652 THE EVOLUTION OF COMMERCE. 
vessels on the Pacific. In 15 years they captured 545 treasure ships, 
sacked many towns, trained the English seaman, and laid the founda- 
tion for the navy of Great Britain. 
The growth of English commerce was slower than that of Spain, 
Portugal, or Holland, and it was not until the middle of the eighteenth 
century, or 250 years after the discovery of America, that she entered 
upon that career which gave her the control of the ocean. Her com- 
merce was built up by protective laws, founded on the navigation act 
of 1651, which prohibited foreign vessels from carrying to or from 
England the commerce of any country but its own. These laws were 
universally regarded as among the chief causes and most important 
bulwarks of the prosperity of Great Britain, and they were continued 
until English ships controlled the carrying trade of the world, and 
were not finally repealed until 1854. 
The mechanical devices of Watt, Arkwright, and other great invent- 
ors gave to England that supremacy in manufactures which she has 
ever since retained. The French revolution, a little later, aroused the 
fear of the statesmen, merchants, and capitalists of England that the 
energy of the new Republic would be as omnipotent in mercantile affairs 
as on the field of battle. They believed that France might regain the 
colonies and with them the commerce she had lost, and therefore Kng- 
land declared war against Napoleon, which was carried on almost con- 
tinuously from 1793 to 1815. The shipping of the Continent disappeared 
or was captured by the fleets of England; the colonies, and with them 
the commerce, of Spain and Portugal, Holland and France, passed to 
England; and though she is still burdened with the debt then created, 
she has never lost the commerce and carrying trade she then obtained. 
The population of the colonies of Great Britain is about one-sixth of 
the entire population of the globe, and their territory comprises eighty 
per cent of the available temperate regions of the earth belonging to 
the Anglo-Saxon race. 
The commerce of England has given wealth to her bankers and mer- 
chants, and employment to her artisans, ship-builders, iron-workers, 
miners, and manufacturers. Her exports of produce and manutactures 
have increased 500 per cent in fifty years, or from $356,000,000 in 1840 
to $1,577,000,000 in 1890, and are carried by her ships to every quarter 
of the globe. Though dependent on America for her food supplies, 
these are moved in British ships. The commerce of the world pays 
tribute to the bankers of London and makes that city the money center 
of the world. Her best market is India, and from India comes her 
largest imports; next to this, those from the United States. 
India.—Egypt, Nineveh, and Babylon in prehistoric times, Tyre and 
Sidon and Greece under Alexander, Carthage and Rome under the 
Cxesars, Venice and Genoa in the middle ages, Portugal and Holland, 
and lastly England, have drawn great stores of wealth from India. 
