ancient emporium,
and twelve miles from the modern city of Tunis, they built the
now forgotten city of Kirwan, which was one of the largest and
most magnificent of its time. It was a point from which
numerous caravan routes led southward into the heart of the
African continent, even beyond the great desert, as well as
eastward to Egypt and westward to the Atlantic coasts and
Spain. Many flourishing towns surrounded this African
metropolis and were the centers of many different activities,
such as the cultivation of grain, the making of salt, the
rearing of silk-worms and the production of silk. In
Mauritania, which embraced the modern empire of Morocco and
part of Algiers, the Arabs introduced the same spirit of
enterprise. In their hands, the barren country—which has
since become almost a desert again—was made fertile, through
wide regions, by extensive irrigation, and produced wheat,
olives, grapes, dates and other fruits in great abundance,
besides feeding flocks and herds of sheep, goats, horses,
asses and camels in rich pastures. The people became skilful
in several manufactures, including weaving and dyeing, the
making of silk and gold thread, the mining and smelting of
copper and iron, the preparation of soap and the tanning of
leather. From the Atlantic coast of their Mauritanian
dominion, the Arabs pushed their traffic far down the western
shores of the continent, while they opened caravan routes to
the interior quite as widely, perhaps, as they did from Kirwan
and from Egypt. The chief city that they founded in Mauritania
was Fez, which still bears witness to its former glory in a
lingering university, or collection of Mahometan schools; in
the remains of many mosques, and in a vast number of
caravansaries. The native inhabitants whom the Arabs found in
Mauritania derived from their country the name of Moors. They
embraced the Mahometan religion and joined their Saracen
conquerors in invading Spain, A. D. 712. This led, in Europe,
to the applying of the name "Moors" to the whole of the mixed
races which took possession of southern Spain, and finally
gave that name to all the Mahometans on the western
Mediterranean coasts. But the Moors and the Arabs were
distinct races of people. The conquest of southern Spain gave
the Arabs the finest field in which their energy and genius
were shown. They made the most of its mineral treasures, its
delightful climate and its fertile soil. On the remains of
Roman civilization, which Vandals and Visigoths had not wholly
destroyed, they built up, with wonderful quickness, a new
culture—of industry, of manners and of taste, of art, of
literature, of government and of social life—that was
splendidly in contrast with the rude state of Europe at large.
The trade of the Spanish Moors was considerably extended
among the Christians of Europe, notwithstanding the religious
enmities that opposed it.
{3706}
The products of their skilful workmanship were so eagerly
desired, and they controlled so many of the coveted luxuries
found in Africa and the East that their Christian neighbors
could not be restrained, by war nor by the commands of the
church nor by the hatred which both stirred up, from dealings
with them. With other parts of the Mahometan dominion, and
with the countries in commercial connection with it, the trade
of Moorish Spain was active and large. In exchange for the
varied products which they received, they gave the fine
fabrics of their looms; exquisite work of their goldsmiths and
silversmiths; famous leather; iron, quicksilver and silver
from the old Spanish mines, which they worked with new
knowledge and skill; sugar, the production of which they had
learned and introduced from India; olive oil, raw silk,
dye-stuffs, sulphur and many commodities of less worth. The
career of the Arabs, in the large region of the world which
they conquered, was brilliant but not lasting. The energy
which carried them for a time far ahead of their slower
neighbors in Europe showed signs of decay before two centuries
of their career had been run.
COMMERCE: MEDIÆVAL.
Byzantine Trade.
"The commerce of Europe centred at Constantinople in the 8th
and 9th centuries more completely than it has ever since done
in any one city. The principles of the government, which
reprobated monopoly, and the moderation of its duties, which
repudiated privileges, were favourable to the extension of
trade. While Charlemagne ruined the internal trade of his
dominions by fixing a maximum of prices, and destroyed foreign
commerce under the persuasion that, by discouraging luxury, he
could enable his subjects to accumulate treasures which he
might afterwards extort or filch into his own treasury,
Theophilus prohibited the persons about his court from
engaging in mercantile speculations, lest by so doing they
should injure the regular channels of commercial intercourse,
by diminishing the profits of the individual dealer. … During
this period the western nations of Europe drew their supplies
of Indian commodities from Constantinople, and the Byzantine
empire supplied them with all the gold coin in circulation for
several centuries. The Greek navy, both mercantile and
warlike, was the most numerous then in existence. Against the
merchant-ships of the Greeks, the piratical enterprises of the
Egyptian, African, and Spanish Arabs were principally
directed. Unfortunately we possess no authentic details of the
commercial state of the Byzantine empire, nor of the Greek
population during the Iconoclast period, yet we may safely
transfer to this time the records that exist proving the
extent of Greek commerce under the Basilian dynasty. Indeed,
we must remember that, as the ignorance and poverty of western
Europe was much greater in the 11th and 12th centuries than in
the 8th and 9th, we may conclude that Byzantine commerce was
also greater during the earlier period. The influence of the
trade of the Arabians with the East Indies on the supply of
the markets of western Europe has been overrated, and that of
the Greeks generally lost sight of. … The Byzantine markets
drew their supplies of Indian and Chinese productions from
Central Asia, the trade passing north of the caliph's
dominions through the territory of the Khazars to the Black
Sea. This route was long frequented by the Christians, to
avoid the countries in the possession of the Mohammedans, and
was the highway of European commerce for several centuries.
Though it appears at present a far more difficult and
expensive route than that by the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean,
it was really safer, more rapid, and more economical, in the
8th, 9th, and 10th centuries. This requires no proof to those
who are acquainted with caravan life in the East, and who
reflect on the imperfections of ancient navigation, and the
dangers and delays to which sailing vessels of any burden are
exposed in the Red Sea. When the Venetians and Genoese began
to surpass the Greeks in commercial enterprise, they
endeavoured to occupy this route; and we have some account of
the line it followed, and the manner in which it was carried
on, after the East had been thrown into confusion by the
conquests of the Crusaders and Tartars, in the travels of
Marco Polo. For several centuries the numerous cities of the
Byzantine empire supplied the majority of the European
consumers with Indian wares, and it was in them alone that the
necessary security of property existed to preserve large
stores of merchandise. Constantinople was as much superior to
every city in the civilised world, in wealth and commerce, as
London now is to the other European capitals. And it must also
be borne in mind, that the countries of central Asia were not
then in the rude and barbarous condition into which they have
now sunk, since nomade nations have subdued them. On many
parts of the road traversed by the caravans, the merchants
found a numerous and wealthy population ready to traffic in
many articles sought after both in the East and West; and the
single commodity of furs supplied the traders with the means
of adding greatly to their profits. Several circumstances
contributed to turn the great highway of trade from the
dominions of the caliphs to Constantinople. The Mohammedan
law, which prohibited all loans at interest, and the arbitrary
nature of the administration of justice, rendered all
property, and particularly commercial property, insecure.
Again, the commercial route of the Eastern trade, by the way
of Egypt and the Red Sea, was suddenly rendered both difficult
and expensive, about the year 767, by the Caliph Al Mansur,
who closed the canal connecting the Nile with the Red Sea. The
harvests of Egypt, which had previously filled the coast of
Arabia with plenty, could no longer be transported in quantity
to the ports of the Red Sea; living became expensive; the
population of Arabia declined; and the carrying trade was
ruined by the additional expenditure required. The caliph
certainly by this measure impoverished and depopulated the
rebellious cities of Medina and Mecca to such a degree as to
render their military and political power less dangerous to
the central authority at Bagdat, but at the same time he
ruined the commerce of Egypt with India and the eastern coast
of Southern Africa. Since that period, this most important
line of communication has never been restored, and the coarser
articles of food, of which Egypt can produce inexhaustible
stores, are deprived of their natural market in the arid
regions of Arabia.
{3707}
The hostile relations between the caliphs of Bagdat and Spain
likewise induced a considerable portion of the Mohammedan
population on the shores of the Mediterranean to maintain
close commercial relations with Constantinople. A remarkable
proof of the great wealth of society at this period is to be
found in the immense amount of specie in circulation. … The
poverty of Europe at a later period, when the isolation caused
by the feudal system had annihilated commerce and prevented
the circulation of the precious metals, cannot be used as an
argument against the probability of this wealth having existed
at the earlier period of which we are treating."
