THE EVOLUTION OF COLONIES. 293 



tliem in boats. The next step was to establish a warehouse on shore. 

 In the earlj days of Australia sea captains brought out adventure 

 cargoes, and on the second or third trip they landed their merchan- 

 dise and sold it in shoj^s which they built or hired. Just in this way 

 we imagine the bold navigators of Phoenicia and Carthage to have 

 travei*sed the Mediterranean, and, carrying their own wares to dis- 

 tant j)arts, received in exchange the products of foreign countries. 

 As the trade grew, they left agents in charge of their warehouses 

 who became the nucleus of a colony, as to-day Greeks or Germans 

 settle in Liverpool or Adelaide and form a quasi-colony. The 

 coasts of Sicily, Italy, and Greece, Africa and S^Dain, Gaul and 

 Britain were thus dotted with commercial establishments, The 

 Tyrian settlements are said not to have advanced beyond the stage 

 of factories; yet Cadiz, the oldest city in western Europe, is of 

 Tyrian foundation. The Carthaginians aimed at conquest as well 

 as trade, welded some three hundred communities into an empire, 

 maintained an army in Iberia, and fought for supremacy with the 

 future mistress of the world. Yet neither were their settlements 

 always colonies, and when the Greeks threatened to supplant them 

 in Sicily they abandoned their outposts and concentrated themselves 

 in a few princijjal points. The colonies of the most intellectual 

 nation in the world were, nine tenths of them, commercial in their 

 origin; the ancient Greeks were "a nation of shopkeepers." They 

 unscruj^ulously seized an island adjoining the mainland, an isthmus- 

 or headland that could be easily fortified and defended, and there 

 established a seaport, commanding a monopoly of trade with the 

 natives. The Ionian settlements on the coast of Asia Minor an- 

 swered to this description, and most of them had this origin. The 

 coasts of Thrace, the Propontis, and the Black Sea were dotted with 

 such merchant colonies. Calabria and Sicily were almost Tlellen- 

 ized. In far-away Marseilles and at the mouth of the Rhone were 

 laid the foundations of two great mercantile cities. After the con- 

 quest of Britain a stream of Roman merchants and artisans poured 

 themselves over the new field, and a number of towns — London, 

 Bath, St. Albans — were formed as " the new result of freedom 

 of trafiic and immigration." The whole ancient world, which we 

 think of as devoted to war and conquest, addicted to religious rites, 

 absorbed in political struggles, or producing and enjoying immortal 

 works of literature and art, had its existence based on industry and 

 commerce, as the existence of the individual is based on hunger. 



The modern world has been built up on the same foundation; 

 The Venetians continued the eastern trade of the Roman Empire, 

 and everywhere in the Levant left colonies. Portugal and Spain, 

 with their ports opening on the Atlantic and inviting to discovery. 



