While the countries
bordering on the Mediterranean were blessed with a fertile soil and a mild
climate, those on the Baltic were comparatively barren and ungenial; their
inhabitants, therefore, induced by their situation to attend to maritime
affairs, were further led to employ their skill and power by sea, in
endeavouring to establish themselves in more favored countries, or, at
least, to draw from them by plunder, what they could not obtain in their
own.
We have already mentioned the maritime expeditions of the Saxons, which
struck terror into the Romans, during the decline of their empire. The
other Scandinavian nations were acted on by the same causes and motives.
Neglecting the peaceful art of agriculture, inured to the sea from their
earliest years, and the profession and practice of piracy being regarded as
actually honourable by them, it is no wonder that their whole lives were
spent in planning or executing maritime expeditions. Their internal wars
also, by depriving many of their power or their property, compelled them to
seek abroad that which they had lost at home. No sooner had a prince
reached his eighteenth year, than he was entrusted by his father with a
fleet; and by means of it he was ordered and expected to add to his glory
and his wealth, by plunder and victory. Lands were divided into certain
portions, and from each portion a certain number of ships were to be fully
equipped for sea.
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