_G. Finlay,
History of the Byzantine Empire, 716-1057,
book 1, chapter 4, section 1._
COMMERCE: MEDIÆVAL.
Venice and Genoa.
In the slow revival of commerce which took place in Christian
Europe, during the later half of the middle ages, no one city
or people can be said to have taken a lead from the beginning.
At various points, north and south, on the Mediterranean and
the Adriatic, on the Baltic, on the Rhine and other rivers
which flow into the North Sea, and on the Danube, the Dnieper
and the Don, centers of trade were growing up in a gradual
way, out of which it would be hard to name one that ranked
much above the rest for many generations. But the 11th century
brought a great commercial leader to the front. This was
Venice. The circumstances of the founding of Venice, in the
5th century, and the history of the rise of the singular
republic, are given elsewhere.
See VENICE (page 8602).
The condition of the unfortunate refugees, who sought shelter
from invading savages on a few small mud banks, barely
separated from the shore of their Adriatic coast, did not seem
to be a promising one. Nor was it so. While the neighboring
parts of Italy were being overrun by Huns, Goths and Lombards
in succession, and while the settlement of the barbarous new
races was going on over all Southern Europe, in the midst of
great disorder and constant war, these islanders and their
descendants, for generations, were protected as much by their
poverty as by the shallow waters that surrounded them. They
had nothing to tempt either plunder or conquest. They lived by
salt-making, fishing and fish-salting. They began trade in a
small way by exchanging their salt and salted fish for other
articles. It grew in their hands from year to year, for they
were enterprising, industrious and courageous. Procuring
timber on the opposite Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic, they
became expert ship builders and sailors. The safety of their
situation caused increasing numbers of their Italian fellow
countrymen to join them. The islands of the Venetian lagune
were, in time, all occupied, and bridges between several of
them were built. From the selling of salt and fish to their
neighbors, the Venetians went on to more extensive commercial
business. By slow degrees, they took the occupation of general
merchants, buying goods here and there to sell again. They
became friendly with the Greeks on the eastern side of the
Adriatic, in Dalmatia and Albania, and this led them into
important relations, both commercial and political, with the
Byzantine Empire and its capital city, Constantinople. By the
time they had gained wealth and consequence enough to attract
the notice of their rough neighbors and invite attack, they
had also gained strength enough to defend themselves. They
took part then in the wars of the Byzantines, rendering
valuable services in Italy and elsewhere, and they joined the
Greeks in destroying the pirates who infested the Adriatic
Sea. The early important trade of the Venetians was with
Constantinople, where they enjoyed, for a long period, the
peculiar favor of the Byzantine rulers. After the Saracens had
mastered Syria and Persia, and taken possession of Alexandria
(A. D. 640), Constantinople became the emporium of Eastern
trade, adding it to a great traffic which the Byzantine
capital had always carried on with the Tartar and Russian
territories in Asia and Europe. When the Venetians gained a
footing there, as political friends and favored merchants,
their fortunes were made. While the Greeks were busy in
desperate wars with their Mahometan neighbors, these
enterprising Italians took into their own hands more and more
of the profitable trade which the Greeks had opened to them.
They soon had the handling of Byzantine commerce in western
Europe almost wholly. From partners they became rivals, and
especially in the Russian traffic, which they drew away from
Constantinople, to a large extent, by opening direct dealings
with the Russian traders, at a market place established on the
Dnieper. From the beginning of the Crusades, in the 11th
century, the rise of Venetian commerce and Venetian power was
very rapid. The Venetians were prepared, as no other people
were, at the time, to furnish fleets, both for transportation
and for naval war. They enlisted in the crusading enterprises
with a zeal which was not, perhaps, purely pious. Their
carrying ships were busy conveying men and supplies; their war
galleys were in the front of some sea fighting with the
Moslems, and more with Christian rivals; their shrewd
politicians were alert, at all points and among all parties,
looking after the interests of the republic; their merchants
were everywhere ready to improve the new opportunities of
trade which these times of excitement opened up. In all
directions, and throughout the whole of Europe, new activities
were awakened, and especially such as led to a busier trade.
The crusaders who lived to return, into France, Flanders,
Italy, Germany, and England, brought home with them many ideas
which they had picked up in the East, and much new knowledge
of oriental products and arts, all of which became widely
diffused and produced great effects. The result was to
stimulate and improve the industries and to increase the
commerce which the Europeans carried on among themselves, as
well as to greatly enlarge their demand for the products of
the Asiatic world. A new era in European commerce was opened,
therefore, by the Crusades, and the Venetians, by their
enterprise, their energy and their early experience, took the
lead in its activities. They organized the traffic between the
East and the West, the North and the South, upon a great
scale, and centered the larger part of it in their island
city. By sea and by land they managed it with equal vigor.
Their merchant fleets were under the protection of the state
and made voyages, at regular and appointed times, under the
convoy of vessels of war. On the landward side, they arranged
an extensive trade with the interior of Germany, Hungary and
Bohemia, through the Tyrol and Carinthia.
{3708}
As the first bitterness of hatred between Christians and
Mahometans wore away, they grew willing to trade with one
an·other, though the Popes still forbade it. The Venetians
were among the first in such willingness. Having many quarrels
with the Byzantine Greeks, they were eager to reopen the old
eastern market at Alexandria, and did so at the earliest
opportunity. From that beginning they spread their trade with
Arabs, Moors and Turks, along the whole Mahometan line, in
Asia and Africa. But, though Venice took the lead in the
reviving commerce of the middle ages and held it substantially
to the end of that period of history, she had powerful rivals
to contend with, and the strongest were among her near
neighbors in Italy. The same commercial spirit was alive in
several other Italian cities, which had grown up in the midst
of those disorderly times and had contrived to acquire more or
less of independence and more or less of power to defend
themselves. Amalfi, Genoa and Pisa were the earliest of these
in growing to importance, and Florence at a somewhat later day
rose to high rank. Florence, which did not become a free city
until near the end of the 12th century, gained its subsequent
wealth more by manufactures and by banking than by trade. Its
chief products were woolens, silk and jewelry, and its
money-lenders were everywhere in Europe.
See FLORENCE (pages 1130-1143).
The commercial career of Amalfi was cut short in the 12th
century by events connected with the Norman conquest of
Southern Italy. Pisa, an ancient city, whose history goes back
to Etruscan times, was a considerable seat of trade while
Venice was little known; but she fell behind both Venice and
Genoa, soon after those vigorous republics were fairly entered
in the race. The Pisans prospered highly for some time, by
going into partnership or alliance with the Venetians, first,
and afterwards with the Genoese; but they quarreled with the
latter and were ruined in the wars that ensued. After the
thirteenth century Pisa had no commercial importance.
See PISA (pages 2537-2539).
The great rival of Venice was Genoa, a city which claims to
be, like Pisa, of more than Roman antiquity. In the trade of
the Levant—that is, the eastern ports of the Mediterranean
Sea—the Genoese pushed themselves into competition with the
Venetians at an early day, and they seemed for some time to
hold an equal chance of controlling the prize. During the
later part of the 12th century, such unfriendly feelings had
grown up between the Venetians and the Byzantine court that
the latter transferred its commercial favors to the merchants
of Genoa, Pisa and Amalfi, and gave them many privileges at
Constantinople. The Venetians were thus placed at a
disadvantage in the Bosphorus and the Black Sea; but they did
not long submit. In 1204 they persuaded one of the crusading
expeditions to join them in attacking Constantinople, which
was taken, and the dominions of the ancient Empire of the East
were divided among the captors, Venice receiving a goodly
share.
See CRUSADES (page 631).
