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

122 AN HISTORICAL DISQUISITION S. Iir.il>
Egypt upon terms similar to those which had»:
been granted to the Venetians, proved unsuc- im
cessful; and during the remainder of the fifteenth P
century, Venice supplied the greater part of
Europe with the productions of the East, and
carried on trade to an extent far beyond what k
had been known in those times.
The state of the other European nations was to
extremely favourable to the commercial progress ft
of the Venetians. England, desolated by the '
civil wars which the unhappy contest between r
the houses of York and Lancaster excited, had t
hardly begun to turn its attention towards those 1
objects and pursuits to which it is indebted for
its present opulence and power. In France, the
fatal effects of the English arms and conquests
were still felt, and the king had neither acquired
power, nor the people inclination, to direct the
national genius and activity to the arts of peace.
The union of the different kingdoms of Spain
was not yet completed; some of its most fertile
provinces were still under the dominion of the
Moors, with whom the Spanish monarchs waged j
perpetual war; and, except by the Catalans, lit- I
tie attention was paid to foreign trade. Portu¬
gal, though it had already entered upon that
career of discovery which terminated with most
splendid success, had not yet made such progress
in it as to be entitled to any high rank among
the commercial states of Europe. Thus the Ve¬
netians, almost without rival or competitor, ex¬
cept from some of the inferior Italian states, were
left at liberty to concert and to execute their
mercantile plans; and the trade with the cities
of the Hanseatic League, which united the-Nor tit