178 THE HISTORY OF COMMERCE. 
Columbus, had opened the way over the great ocean to the far West, and 
made the discovery of the new part of South America. 
Portugal and Spain became great through their acquisition of flour- 
ishing colonies and rich countries, and by the commerce of the world 
which now found its seats at Lisbon and Cadiz, whilst the splendour of 
Venice and Genoa gradually declined with the loss of their commercial 
monopoly. Portugal and Spain now provided the Italian States and 
Europe with an abundance of East and West Indian products, and for 
these there was soon an ever-increasing demand in Europe, which has 
continued uninterrupted to the present time. Through colonisation, large 
plantations in fruitful countries were established to supply this com- 
merce, which, under the name of colonial produce (sugar, coffee, cocoa, 
spices, rice, cotton, indigo, tobacco, &c), was brought to Europe. To 
obtain the profits, hundreds of thousands of negro slaves were shipped 
from Africa to America. This ever-increasing foreign commercial traffic, 
which soon included China and Japan (which rich countries were dis- 
covered by the Portuguese), occasioned a strong exchange of manufac- 
tured and woollen goods. This greatly stimulated industry and the 
industrial arts in Europe (though Italy long retained her pre-eminence), 
especially France, the Netherlands, England, Germany, and Switzerland, 
by the development of a variety of manufactures and the sale of a quan- 
tity of goods of all kinds for transatlantic commerce, Portugal and Spain, 
from their small industrial activity, finding it impossible to satisfy the 
wants of the newly-discovered countries with their own products. Next 
to Lisbon, Cadiz, Oporto, San Lucas, and Seville, now flourished, also 
Bordeaux and Havre, and especially Antwerp, which had, since the middle 
of the fifteenth century, become the chief trading place of commerce 
between the north and south of Europe. In like manner Amsterdam 
and London advanced by their maritime commerce, and profited by un- 
dertakings which this new direction of commerce suggested ; soon, in 
fact, Holland, England, France, and Denmark endeavoured to take part 
in the same direction. This commercial activity was at last so extensively 
diversified, that manufactures rose to the highest degree of development, 
and Europe may thank these early discoverers for her riches and power, 