This was a golden era for Venice and she improved it to the
utmost. For almost sixty years she triumphed over her rivals
completely. But in 1261 her merchants were again expelled from
Constantinople and the Black Sea. The Greeks had continued to
hold a large part of the ancient domain of the Byzantine
Empire in Asia Minor, and now, with the help of the Genoese,
they succeeded in retaking their old capital city. The Frank
Empire, or Latin Empire as it was differently called, which
the Crusaders and the Venetians had set up, was extinguished
and the Genoese again took the place of the Venetians as
masters of the Byzantine trade, including that of the Black
Sea and the Asiatic traffic which was carried on from its
ports. But by this time the better disposition to deal
commercially with one another had grown up between the
Christians and the Mahometans. So the Venetians, when they
lost their footing at Constantinople, very promptly went over
to Alexandria and made excellent arrangements with the
Saracens there, for supplying Europe once more with the
commodities of the East, by those easier and shorter ancient
routes which Christian commerce had not used for several
hundred years. This opening of trade with the Mahometan races,
at Alexandria, and elsewhere soon afterwards, may easily have
repaid the Venetians for what they lost in the Byzantine
direction; but they did not give up the latter. A long series
of desperate wars between the competitors ensued, with such
shiftings of victory that Venice seemed sometimes to be almost
in a hopeless strait; but, in the end, she broke the power of
her rival completely. The final peace, which was concluded in
1381, left her quite undisputed]y, for a time, the mistress of
the Mediterranean and its trade.
See GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299 (page 1419);
and VENICE: A. D. 1378-1379, and 1379-1381 (page 3608).
Both the northward and the southward lines of traffic between
Asia and Europe, through Alexandria and through
Constantinople, were now chiefly in the hands of the
Venetians. Between those great courses were important minor
currents of commerce, along caravan routes through Asia Minor
and Syria, which they mainly controlled. The trade of the rich
islands of the Levant and of Moorish Africa was under their
management for the most part, and they found on the northern
shores of the Black Sea a commerce with the Russian region
which the Genoese had increased while they ruled in those
waters. For three quarters of a century the Venetians enjoyed
this large extent of commerce with the East. Then the Turks
came, besieged and captured Constantinople (A. D. 1453) and
spread over the country which they now occupy. For the next
two centuries the Venetians were at war with the Turks
—defending Christendom in the Mediterranean with little help.
At the same time they had to encounter an almost fatal attack
from Christian princes who had become jealous of their
formidable wealth and power and who united against the
republic in the League of Cambrai.
See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509 (page 3611).
They might have recovered from this attack, for they still
held the Mediterranean trade; but a great event had occurred,
just ten years before the League of Cambrai, which was more
fatal than war, not to Venice alone, but to most of her rivals
in trade as well. This was the discovery, by Vasco da Gama, of
the ocean passage to the Eastern world around the Cape of Good
Hope. The toiling traffic of desert caravans, to Alexandria,
to Constantinople, to Tyre, Antioch, Ephesus and Erzeroum, was
soon reduced to insignificance. The rich trade of the Indies
and of all the farther East—the trade of the silk countries
and the cotton countries, of the spice islands, of the pearl
fisheries, of the lands of ivory, of ebony, of gold, of
precious stones, of fragrant gums, of curious things and
curious arts—was quickly swept into a different course—into
broader seas than the Mediterranean and into new hands.
{3709}
COMMERCE: MEDIÆVAL.
Northern Europe.
The Baltic Cities.
The Hansa.
The earliest commercial seaports of northwestern Europe had
their rise, not on the North Sea, but on the Baltic and the
straits which enter it. The Northmen of that region were not
alone in the traffic which grew up there, for the Wends (a
Slavonic people), who occupied most of the southern shores of
the Baltic, east of the Elbe, appear to have stoutly rivalled
them from the first. Biorko, on an island in Lake Maelar,
Sweden (the inlet upon which Stockholm is situated), was one
of the first of the seats of commerce at the North. It is
supposed to have been destroyed about 1008. But the most
famous was the city of Winet, or Vineta, on the island of
Usedom, at the mouth of the river Oder. It may not have been
quite as rich and magnificent a town as some would infer from
accounts given in early chronicles; but no doubt it was
remarkable for the age, in that part of the world, and carried
on a large trade. The Swedes and Danes were the destroyers of
Vineta, before the middle of the 9th century, and the former
people are said to have carried away from it great quantities
of marble, brass and iron work, with which they gave splendor
to their own newer city of Wisby, then just rising on the
island of Gothland. The career of Wisby lasted several
centuries and it was prominent in commerce throughout the
Middle Ages. All that can be said of that most ancient
commerce in northern Europe is gathered from sources which are
uncertain and obscure. It is not until the 12th century that
much of the real history of trade in the Baltic region opens.
In 1140 the modern city of Lubeck was founded, on the site of
a more ancient town, known as Old Lubeck, which is supposed to
have been a thriving port of trade in its day but which had
been utterly destroyed by its rivals or enemies. The new
Lubeck established close relations with the Genoese and soon
took the lead in the commerce of the north, among a large
number of enterprising towns which, about that time, came into
prominence on the northern coast and on the rivers which run
to it. The city of Hamburg, on the Elbe, lying inland and not
very distant from Lubeck, was one of the earliest of these.
Like Lubeck, it had suffered destruction, in the constant
warfare of the earlier time, and had made a new beginning of
existence about 1013. Hamburg had access to the North Sea by
the Elbe and Lubeck to the Baltic by the Trave. Trading in
different directions, therefore, by sea, they carried on an
active traffic with one another, across the narrow stretch of
land which divides them,—as they still do to this day. But
this inland commerce was greatly disturbed by robbers who
infested the country, until the two cities, Lubeck and
Hamburg, in 1241, agreed to establish and support in common a
body of soldiers for the protection of their merchants. That
agreement is believed to have been the beginning of a
wide-spread union which afterwards took shape among the
commercial cities of northern Europe, and which became
powerful and famous in the later history of the Middle Ages,
under the name of the Hanseatic League.
See HANSA TOWNS: (pages 1624-1626),
and (in this Supplement) GERMANY, 13-15th,
and 15-17th CENTURIES.
COMMERCE: MEDIÆVAL.
Frisians and Flemings.
The early Netherlands.
The two peoples who inhabit the region called the
Netherlands—a purely Germanic stock in the north (modern
Holland) and a mixed but largely Celtic population in the
south (modern Belgium)—have had a history so much in common
that it cannot well be divided, though they have differed in
experiences as widely as in character. The struggle with
nature for a foothold in the lowland itself was harder in the
north than in the south, and no doubt that is why the Teutonic
Frisians led the way in industrial training. It was among them
that the arts of weaving and dyeing were cultivated first to a
notable excellence. As early as the age of Charlemagne (8-9th
centuries), Frisian robes, of white and purple woolen stuffs,
are mentioned among the choice gifts which the Emperor
sometimes sent to foreign princes, and even to the great
caliph, Haroun al Raschid. In the 9th century, Frisian weavers
are said to have been persuaded by an enterprising count of
Flanders to settle in his dominions, at Ghent, and introduce
there a better knowledge of their art. But if the Flemish
people borrowed from the Frisians in this matter, they soon
outran their teachers and made the loom their own peculiar
property. The shuttle, ere long, was in the hands of a very
large part of the whole south Netherland or Belgian
population, and they became almost a nation of weavers. The
same Count Baldwin of Flanders who brought the Frisian weavers
into Ghent established annual markets, or fairs, in various
towns, which drew merchants from abroad, promoted trade and
stimulated manufacturing industries throughout the country.
Woolen, linen, and finally silk looms multiplied to a
prodigious extent, and the weavers in all these branches
acquired remarkable skill. The working of metals was also
learned with great aptness, and Flemish cutlery, weapons and
armor became very nearly as renowned as those of Milan and
Damascus. Tanning was another valuable art which the Flemings
and their Netherland neighbors cultivated, and the tilling of
the soil was so industriously pursued that flax, hemp, grain
and other farm products were raised quite abundantly for sale
abroad. In the north Netherlands—the Hollow-land of the sturdy
"Free Frisians" and Batavians, who were afterwards called the
Dutch—the hard working energy of the people had been pushed in
some different directions. The old trade of weaving was still
vigorously carried on, in nearly every important town, and
Dutch woolens, damask linens, carpets, velvets, etc., were
largely produced and widely sought after; but this industry
was never so prominent as it became in the Belgian provinces.
