April 15, 1892.] 



SCIENCE. 



217 



and Genoa. They founded colonies on the Black Sea, in Asia 

 Minor, and on the Asiatic coast. Venice alone had three thousand 

 merchant vessels. Their commerce was not confined to the bor- 

 ders of the Mediterranean, for the goods of the Orient were dis- 

 tributed by the way of Augsburg and Nuremberg to the interior 

 of Germany and to the towns of the Hanseatic Confederation. 

 Thus commprce was opened with the interior of Europe. 



By the failure of the Crusades, the power of the Turks, which 

 had been for the time checked, grew and increased. They con- 

 quered the holy places of the earth, Asia Minor and Syria, and 

 finally, crossing into Europe, gained Constantinople. The colonies 

 of Venice and Genoa were captured ; their fleets disappeared from 

 the Mediterranean. In western Europe the Spaniards under Ferdi- 

 nand and Isabella conquered the Moors, who for many ages had 

 occupied the larger portion of Spain ; and as the Crescent appeared 

 in eastern Europe, the Cross triumphed in the west. ^ 



Spain and Portugal. 



Then a neiv power appeared upon the stage. Spain and Por- 

 tugal entered upon an era of exploration and discovery in regions 

 unknown to Venice and Genoa. Commerce, which in the Middle 

 Ages had been confined to the Mediterranean Sea, was now ex- 

 tended to the countries on the Atlantic Ocean, and the Cape 

 Verde Islands, Madeira, and the Canaries were discovered. In 

 one generation (between 1470 and 1500 A.D.) more and greater 

 discoveries were made than in any other period of the world's 

 history. The Portuguese sailed along the eastern coast of Africa 

 and rounded the Cape of Good Hope ; Vasco de Gama crossed the 

 Indian Ocean to India; Columbus sailed westward to find the 

 Orient, and discovered a New World; Magellan circumnavigated 

 the globe ; Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and was the first 

 to see, on the same day, the sun rise out of the Atlantic and set 

 in the Pacific ; and soon the eastern and western coasts of America 

 were explored from Newfoundland to Cape Horn and from Cape 

 Horn to Panama. 



Both Portugal and Spain claimed all the New World, and as 

 they could not agree upon a division of territory they referred the 

 matter to the pope, who divided the New World between them. 

 The Atlantic became the great highway for commerce, while the 

 Mediterranean was deserted, and Venice and Genoa existed only 

 in the past. 



The commerce of Portugal was coextensive with her dominion, 

 which extended from Japan and the Spice Islands and India to 

 the Red Sea, thence to the Cape of Good Hope ; and with their 

 possessions on the eastern and western shores of the Atlantic and 

 in Africa and Brazil completed their maritime empire, the most 

 extensive the world has ever seen. Then a single fleet of one 

 hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty caracks sailed from 

 the port of Goa to Lisbon; now there sails but one vessel a year 

 from all India. 



From Spain ships sailed both to the Caribbean Sea and to Cape 

 Horn and thence to Chile and Peru, or directly north-westward 

 from Cape Horn to the Phillippine Islands. Spain conquered 

 Mexico, Central America, and all South America except Brazil. 

 The gold and silver of Peru and Chile and the goods of the Orient 

 were brought to Spain and Portugal. As their wealth and power 

 increased the spirit of exploration decreased, and for nearly two 

 hundred years the Spanish ships sailed in a fixed course by the 

 same lanes, exploring the ocean neither toward the north nor the 

 south, leaving undiscovered the great continent of Australia and 

 numerous groups of islands. 



The Spanish and Portuguese leaders were cavaliers who de- 

 spised all commerce excepting in gold and silver, all kinds of 

 manufactures, all manual labor, and the cultivation of the ground; 

 they came not to colonize, but to satisfy by the labor of the en- 

 slaved aborigines their thirst tor gold and silver. The whole 

 political power was retained by the king of Spain and adminis- 

 tered by Spaniards. While the silver and gold of America and 

 the wealth of the Indies poured into the treasuries of Spain they 

 wanted nothing more. Like ancient Rome, they took all the 

 wealth of the conquered countries, making no return ; but they 

 did not, like Rome, give wise and equitable laws and a stable gov- 

 ernment to the countries they conquered. 



