CHAP. XVI. TRADE OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. 19 



wool with which the inhabitants were clothed. 

 The wine of France, the chief article of its export, 

 was so low in price that the balance of trade with 

 most parts of Europe, the only division of the world 

 with which that kingdom exchanged commodities, 

 must have been against that country and been 

 paid in the precious metals. These considerations, 

 with the complaints to be found of the scarcity 

 of money in all French writers who describe the 

 period, and the high rate of interest paid on loans 

 of money 1 , lead to the conclusion that the quantity 

 of gold and silver actually existing in France was 

 far less than was retained in our insular kingdom. 

 Spain and Portugal had, from the time when 

 the whole possessions of the Moors had been con- 

 tracted within the boundaries of the small but 

 fruitful kingdom of Granada, been gradually de- 

 clining from that wealth and splendour which the 

 Mahomedans had displayed as long as Cordova 

 was the capital of their dominions. The struggles 

 which attended the long contests in the peninsula, 

 till their final termination in favour of the Chris- 

 tians under Ferdinand and Isabella, were not fa- 

 vourable to the national industry ; and the mines 

 of silver which the Moors at earlier periods had 

 worked in their kingdoms of Jaen and Seville, had 



1 Philip IV. fixed the rate of interest to be exacted in the 

 fairs of Champagne at twenty per cent., whilst in Italy the 

 rate was at sixteen per cent, per annum, and in England one 

 per cent, per month. 



C 2 