The fortunes of the Hollanders were founded to a large extent
upon their fisheries, and especially the herring fishery,
which assumed great importance in their hands after the middle
of the 12th century. Before that time, they appear to have
been obliged to seek the herring in other waters than their
own—along the shores of England, Scotland and Norway. But some
change in the movements of those curiously swarming fish, about
the time above mentioned, brought great shoals of them to the
Dutch coast, and the herring harvest thereafter was a rich
source of gain to the Hollanders.
{3710}
They discovered some secrets of salting or curing the fish
which were very much valued, and the Dutch herring were
eagerly bought for all parts of Europe. The making of pottery
was another industry to which the Dutch applied themselves
with success, and particularly at the town of Delft, which
gave its name for many centuries to the common earthenware
used in western Europe. In dairy farming and skilful
horticulture, or gardening, the Hollanders were superior to
all other people at an early time. Wherever sea-fisheries are
extensive, sailors and ship builders are trained and ocean
navigation and commerce are sure, in time, to be prosperously
pursued. It was so with the Dutch. Their Frisian ancestors had
suffered so much on their coasts from the harassing raids of
the Norse pirates, or Vikings, that they did not figure very
early in seafaring enterprise. But they fought the
free-booters in their stubborn and stout-hearted way and were
able at last to make the harbors of their coast tolerably
safe. From that time the seaport towns of Holland grew
rapidly, and Dutch merchants and merchant ships, trading with
the cities of the Baltic, with England and with Flanders and
France increased in number. The Hollanders had an advantage in
this matter over their Flemish neighbors of the South
Netherlands. They were provided with better harbors and they
held the outlets of the great rivers in their hands. This
latter was the cause of incessant quarrels between the two
peoples. The 15th century found the whole Netherlands, both
north and south, in a thriving state, so far as industry and
trade were concerned, notwithstanding bad government and
disorderly times. The people were counted among the richest in
Europe. Many great and wealthy cities had grown up, containing
large populations and very busy ones. In the north, there were
Dordrecht or Dort, Hoorn, Zierikzee, Haarlem, Delft, Leyden,
Deventer, Enkhuizen, Middelburg, Nimeguen, Utrecht, Rotterdam,
and Amsterdam, which last named city eclipsed them all in the
end, though it was one of the latest to rise. In the south
there was Ghent, with forty thousand weavers inside its strong
walls, who were always as ready to string the bow as to throw
the shuttle, and whose hot-tempered revolts against tyranny
and wrong are among the most exciting incidents of history.
There was Bruges, which became for a time the great emporium
of the commerce of northern and southern Europe, but which
lost its importance before the 15th century closed. There was
Antwerp, which succeeded to the trade of Bruges and rose to
unrivalled rank; and there were Lille, Mechlin (or Malines),
Courtrai, Ypres, Louvain, and other towns, all centers of
flourishing manufactures, chiefly those of the loom.
COMMERCE: MEDIÆVAL.
Trade Routes, west and north from the Mediterranean.
"The connection between the two great divisions of European
commerce, the northern including the Hansa and the Flemish
towns, and the southern the Italian republics and
Mediterranean ports, was effected by two chief routes. One was
by sea from the Mediterranean through the Straits of
Gibraltar, up the coasts of Spain and France to Flanders. This
route was used more by the southern, and especially by
Venetian, merchants than by the northern traders, for … Venice
sent every year a large fleet to Flanders and the English
Channel, which fleet would meet at Bruges, the great Hansa
depot, the most important merchants of North Europe and the
Hansa traders. Bruges was indeed for a long time the central
mart in the north for the commercial world, till 1482, when
the canal connecting it with the port of Sluys was blocked up.
But at Bruges also the maritime trade just mentioned met the
overland trade through central Europe, a trade that was very
important, and which enriched many a city upon the Rhine and
farther south, from Augsburg to Cologne. We must consider this
overland route more carefully. The great centre from which it
started, or to which it tended, was Venice, where as we know
were collected most of the products of the East, coming both
via Egypt and via the lands round the Black Sea. … Starting …
from Venice, the merchants used to cross the Alps by the
Brenner or Julier Passes, and then would make for the Upper
Danube or one of its tributaries, and thence get on to the
stream of the Rhine. Their object was generally to utilise a
natural waterway wherever possible, rather in contrast to the
old Roman traders, who preferred the roads. But the roads of
the Middle Ages were far inferior to the old Roman highways.
One of the first great cities which the mediæval trader passed
on this route, coming from Venice, was Augsburg. … Thence he
might go down the stream to Regensburg (Ratisbon) and Vienna;
or he might go up to Ulm and then make a short land journey
till he reached the Rhine, and so right away down that
convenient stream. This was perhaps the main route from north
to south. But many others converged from central Europe to
Italy, and many important cities owed their wealth to the
stream of trade. In Karl the Great's time the cities on the
great waterway to the East along the Danube became very
flourishing; Regensburg, Passau, and Vienna being the most
important. From Regensburg there ran north and west two great
commercial highways into the interior of Germany, one by way
of Nürnberg and Erfurt and the other past Nürnberg to the
Rhine. Another route from Regensburg, by river, to Trentschin
on the river Waag took its merchants through Galicia into
Russia, whither they went as far as Kief, the centre of
Russian trade. Along this great waterway of the Danube and its
tributaries came the products of the East from Constantinople
and the Black Sea. … Another important route was that from the
cities of the Rhine, such as Coblenz and Basle, up that river
and on to Chur and then by the Julier Pass and the Engadine
and the Etschthal to Venice; or again, after passing Chur,
through the Septimer Pass and the Bergeller Thal to Genoa.
These Rhine cities were very flourishing, from Basle to
Cologne. … Like most trading towns in the Middle Ages, the
Rhine cities were compelled to form themselves into a
confederacy to resist the robbery and extortions of feudal
nobles, whose only idea of trade seems to have been that it
providentially existed as a source of plunder to themselves.
But besides this Confederacy of the Rhine there was another
great Confederacy of the Swabian cities, arising from the same
causes. … That of the Rhine included ninety cities, and
existed in a fully organised form in 1255.
{3711}
The Swabian Confederacy was formed a little later, about 1300
or 1350, under the leadership of Augsburg, Ulm, and Nürnberg,
and was in close political and commercial relations both with
Venice and Genoa. … If now we turn from trade routes in Europe
itself to those which led to Europe from the East, we find
that at the time of which we are now speaking there were three
main streams of commerce. In the 12th century the caravan
trade in Central Asia had passed along several different
paths; but after the Crusades, and the decline of the Eastern
empire by the capture of Constantinople (1204), the various
tribes of Central Asia, rendered more fanatical and warlike
than ever by these military and religious events, caused
caravan trading to become very unsafe. The first of the three
routes which now remained in the 13th century was from India
and the western coasts of Asia, past Basra on the Persian Gulf
to Bagdad by water. From Bagdad merchants went, still by
water, along the Tigris to the point on that river nearest to
Seleucia and Antioch, and so to Orontes, and then to the coast
of the Levant. The second route followed the same course as
the first till the point of leaving the Tigris, and then
proceeded over the Highlands of Asia Minor and Armenia to the
port of Trebizond on the Black Sea, where Venetian vessels
used to meet Asiatic traders. For both these routes Bagdad
formed a very important centre. … The third route from the far
East was from India by sea to Aden, then by land across the
desert to Chus on the Nile, which took nine days, and then
again by water down the Nile to Cairo, a journey of thirteen
days. From Cairo there was a canal, 200 miles long, to
Alexandria, where again Venetian and Genoese merchants were
ready to receive the rich spices, sugar, perfumes, precious
stones, gum, oil, cotton, and silk brought from the East."
_H. de B. Gibbins,
History of Commerce in Europe,
book 2, chapter 5._
COMMERCE: MEDIÆVAL:
The English.
"Whilst the Italians were vigorously pursuing their trade in
India and Europe, and Spain was renowned for her manufactures;
whilst the Hanse merchants were extending their factories, and
Portuguese navigators were bent upon maritime discoveries;
whilst the Dutch were struggling for independence, and France
was planting the seeds of her industries; England was only
known as possessing a few articles of commerce of great value.
