CHAP. XVIII. IN INDIA AND ASIA. 69 



come a more settled people than in the former 

 centuries. Their government, which had been 

 suffered to rest after the annoyances of the cru- 

 sades, assumed more magnificence, and allowed to 

 the people more leisure to follow profitable pur- 

 suits. Their exports drew from western Europe 

 annual supplies of gold and silver, and the sultan 

 and his great officers accumulated in their palaces 

 some portions of these metals, and applied them 

 to ornamental or useful domestic purposes. From 

 the compendious nature of the metals, and from 

 the suspicious character of the government, it is 

 probable that a large portion, in comparison with 

 the whole quantity in Turkey, must have existed 

 in that form rather than in coin. 



There is no evidence that any part of the pro- 

 duce of the precious metals from the American 

 mines had passed direct from that continent to 

 Asia during the sixteenth century. Whatever 

 supply Asia received beyond the products of its 

 own mines must have been derived from Europe 

 by its commerce, and it is well known that what 

 passed either by the Cape to India and China, or 

 by the Levant to Turkey, Persia, and Arabia, bore 

 but a small proportion to the whole quantity which 

 America supplied. 



In the absence of any precise facts, and with 

 but little confidence in an approximation to accu- 

 racy, we may venture to suppose that the precious 

 metals which passed from Europe to Asia in the 



