152 FOREIGN TRADE 



in the art of military and constitutional defence against vio- 

 lence from without and from within. 



We know the causes which led to the downfall of that 

 political greatness which Northern Italy possessed after the 

 battle of Lugnano. We read of civil discord, of ferocious 

 factions, of undying hatreds, of the vindictiveness which led 

 Dante to assign the worst pains of hell to hostile partisans. 

 And at last, after some centuries of savage civil war, we read 

 that most of these communities resigned themselves into the 

 hands of successful despots, whose cruelties have been ignored 

 only because they have been untold. 



The gradual success of the papal or Guelphic faction con- 

 currently with the extension of democratic governments, 

 cannot, I conceive, be assigned to any other cause than the 

 fact that for a time the popular party gained upon the 

 aristocracy, and that the patriotism as well as the instincts 

 of the popes led them to take what we should call in modern 

 times the liberal side in Italian politics. After a time, indeed, 

 their tendencies degenerated. The residence at Avignon 

 severed them from any practical interest in the country, and 

 the pontiffs who quitted Italy as the advocates of such poli- 

 tical liberty as the knowledge of the time permitted, returned 

 to intrigue for the social elevation of their children and their 

 nephews. 



The commercial downfall of Italy, to anticipate a little the 

 period immediately before me, and with it too the final 

 destruction of the political influence of the popes, commenced 

 with the almost simultaneous discovery of the New World in the 

 year 1492, and of the Cape passage in 1497. In 1506 the sugar- 

 canes of Sicily were transplanted to the Canaries, and thence 

 to the islands of the Mexican Gulf. Portugal was soon engaged 

 in the task of founding factories on the western coast of 

 Hindostan, and of establishing that union of political and 

 religious despotism at Goa, which seemed so successful and was 

 really so shortlived. 



Despite so enormous an increase in its consumption, the 