Her wools and her metals were eagerly sought by foreign
traders, but she had no ships of her own to carry them abroad.
She had many raw materials, but she produced no manufactures
for exportation. Nor was her policy respecting foreign trade
the most wise. The chief concern of the legislature in those
days seemed to be to prevent foreign nations doing with
English produce what, after all, the English could not do
themselves. Again and again the export of wool was prohibited,
or was hindered by prohibitory duties. … The people regarded
the introduction of foreigners with the utmost jealousy. They
resented their competition, they grudged their profits and
their advantages. The guilds would not admit them as members,
and it was hard for the poor strangers to establish a footing
in England, even although Magna Charta had long before
declared that all merchants shall have safety in coming to or
going out of England, and in remaining and travelling through
it, by land or water, for buying or selling, free from any
grievous imposition. Anyhow, whatever the opposition of cities
and corporations, the nation was benefited by the foreign
merchants. Thankful, indeed, might England have been for the
Lombards, who brought hither money and merchandise, banking
and insurance; for the Flemings, who, driven by intestine
dissension, found refuge on British soil, and became the
founders of the woollen manufacture; and for the Huguenots,
who brought with them the silk manufacture. … But a new era
advanced. The discovery of the American continent by Columbus,
and of a maritime route to India by Vasco da Gama, altered the
course and character of commerce. Till then trade was
essentially inland, thenceforth its most conspicuous triumphs
were to be on the ocean. Till then, the Mediterranean was the
centre of international trading. From thenceforth the tendency
of trade was towards the countries bordering on the Atlantic.
… It was not long … before England followed the lead of Spain
and Portugal. John Cabot and his sons went in quest of land to
North America; Drake went to circumnavigate the globe;
Chancellor sailed up the White Sea to Russia; Willoughby went
on his ill-fated voyage in search of a north-eastern passage
to India; Sir Walter Raleigh explored Virginia; the Merchant
Adventurers pushed their adventures to Spain and Portugal; and
English ships began to be seen in the Levant. Meanwhile,
English trade enlarged its sphere, English bravery at sea
became most conspicuous, and English industry advanced apace."
_L. Levi,
History of British Commerce,
2d edition, introduction._
"In the 14th century the whole of the external, and much of
the internal, trade of the country had been in the hands of
foreigners; in the 15th our merchants began to push their way
from point to point in the Mediterranean and the Baltic; in
the 16th they followed slowly in the wake of other
adventurers, or tried to establish themselves in unkindly
regions which had attracted no one else. When Elizabeth
ascended the throne England appears to have been behind other
nations of Western Europe in the very industrial arts and
commercial enterprise on which her present reputation is
chiefly based."
_W. Cunningham,
Growth of English Industry and Commerce,
volume 2, page 2._
COMMERCE: MEDIÆVAL:
Trade and Piracy.
"It would be wrong to infer from the prevalence of piracy at
this period [the 15th century] that commerce must have
declined. On the contrary, it was probably the increase of
commerce, unaccompanied by the growth of adequate means for
its defence, which made the pirate's calling so profitable.
Nor was the evil confined to the professional pirate class, if
we may use the expression. Even recognised associations of
merchants frequently indulged in practices which can only be
characterised as piracy. Commerce, in fact, was deeply imbued
with the spirit of lawlessness, and in these circumstances it
is probable that the depredations of pirates did not excite
the same alarm nor discourage trade in the same degree as
would be the case in more law-abiding times. In the 15th
century the profession of Christianity and extreme
respectability were not incompatible with a life of violence
and outrage, and it is to be feared that in some cases the
Governments which should have repressed pirates by the
severest measures, encouraged their depredations.
{3712}
Certainly they have never enjoyed such immunity from the
strong arm of the law as in the 15th century. Outrage and
robbery went on unchecked along the coasts and in the track of
merchant vessels. No trader was safe even in the rivers and
ports of his own country. The pirates burnt and sacked towns
as important as Sandwich and Southampton; they carried off not
only the goods they could lay their hands on, but men and
women, and even children, whom they held to ransom. Unable to
look to the Government for protection of life and property
while they were engaged in trade, the merchants were thrown
upon their own resources to provide security. The best method
of grappling with the pirates, and that which was most
frequently adopted, was for merchant vessels to sail together
in such numbers that they could repel attack; and these
voluntary efforts were sometimes aided by the Government. In
1406 Henry IV. granted the merchants 3s. on every cask of wine
imported, and certain payments on Staple exports for purposes
of defence. Two Admirals were appointed, one for the north and
the other for the south, with full jurisdiction in maritime
affairs and power to organise naval forces. But this scheme
was unsuccessful. A similar expedient was tried in 1453, but
abandoned two years afterwards. The only satisfactory remedy
would have been a strong navy, but the conditions necessary
for this had not yet been realised. The country could not have
supported the charge of maintaining a strong naval force. …
That merchants were beginning to realise the importance of the
subject, and were becoming wealthy enough to build vessels of
a considerable size, is evident from the operations of John
Taverner, of Kingston-upon-Hull, and the famous William
Cannynges of Bristol, the latter of whom is said to have
possessed 2,470 tons of shipping and some vessels of 900 tons
burthen."
_W. A. S. Hewins,
Industry and Commerce
(in "Social England," edited by H. D. Traill,
chapter 7, volume 2)._
COMMERCE: MEDIÆVAL:
The Portuguese, and the finding of the Ocean Way to the Indies.
It was not by accident that the Portuguese rose all at once,
in the closing years of the 15th century and the early years
of the 16th, to a position in which they controlled and
directed the main current of trade between Europe and the
Eastern world. The discovery by Vasco da Gama of an ocean
route to the Indies, and all the results (hereafter
described), which it yielded to his countrymen for the time,
were a reward of enterprise which the Portuguese had fully
earned. They had worked for it, patiently and resolutely,
through almost a hundred years. The undertaking was begun, at
about the commencement of the 15th century, by a Portuguese
prince who ought to enjoy greater fame than if he had
conquered an empire; because his ambition was nobler and the
fruits were of higher worth to the world. He was known as
"Prince Henry the Navigator," and he was the third son of the
Portuguese King John I. who was called the Great, on account
of his success in wars with the Castillians and the Moors. But
this young son, Prince Henry, was much the greater man of the
two. He could not endure the ignorance of his time with regard
to the mysterious ocean that stretched westward and southward
from the shores of the little country which his father ruled.
He was bent on knowing more about it; and he was specially
bent on having the Portuguese sailors make their way down the
shores of the African continent, to learn where it ended and
what track to the farther side might be found. Beyond Cape
Nun, at the southern extremity of the modern empire of
Morocco, nothing was known of the western coast of Africa when
Prince Henry began his work. The Phœnicians and Carthaginians,
two thousand years earlier, had probably known more about it;
but their knowledge was lost. Prince Henry studied everything
that could give him light and became well convinced that round
the continent of Africa there was a way to the Indies for bold
sailors to find. Then he applied himself, with a zeal which
never flagged, to the working out of that achievement. He was
a young man when he began, and during more than forty years of
his life he devoted his time and his means almost wholly to
the fitting out and directing of exploring ships and he fixed
his residence upon the most southerly promontory of Portugal,
to watch their going and coming. But the art of navigation was
so little understood and the navigators were so timid, that
slow progress was made. Each explorer only ventured a little
farther than the one before him; and so they went feeling
their way, league by league, down the African coast. The
forty-three years of Prince Henry's endeavors were consumed in
reaching what is now the settlement of Sierra Leone, near the
head of the gulf of Guinea. But even this added more than a
thousand miles of the western coast of Africa to the maps of
the 15th century and was a greater advance in geographical
knowledge than had been made since Carthage fell. Before he
died (A. D. 1460), Prince Henry secured from the Pope (who was
supposed to have the giving of all heathen countries) a grant
to Portugal of all these discoveries, both island and
mainland, and of all which the Portuguese explorers might make
in the future, between Europe and India. So he died well
content, let us hope, with the work which he had done for his
country and for mankind. The enthusiasm for exploration which
Prince Henry had awakened in Portugal did not die with him,
though his efforts had met with unending opposition and
excited very much discontent. Repeated expeditions were still
sent down the African coast, and they crept farther and
farther toward the goal of desire. At last, in 1486,
Bartholomew Diaz, with three ships, actually rounded the Cape
of Good Hope without knowing it, and only learned the fact
when he turned backward from his voyage, discouraged by
storms. Eleven years later, Vasco da Gama set out, fired with
fresh determination, by the great discovery of a new world
which Columbus had so lately made for Spain, and this time
there was no failure. He passed the Cape, sailed up the
eastern shores of the African continent to Melinda, in
Zanguebar, and thence across the Indian Ocean to Calicut in
Hindostan. The ocean route to India was now fully proved; the
new era was opened and its grand prize plucked by the
Portuguese—thanks to Prince Henry the Navigator.
