Relative History of Asia and Europe. 7 



spirit in a very marked degree. Voyages of discovery were 

 undertaken by them in every direction, and also by the other 

 maritime nations of Europe ; and whilst Columbus and his suc- 

 cessors traversed the Atlantic in a westerly direction, and dis- 

 covered the two Americas, Vasco de Gama pursuing his voyage 

 southward along the western shores of Africa, doubled the Cape 

 of Good Hope, and crossing the Indian ocean, guided by the 

 friendly pilots of Melinda, fust opened for Europe a direct 

 intercourse with Hindustan, in the year 1498. Other Portu- 

 guese navigators, early in the sixteenth century, successively 

 formed settlements in Sumatra, Malacca, and Java ; they Mere 

 followed by the Dutch, whose inQuence in the Indian Islands 

 soon overpowered that of all the other nations of Europe. The 

 establishment of the British East India Company in the reign of 

 Elizabeth, led to the foundation in several provinces of the Indian 

 continent, of some important settlements ; by the gradual exten- 

 sion of M'hich, and various concurring events, nearly the whole 

 of Hindustan has at length become a province of the British 

 Empire. 



An important intercourse has thus been re-established between 

 Asia and Europe ; though differing in several material respects, 

 from that which subsisted in former ages. For Europe, by the 

 use and improvement of the advantages she then received from 

 her oriental sister, having obtained the supremacy in the affairs 

 of the world, now exercises in Asia the authority anciently exerted 

 in Europe, by the different Eastern states, whether geographically 

 Asiatic or European. In return for the spices, the rich commo- 

 dities, and the costly manufactures, which she now imports from 

 " the climates near the sun," she investigates their natural and 

 civil history, the characters of their population, their mythology, 

 their languages, and their literature, for the purpose, first, of in- 

 creasing her own intellectual wealth, and then of applying it in 

 the most effectual manner, to repay, by the blessings of true reli- 

 gion and civilization, the debt of gratitude she owes to that region, 

 where the " Day-spring from on high," as well really as figura- 

 tively, first dawned on the happiness of man. 



In ancient times, also, the communication of Europeans with 



