e continuance of their progress was doubtful, we
entered pretty fully into their history; but after a forward motion was
communicated to them, such as must carry them towards perfection without
the possibility of any great or permanent check, we have thought it proper
to abstain from details, and to confine ourselves to more general views.
Guided by this principle which derives additional weight from the vastness
to which commerce has reached within the last hundred years, we shall now
proceed to a rapid and general sketch of its progress during that period,
and of its present state.

From the first and feeble revival of commerce in the middle ages, till the
discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, the Italian republics, and the
Hanseatic League, nearly monopolized all the trade of Europe; the former,
from their situation, naturally confining themselves to the importation and
circulation of the commodities supplied by the East, and by the European
countries in the south of Europe, and the districts of Africa then known
and accessible; while the latter directed their attention and industry to
those articles which the middle and north of Europe produced or
manufactured.

The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope gave a different direction to the
commerce of the East, while at the same time it very greatly extended it;
but as it is obvious that a greater quantity of the commodities supplied by
this part of the world could not be purchased, except by an increase in the
produce and manufactures of the purchasing nations, they also pushed
forward in industry, experience, skill, and capital. The Portuguese and
Spaniards first reaped the fruits of the discovery of the Cape of Good
Hope; subsequently the Dutch; and at the period at which this part of our
sketch of commerce commences, the English were beginning to assume that
hold and superiority in the East, by which they are now so greatly
distinguished. The industry of Europe, especially of the middle and
northern states, was further stimulated by the discovery of America, and,
indirectly, by all those causes which in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries tended to increase information, and to secure the liberty of the
mass of the people. The invention of printing; the reformation; the
destruction of the feudal system, at least in its most objectionable,
degrading, and paralizing features; the contentions between the nobility
and the sovereigns, and between the latter and the people;