See, also, PORTUGAL: A. D. 1415-1460
and 1463-1498 (pages 2571-2573).
{3713}
COMMERCE: MODERN:
New Routes and New Marts.
There is nothing at all imaginary in the line which is drawn
in history across the later years of the 15th and the early
years of the 16th century, to mark the beginning of a new era
in human affairs. It is a line very real and very distinct,
dividing one state of things, known as the mediæval, from
another state of things, known as the modern. It was fixed by
the occurrence of a series of extraordinary events, which came
quickly, one after the other, and which brought about, either
singly or together, the most tremendous changes, in many ways,
that ever happened to the world in the same space of time. The
first of these was the invention of printing, which dates as a
practical art from about 1454. The second was the discovery of
the new world by Columbus, A. D. 1492. The third was the
passage around the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese
navigator, Vasco da Gama, A. D. 1497. The fourth was the
religious reformation set in motion by Martin Luther, at
Wittenberg, A. D. 1517. The combined effect of these great
events was to make really a new starting point in almost every
particular of human history, and to do so very quickly. The
commercial changes which resulted are among the most
remarkable. No sooner had the route by sea to southern and
eastern Asia and the islands of the Indian ocean been found,
than almost the whole traffic of Europe with that rich eastern
world abandoned its ancient channels and ran into the new one.
There were several strong reasons for this. In the first
place, it cost less to bring goods by ship from India, Ceylon
or China direct to European ports, than to carry them over
long distances by land to the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean and there ship them to the West. In the second
place, by taking its new route, this commerce escaped the
Moorish pirates in the Mediterranean, who had long been very
troublesome. And, lastly, but not least in importance, the
European merchants gained a great advantage in becoming able
to deal directly with the East Indians and the Chinese,
instead of trading at second hand with them, through Arabs and
Mahometan Turks, who controlled the Asiatic and African
routes. So the commerce of the Indies, as it was generally
called, fled suddenly away from the Mediterranean to the
Atlantic; fled away from the Venetians, the Genoese, the
Marseillaise, and the Barcelonians; from Constantinople,
lately conquered by the Turks; from Antioch and Alexandria;
and from many cities of the Hansa League in the north, which
had learned the old ways of traffic and were slow to learn
anything new. Soon many of the great marts which had been
busiest, grew silent and deserted and fell into slow decay.
The most enriching commerce of the world was passing to
different hands and bringing younger races into the front of
history.
COMMERCE: MODERN:
The Portuguese in the lead.
Having found the way to India by sea, the Portuguese were
prompt in taking measures to make themselves strong in that
part of the world and to control the trade with it. They were
helped in this effort by the grant of imagined rights which
Prince Henry had obtained from the Pope, long before. But they
strengthened the rights which the Pope gave them, by the older
fashioned methods of conquest and possession. They began at
once to plant themselves firmly at important points in the
eastern seas and on the Indian coast. They sent out one of
their ablest military men, Francesco d'Almeida, with a strong
force of ships and volunteers, and appointed him Viceroy of
India. He took possession of several parts of the Malabar
coast (the western coast of the southern extremity of
Hindostan) and built forts in which garrisons were placed. He
similarly established the Portuguese power in Ceylon, took
possession of the Maldive Islands and founded trading
settlements in Sumatra. The Venetians, who saw that their
ancient trade with the East was doomed unless this new rivalry
could be crushed, now joined their Mahometan allies of Egypt
in a great effort to drive the Portuguese back. A formidable
fleet was fitted out on the Red Sea and sent against Almeida.
He was unfortunate in his first encounter with these allied
enemies and lost the squadron that opposed them. But the
resolute viceroy was undaunted. Recalled from his command, he
refused to give it up until he had equipped and led another
fleet against the navy of the Egyptians and completely
destroyed it. The successor of Almeida, as viceroy of India,
was a remarkable personage who is known in the annals of his
time as "the great Afonso D'Albuquerque." The chronicle of his
exploits in Africa and India, compiled by his son from his own
letters and records, and entitled "The commentaries of the
great Afonso D'Albuquerque," has been translated into English
and published by the Hakluyt Society. He was a remarkably
energetic commander, and very honest in his way, according to
the notions of his time; but he did the work of subjugation
and conquest which he was sent to do in a cruel and rapacious
style. He was not rapacious on his own account; but he saw no
wrong in anything done for the profit of his country. In the
course of seven years he spread the Portuguese power so widely
and fixed it so firmly on the East Indian coasts and in the
neighboring seas that there was hardly an attempt for many
years to disturb it. None but Portuguese ships dared enter the
Indian ocean without special permits, and the few which
received admission were forbidden to trade in spices—the most
precious merchandise of the region. From the Indies the
Portuguese made their way to the coasts of China and put
themselves on friendly terms with its people. They were
permitted to occupy the port of Macao and have possessed it
ever since. Some years later they discovered the islands of
Japan and opened the earliest European commerce with that
singular country. So they held for a time the complete mastery
of eastern trade and enlarged it to greater bounds than it had
ever reached before. But they were satisfied with keeping the
sources of the supply of eastern goods to Europe in their own
hands. The first handling of the commodities was all that they
tried to control. They brought to Lisbon the spices, silks,
cotton, pearls, ivory, sugar, aromatic drugs and the like,
which their ships and merchants gathered up, and there sold
them to other traders, Dutch, English and German for the most
part, who found the final markets for them and who enjoyed a
good half of the profits of the trade. These latter derived
great advantages from the arrangements—much more than they had
gained in their trading with Genoa and Venice—and the commerce
of Holland and England grew rapidly as the result.
{3714}
But the glory and prosperity of the Portuguese, as masters of
the rich traffic of the eastern world, were not of long
duration. Before the 16th century closed, they had lost the
footholds of their power and were slipping into the background
very fast. By misfortunes and by folly combined, all the
fruits of the patient wisdom of Prince Henry, the persevering
courage of Vasco da Gama, the bold energy of Almeida, and the
restless enterprise of Albuquerque, were torn out of their
hands. Almost from the first, a greedy and jealous court had
done all that could be done to destroy the grand opportunities
in trade which the country had gained. Private enterprise was
discouraged; the crown claimed exclusive rights over large
parts of the commerce opened up, and these rights were sold,
given to favorites and dealt with in many ways that are
ruinous to successful trade. Royal jealousy sent three
viceroys to divide among them the government of the Portuguese
possessions in the East, when there should have been but one,
and the same jealousy kept these vice-royalties ever changing.
Of course, there was nowhere good government nor thrifty
management of trade. In the midst of this bad state of things,
the royal family of Portugal died out, in 1580, and Philip II.
of Spain set up claims to the crown which he was strong enough
to make good. Portugal thus became joined to Spain, for the
next sixty years, and was dragged into Philip's wicked war
with the Netherlands. Her Spanish masters did what they could
to draw her trade away from Lisbon to Cadiz and Seville. The
Dutch and English, her former customers and friends, made
enemies now by Philip of Spain, pushed their way into the
eastern seas, defying the mandates of the Pope, and broke down
her supremacy there. When the Portuguese, in 1640, threw off
the Spanish yoke and asserted their independence again,
calling a prince of the house of Braganza to the throne, there
was not much left of their former power or their former trade.