The Netherlands. 



The inhabitants of the Netherlands were manufacturers, and 

 supplied the markets of Spain and Portugal and their colonies, 

 thus reaping as large profits from their trade with these coun- 

 tries as the Spanish and Portuguese from the mines of gold and 

 silver. 



No part of Europe, says Motley, seemed so unlikely to become 

 the home of a great nation as the low country on the north- 

 western coast of the continent, where the great rivers, the Rhine 

 and Scheldt, emptied into the North Sea, and where it was hard to 

 tell whether it was land or water. In this region, outcast of ocean 

 and earth, a little nation wrested from both domains their richest 

 treasures. 



The commerce of the Hanseatic towns, which had depended 

 for their trade on Venice and Genoa, became less and less as the 

 glory of those cities waned. Antwerp, with its deep and con- 

 venient rivers, stretched its arms to the ocean and caught the 

 golden harvest as it fell from its sister's grasp. No city, except 

 Paris, surpassed it in population, none approached it in splendor. 

 It became the commercial centre and banker of Europe ; five thou- 

 sand merchants daily assembled on its exchange; twenty-five 

 hundred vessels were often seen at once in its harbor, and five 

 hundred daily made their entrance into it. The manufactures of 

 Flanders and the Netherlands had been noted for many generations, 

 and now vastly increased and were distributed all over the world. 

 The Netherlands, though the smallest, became the wealthiest 

 nation of Europe. Then came the long-continued war with Spain, 

 ending in the siege and fall of Antwerp and in the imposition of 

 such taxation as no other country had ever endured. As Ant- 

 werp had grown on the ruins of the Hanseatic towns, so her fall 

 became England's gain. 



France and England. , 



In America, north of Mexico, neither silver nor gold had been 

 found to tempt the Spanish and Portuguese. The larger portion 

 of the northern Atlantic coast was one long sand beach, broken 

 by great estuaries and the mouths of great rivers; the rest was 

 rocky and rugged, the temperature generally cold, the land unfer- 

 tile and barren. For these reasons North America was left to the 

 French and English. The French claimed Canada and the whole 

 of the territory of the United States save a narrow strip of land on 

 the Atlantic coast. The French population was small and was 

 made up principally of fur traders and half-breeds; Great Britain 

 held New England, Virginia, and the Carolinas. 



After the first fever of religious colonization had passed, about 

 the commencement of the eighteenth century, there was scarcely 

 any emigration from England to America and but little trade be- 

 tween the two countries. The population of North America was 

 small, its commerce less, with little profit to the European mer- 

 chants. The country possessed no peculiar advantages for the pro- 

 duction of articles of value in foreign markets; there was nothing, 

 therefore, to invite immigration or commerce. 



The chief inducement to the English to navigate the Atlantic 

 was the hope of capturing the treasure-laden Spanish galleons and 

 the rich Spanish cities. 



Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and other navigators, 

 aided by Queen Elizabeth, with bands of buccaneers, refugees 

 from all countries, though mostly Englishmen, explored the re- 

 cesses of the Caribbean Sea, crossed the Isthmus of Panama, and 

 launched tbeir little vessels on the Pacific. In fifteen years they 

 captured five hundred and forty-five treasure ships, sacked many 

 towns, trained the English seaaien, and laid the foundation for the 

 navy of Great Britain. 



The growth of English commerce was slower than that of 

 Spain, Portugal or Holland, and it was not until the middle of the 

 eighteenth century, or two hundred and fifty years after the dis- 

 covery of America, that she entered upon'that career which gave 

 her the control of the ocean. Her commerce was built up by 

 protective laws, founded on the Navigation Act of 1651, which 

 prohibited foreign vessels from carrying to or from England the 

 commerce of any country but its own. These laws were uni- 

 versally regarded as among the chief causes and most important 

 bulwarks of the prosperity of Great Britain, and they were con- 



