tween the
south-point of Istria and Venice. But their commerce and power on the
Adriatic could be of little avail, unless they regained at least a portion
of that traffic in Indian merchandize, which at this period formed the
grand source of wealth. Constantinople, and consequently the Black Sea, was
shut up from them: on the latter the Genoese were extending their traffic;
they had seized on Caffa from the Tartars, and made it the principal
station of their commerce. The Venetians in this emergency looked towards
the ancient route to India, or rather the ancient depot for Indian goods,--
Alexandria: this city had been shut against Christians for six centuries;
but it was now in the possession of the sultan of the Mamalukes, and he was
more favourable to them. Under the sanction of the Pope, the Venetians
entered into a treaty of commerce with the sultans of Egypt; by which they
were permitted to have one consul in Alexandria, and another in Damascus.
Venetian merchants and manufacturers were settled in both these cities. If
we may believe Sir John de Mandeville, their merchants frequently went to
the island of Ormus and the Persian Gulf, and sometimes even to Cambalu. By
their enterprize the Indian trade was almost entirely in their possession;
and they distributed the merchandize of the East among the nations of the
north of Europe, through Bruges and the Hanseatic League, and traded even
directly in their own vessels to England.

In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the annual value of the goods
exported from Venice amounted to ten millions of ducats; and the profits on
the home and outward voyages, were about four millions. Their shipping
consisted of 3000 vessels, of from 10 to 200 amphoras burden, carrying
17,000 sailors; 300 ships with 8000 seamen; and 45 gallies of various
sizes, manned by 11,000 seamen. In the dock-yard, 16,000 carpenters were
usually employed. Their trade to Syria and Egypt seems to have been
conducted entirely, or chiefly, by ready money; for 500,000 ducats were
sent into those countries annually: 100,000 ducats were sent to England.
From the Florentines they received annually 16,000 pieces of cloth: these
they exported to different ports of the Mediterranean; they also received
from the Florentines 7000 ducats weekly, which seems to have been the
balance between the cloth they sold to the Venetians, and the French and
Catalan wool, crimson grain, silk, gold and silver thread, wax, sugar,