They still held Goa, on the western coast of Hindostan, and
the Chinese port of Macao—as they do to the present day; and
they retained, as they still do, considerable possessions in
Africa. But their brief importance in navigation, in
colonization and trade, was quite gone and they dropped back
to a humble position in the history of the world. Even the
management of their home trade with other countries fell
mostly, after a time, into the hands of the English, who
became their special allies and friends.
COMMERCE: MODERN:
The Spaniards.
While the Portuguese were pursuing glory and gain in the track
of Vasco da Gama, which led them south and east, the Spaniards
were doing the same in the wake of the three little ships
which Columbus, with a bolder hand, had steered westward, to
strange shores which he never dreamed of finding. These newly
opened regions of the globe, in the Atlantic and on both sides
of it, were divided between the two nations by the Pope, and
it was a bold matter in those days to dispute his right. He
gave to the Spaniards all islands and countries found west of
a meridian line drawn 27½° west of the island of Ferro, in the
Canary group. This nearly corresponds with the meridian 45½°
west of Greenwich. To the Portuguese he assigned all
discoveries east of it. So they both went on their appointed
ways, with pious hearts and untroubled consciences, busily
hunting for heathen lands to seize and despoil. But the
eastern field, in which the Portuguese did most of their work,
was one where commerce was old and where something of Europe
and its people was already known. They were forced to look
upon trade as the chief object of their pursuit. With the
Spaniards the case was different. They found their way to a
quarter of the world which Europe had never heard of and came
upon people who never saw the faces of white men until then.
These strange races of the new world were some of them quite
as civilized, in certain respects, as the Spaniards who
invaded them, and even more so, it would seem, in their
notions of truth and in the refinement of their manners and
modes of life. But they were simple and unsuspecting; they
were not warlike in disposition and they were rudely and
poorly armed. So the mail-clad cavaliers of Spain crushed them
into helpless slavery with perfect ease. From the islands of
the West Indies, which they discovered and occupied first, the
Spaniards had soon made their way to the shores of the two
continents of America, North and South. They found cities and
nations which astonished them by their splendor and wealth and
set them wild with greedy desires. Europe looked poor in
comparison with the shining wealth of Mexico and Peru. The
Spaniards went mad with the lust of gold. They lost human
feeling and common sense in their greediness to grasp the
metal treasures of the new world. They were indifferent to the
more precious and abounding products that it offered, and
neglected to build up the great commerce which might have
filled their hands with lasting riches. They made the old
fable of the goose which laid golden eggs a piece of real
history. They killed the goose; they destroyed their source of
wealth in Peru and Mexico by their eager extortions. Of true
commerce between the old world and the new there was little
while the Spaniards controlled it. They did, in the course of
time, ship considerable quantities of sugar, tobacco, hides,
logwood, indigo, cochineal, cocoa, cinchona, or Peruvian bark
(from which quinine is extracted) and other American products,
from their various colonies; but to no such extent as a wise
and enterprising people would have done, having the same
opportunities. Once a year, or once in two years, a fleet of
ships was sent from Seville, at first, and afterwards from
Cadiz, to Vera Cruz, for freights from Mexico, and another to
Porto Bello, on the Isthmus of Panama, for the South American
freights. The ships which made the latter voyage were
distinguished from the Mexican fleet by being called the
galleons. For a long time, twelve galleons in the one squadron
and fifteen ships in the other, making their voyage once a
year, and sometimes only every other year, conveyed all the
trade that passed between Spain and America; which shows how
little the Spaniards drew from their great possessions, except
the enormous treasure of silver and gold which a few ships
could transport. This glittering treasure formed, in fact, the
main cargo of the Peruvian galleons and the Mexican fleet.
Before the close of the reign of Philip II. the number of
galleons was increased to about forty and that of the fleet to
fifty or sixty.
{3715}
It is quite certain that no country had ever before received
such a quantity of gold and silver as came into Spain during
the 16th century. Instead of enriching, it ruined the nation.
Neither rulers nor people had sense enough to see what a
treacherous and delusive kind of wealth it formed, if trusted
to alone. They vainly fancied that, with such a store of
precious metals to draw upon, they could afford to despise the
homely labors by which other people lived. With such mad
notions as these, the honest industries of Spain were treated
with neglect or worse. Her trade with neighboring countries
was looked upon as a business too insignificant for Spaniards
to care for or trouble themselves about. It was mostly given
over to the Dutch and Flemings, while they remained under
Spanish rule, and it was afterwards kept up in great part by
smugglers, Dutch and English. Agriculture decayed, and its
destruction was helped by the formation of a great
aristocratic company of sheep-farmers, called the Mesta, to
which such tyrannical rights and privileges were given by the
crown that the most fertile parts of Spain were finally turned
into sheep-pasture, under its control. The best artisans and
the most enterprising merchants of the kingdom were driven
out, because they were Moors and Jews, or they were burned for
Christian beliefs which the Church did not approve. The
Inquisition was so busy, with its racks and its fires, that no
other business could thrive. Every kind of production
dwindled, and for the supplying of all descriptions of wants
the Spaniards were soon driven to look to other countries. The
few who laid hands upon the riches coming in from the plunder
of America spent it recklessly, in extravagant ways, while
costly foreign wars which had no success, and plots in France
and England which came to nothing, drained the coffers of the
king. And thus the great stream of gold and silver which
flowed into Spain from the new world ran out of it quite as
fast, until nearly every other country in Europe held more of
it than Spain herself. The strong hand with which the
Spaniards were able at first, and for some time, to hold the
vast domain of sea and land which the Pope had given them and
which their own sailors and soldiers had explored and seized,
grew weak before the end of a hundred years after the
memorable voyage of Columbus was made. The hardy Dutch, driven
to revolt and enmity by tyrannical government and by cruel
religious persecutions, attacked them everywhere, in the
eastern and western world. The English, just beginning to grow
ambitious and bold on the ocean, and constantly threatened by
the armadas of Spain, did the same. But these were not the
only enemies who harassed the Spanish colonies and fleets. In
a general way, the whole world went to war with the insolent
nation which claimed the lordship of the earth. There came
into existence, in the 17th century, a powerful organization
of pirates or freebooters, made up of daring men of all
nations, who carried on for many years a villainous warfare of
their own against the Spaniards at sea and against their
American settlements. These Buccaneers, as they were called,
gained strongholds in several islands of the West Indies, from
which the Spaniards were not able to dislodge them. Under the
attacks of all these enemies, combined with her own
misgovernment and her contempt and abuse of thrifty industries
and fair trade—which no people can neglect without ruin—Spain
steadily and rapidly sank.
COMMERCE: MODERN:
The Flemings and the Dutch.
In the first half of the 16th century, the people of the
Netherlands were the tolerably contented subjects of that
famous monarch, the Emperor Charles V., who ruled in Spain, in
Naples, in Germany (the old Empire), and in Burgundy, as well
as in the Lowland principalities, Flanders, Holland, and the
rest. They were already very prosperous, working hard at many
callings, trading shrewdly and busily with the rest of the
world, and diligently picking up all kinds of knowledge
everywhere. In the southern provinces (which we may call the
Belgian, because they are mostly now embraced in the modern
kingdom of Belgium) the chief industries were those of the
loom, in all branches of weaving; and in skilful workmanship
of every kind the people were tasteful and apt. These
provinces were the seat of a much greater and more general
activity in manufactures than appeared in the states to the
north of them (which we will call the Dutch states, without
distinction, because they are now included in the kingdom of
Holland). The latter were more extensively employed in
fisheries, in navigation and in ship building, although most
kinds of industry, manufacturing and agricultural, were
thriftily and successfully carried on. At the time when
Charles V. ruled the Netherlands, the city of Antwerp, in the
Belgian circle of provinces, was the great metropolis of
Netherland trade. It was much more than that. It was the
foremost commercial capital of the world. The traffic which
slipped away from Venice and Genoa, had fixed its central seat
in this younger town on the Scheldt. It was sure to plant its
new emporium somewhere in the Netherlands, because there was
nowhere else in Europe so much energy, so much enterprise, so
much industry, so much commercial wisdom, so much activity of
domestic trade. Spain and Portugal held the wealth of the
Indies and the Americas in their hands, but we have seen how
incapable they were of using the commercial advantage it gave
them. Lisbon, Cadiz and Seville were only depots for the
transfer of merchandise; it was impossible to make them real
capitals of trade, because they could not and would not
furnish either the spirit, or the genius, or the organized
agencies that it demands. The Netherlands, with their long
schooling in commerce upon a smaller scale, were ready to meet
every requirement when the new era opened and gave them their
greater chance. There was no other mercantile organization so
well prepared. The league of the Hansa Towns was breaking and
failing; the English were just beginning to show their
aptitude for manufactures and trade. Some one of the
Netherland cities was sure to win the sovereignty in
commercial affairs which Venice gave up, and Antwerp proved
the winner, for a time. During most of the 16th century, it
was the business center of Europe. It was the gathering-place
of the merchants and the seat of the money-changers and
bankers. Two and three thousand ships were often crowded in
its harbor, at one time. It distributed the merchandise of the
East and West Indies, which it took from Portugal and Spain,
and the manifold wares of the many manufacturing towns of
Flanders, Brabant, southern Germany, to a great extent, and
northern France.
