Occupations > Historical disquisition concerning the knowledge which the ancients had of India; and the progress of trade with that country

6 AN HISTORICAL DISQUISITION S. I,
The enterprising ambition of Sesostris, dis¬
daining the restraints imposed upon it by these
contracted ideas of his subjects, prompted him
to render the Egyptians a commercial people ;
and in the course of his reign he so completely
accomplished this, that (if we may give credit
to some historians) he was able to fit out a fleet
of four hundred ships in the Arabian Gulf, which
conquered all the countries stretching along the
Erythrean Sea to India. At the same time, hii
army, led by himself, marched through Asia,
and subjected to his dominion ex'ery part of it as
far as to the banks of the Ganges j and crossing
that river, advanced to the Eastern Ocean *.
But these efforts produced no permanent effect,
and appear to have been so contrary to the genius
and habits of the Egyptians, that, on the death
of Sesostris, they resumed their ancient tnaxiias,
and many ages elapsed before the commercial
connection of Egypt with India came to be of
such importance as to merit any notice in this
Disquisition -f.
The history of the early maritime operations
of Phenicia are not involved in the same obscuri¬
ty with those of Egypt. Every cicumstance in
the character and situation of the Phenicians was
favourable to the commercial spirit. The terri¬
tory which they possessed was neither large nor
fertile. It was from commerce only that they
could derive either opulence or power. Accord¬
ingly, the trade carried on by the Phenicians of
Stdon and Tyre, was extensive and adventurous;
and, both in their manners and policy, they te-
• Died. Sic. lib. i. p. 64.
4 See Nete i. at the end of the Volume,