20 TRADE OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL. CHAP. XVI. 



been either exhausted or suspended ; whilst the 

 sands of the Darro, the Tagus, and the other 

 streams, which formerly furnished some gold, had 

 ceased to be productive. The commerce of the 

 peninsula, which had flourished whilst the Moors 

 had the sole possession and could maintain an in- 

 tercourse with their brethren in faith in Africa 

 and Asia, became contracted as their dominion 

 had been lessened, and for two centuries had been 

 confined to the exchange of a few commodities, 

 which were of too similar a nature to be very ex- 

 tensive, between their chief trading city Malaga and 

 the territories of Africa on the coast of Barbary. 



It must be obvious from the circumstances of 

 the two countries, that neither France nor Spain 

 were likely to possess so much metallic treasure in 

 the period we are viewing as at that time existed 

 in England. It must be a matter of doubt rather 

 than of certainty, if the stock of both countries 

 united amounted to as much. 



Italy had been long increasing in wealth of 

 every kind, and though a few cities only are com- 

 monly spoken of in history, yet it is not possible 

 that their affluence should not have extended to 

 the other parts of the peninsula, and have stocked 

 the smaller cities and towns with a larger proportion 

 of the gold and silver of the world than was to be 

 found in desolated France, in agitated Spain, or 

 in England, where the contests of the two Roses 

 had produced some degree of desolation and a 