{3716}
At the same time, its own looms, anvils, tanneries,
glass-works, dyeing-vats and mechanic shops of various kinds
were numerous and busy. Its thriving population was rapidly
increased, for it welcomed all who came with skill or
knowledge or money or strong hands to take part in its work.
Such was Antwerp during the reign of Charles V., and at the
time (A. D. 1555-1556) when that weary monarch gave up his
many crowns to his evil son, Philip II. of Spain, and went
away to a Spanish monastery to seek for rest. The government
of Charles in the Netherlands had been hard and heavy, but the
people were left free enough to prosper and to grow
intelligent and strong. Under Philip the prospect changed. The
story of his malignant persecutions and oppressions, of the
revolt to which they drove the Netherland provinces, of the
long, merciless war in which he strove to ruin or subdue them,
of the independence which the Dutch provinces achieved and the
prosperous career on which they entered, is told in another
place.
See NETHERLANDS (page 2256, and after).
Antwerp, the great capital of trade, stood foremost in the
struggle, as became its greatness, and it suffered
correspondingly. The death-blow to its fortunes was given in
1585, when, after a siege that is almost unexampled, it was
taken by the Spaniards under Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma,
and given up to pillage and slaughter. Its surviving
inhabitants fled in large numbers, the greater part of them to
Holland, some to England, and some to other countries.
Commerce abandoned the port. The chief merchants who had made
it the center of their undertakings chose Amsterdam for their
future seat of business, and that city rose at once to the
commercial rank of which Antwerp had been stripped by the
stupid malice of its Spanish sovereign. While the Belgian
Netherlands fell hopelessly under the fatal despotism of
Spain, the Dutch Netherlands fought their way slowly to
independence, which Spain was forced to acknowledge in 1648.
But long before that time the Dutch Republic had become a
power in Europe—much greater in every way than Spain. Its
foundations had been laid by the union of the seven provinces
of Holland, Zealand, Friesland, Utrecht, Groningen, Overyssel
and Gelderland. It had grown firmer and stronger year by year,
and the people, after a time, had not only found themselves
able to thrive generally in the midst of their desperate war
with Spain, but the war itself opened their way to wealth and
power. They learned, early, as we have seen, that they could
attack their enemy to the best advantage at sea. In pursuing
this ocean warfare they were led on to the East and West
Indies, and soon broke, in both regions, the exclusive power
which the Spanish and Portuguese had held. When Portugal was
dragged into a fatal union with Spain, under Philip II., it
had to suffer the consequences of Philip's wars, and it bore
more than its share of the suffering. The Dutch and the
English forced their way pretty nearly together into the
eastern seas, and, between them, the Portuguese were mostly
driven out. They divided the rich commerce of that great
Asiatic and Oceanic region, and, for a time, the most
lucrative part of it was gained by the Dutch. While the
English got their footing on the coasts of Hindostan and were
laying the foundations of their future empire in India, the
Dutch gained control of the spice-growing islands, which, in
that day, were the richer commercial prize. The first Dutch
fleet that rounded the Cape of Good Hope and made its way into
East Indian waters, sailed under the command of one Cornelius
Houtmann, who had been in the service of the Portuguese and
learned the route. He started in 1595 with four ships and
returned, after a voyage of eighteen months, with only two. He
had lost more than half his men, and he brought back very
little cargo to pay for the adventurous undertaking. But the
Dutch were well satisfied with the experiment; they knew that
more experience would lead to better success. Another fleet of
eight ships was sent out in 1598 and when four of them
returned the next year with a precious cargo of spices and
other merchandise from Java, which they had procured very
cheaply in exchange for the cloths, the metal wares and the
trinkets that they took out, the delight of the nation can
hardly be described. Part of the fleet had remained in the
East to hold and strengthen the position they had gained, and
other ships were sent speedily to join them. Very soon the
armed merchantmen of the Dutch were thickly swarming in that
part of the world, ready for fight or for trade, as the case
might be. So many companies of merchants became engaged in the
business that too lively competition between them occurred and
they threatened to ruin one another. But that danger was
overcome in 1602 by joining the rival interests together in
one strong association, to which the government gave exclusive
rights of trade in the East. Thus the Dutch East India Company
was formed, in which the merchants of Amsterdam, Rotterdam,
Delft and other cities of the republic put their capital
together. By its charter, this great company held powers of
war as well as of commerce and it used them both with
prodigious energy. At first, the chief trading stations of the
Dutch in the East were at Bantam, in Java, and Amboyna, one of
the group of the Moluccas or Spice Islands; but the city of
Batavia, which they founded in Java in 1619, became afterwards
their principal seat of trade and the capital of their
surrounding possessions. The chief aim of the Dutch was to
gather into their hands the profitable commerce of the island
world of the Eastern Archipelago, but they did not fail to
pursue their Spanish and Portuguese enemies in other quarters,
where the chances of traffic looked inviting. They seized
positions on the Guinea coast of western Africa and took their
full share of the trade with its savage natives, who gave gold
dust, ivory, ebony, gums, wax, ginger, pepper, palm oil,
various choice kinds of wood, and slaves (for the West Indies
and America, when the plantations there began to want labor),
in exchange for trinkets and cheap goods. They also occupied
and colonized the Cape of Good Hope, which the Portuguese had
neglected, and made it, in time, a very prosperous and
valuable possession. That they should carry their war with
Spain into the West Indies and to the American coasts, was a
matter of course. In 1623 a Dutch West India Company was
chartered, to organize these operations in the western world,
as the East India Company had organized undertakings in
the East.
{3717}
But the West India Company was much less commercial and much
more warlike in its aims than the corporation of the orient.
Its first object was to take spoils from the enemy, and it
found the prizes of war so rich that not much else was thought
of. On the North American continent, a most important lodgment
was made, as early as 1614, at the mouth of the Hudson River,
where the colony of New Netherland was founded. In this
quarter, as everywhere, the Dutch and English were rivals, and
before many years they came to open war. In the series of wars
which followed (1652, 1665, 1672), and in the long contest
with Louis XIV. of France which they shared with England, the
Dutch expended more of their energies than they could afford.
The English, with their well protected island, rich in soil
and in minerals, had heavy advantages on their side, when once
they had acquired the knowledge of commerce and the ability in
labor which enabled them to compete with the Dutch. To the
latter nature had always been wholly unfriendly. They had
fought against circumstances at every step in their history,
and had won their wealth, their knowledge, their high
importance and influence in the world, by sheer hard work,
tireless patience and indomitable will. But the natural
advantages against which they struggled were sure to overcome
them in the end. It must be said, too, that they did not grow
in character as their fortunes rose. It is not difficult,
therefore, to account for the fact that the Dutch nation
slowly slipped back, during the 18th century, from the high
and leading position in civilization to which it had climbed,
and lost by degrees its commercial supremacy, while the
English nation came to the front.
COMMERCE: MODERN:
The English:
16-17th Centuries.
Commercial progress.
The East India Company.