142 Of the Commercial System. Bk. iii. 



If, from the operation of one or more of the 

 causes above enumerated, the importation of corn 

 into a manufacturing- and commercial country 

 should be essentially checked, and should either 

 actually decrease, or be prevented from increas- 

 ing, it is quite evident that its population must be 

 checked nearly in the same proportion. 



Venice presents a striking instance of a com- 

 mercial state, at once stopped in its progress to 

 wealth and population by foreign competition. 

 The discovery made by the Portuguese of a pas- 

 sage to India by the Cape of Good Hope com- 

 pletely turned the channel of the Indian trade. 

 The high profits of the Venetians, which had been 

 the foundation of their rapidly increasing wealth, 

 and of their extraordinary preponderance as a 

 naval and commercial power, were not only sud- 

 denly reduced ; but the trade itself, on which 

 these high profits liad been made, was almost 

 annihilated, and their power and wealth v/ere 

 shortly contracted to those more confined limits 

 which suited their natural resources. 



In the middle of the 15th century, Bruges in 

 Flanders was the great entrepot of the trade be- 

 tween the north and the south of Europe. Early 

 in the ] 6th century its commerce began to decline 

 under the competition of Antwerp. Many Eng- 

 lish and foreign merchants in consequence left the 

 declining city, to settle in that which was rapidly 

 increasing in commerce and wealth. About the 

 middle of the 16th century Antwerp was at the 

 zenith of its power. It contained above a hun- 

 dred thousand inhabitants, and was universally 



