A. D. 1000 or rooi. 281 



to India, we muft acknowlege that the reputation of the firft difcovery 

 of lands in the weflern hemifphere unqueftionably belongs to Biorn. 



SUUM CUIQUE. 



1000-1024 — From the regions of the North-weft, where commerce 

 was yet in its infancy, our attention is now called to the Eaft by the revo- 

 lutions of, probably, the firft civilized country in the world, where manu- 

 fadures, commerce, and fcience, had attained to maturity many centuries 

 before any human footftep had penetrated the Britifh woods, or prefled the 

 Norwegian fnows. The great, rich, and populous, country of Baratta *, 

 called by the Europeans India or Hindooftan, had never, that we know 

 of, fufFered to any great extent the violation of a foreign conqueftf, till 

 it was invaded by Mahmood, the Turkifh prince or fultan of Ga^na, 

 who in twelve expeditions fubdued the greateft part of the northern 

 provinces (or of the proper Hindooftan), as far eaft as the Ganges, and 

 as far fouth as the Nerbudda. This delightful country has ever fince 

 been fubjedl to various dynafties of princes, all of foreign extradion. 



1013 — From the accounts written by two Arabian merchants we 

 have feen that the Chinefe were a more commercial and enterprifing 

 people in the ninth century than in the eighteenth. About this time, 

 if we may depend on the information, perhaps traditional, obtained by 

 Hugo Grotius ij:, [y^««. de reb, Belg. L. xv, p. 702] they extended their 

 conquefts throughout the Indian feas, and, with confiderable expcnfe of 

 blood and treafure, made themfelves mafters of Ternate, Tidor, Motiel 

 (or Motir), Makiam, and Bakiam, iflands celebrated for the produdion 

 of fpices, efpecially cloves, and kept pofleflion of them about fixty years. 

 The iflands were next occupied by a colony of Malays, whom the Arabs, 

 aftlfted by the Perfians, drove out, and eftabliflied themfelves firnily in 

 their place §. 



Hamburgh, which had been feveral times deftroyed by its turbulent 

 neighbours, was now rebuilt with wood in a more magnificent manner 

 than before, and was foon repeopled by its difperfed citizens and an ac- 

 ceffion of new inhabitants. [Original authors, op. Lambecii Orig. Hamburg. 



P- 43-] 



1 01 6 — The filver mines of Rammelflierg no longer anfwering the ex- 

 pectation of the proprietdrs, new ones were fearched for and difcovered 



* For this genuine name I am indebted to Ma- Quicquid Gnecia mendas 



jor Rennell's Memoir of a map of Himhnflan. Q£. Audet in hilloriis. 



is not Maralta the fame name ? But it may per- :j: There is no account of any fuch conqueft at 

 haps be doubted whether fo large a country ever this time In the Hifloria Sinica ap. T.hevcnot, V. ii. 

 was comprehended under one indigenous general But the commercial enterprife of the Chinefe re- 

 name, mained in full vigour in the thirteenth century, 



t The impreflion made by Alexander on the when Marco Polo was in their country. 



wellern border of India was neither extenfive nor J Grotius obfcrvcs that Molucco, the general 



permanent. The more antient conquefts afcribed name by which thofe iflands are known to us, and 



to Bachus, Ofiris, &c. feem to be little better than fultan, the title of the fovereign, are Arabic words, 

 fidions of romantic Greece ; 



Vol. I. * Nn 



