The larger capital, more numerous connexions, greater
credit, and skill of the Venetians, must however have been much in their
favour in this competition.
We have noticed that, even so late as the beginning of the eighteenth
century, a voyage from Marseilles to the Baltic and back again, was thought
by French navigators an impracticable undertaking in the course of one
year; and yet a century earlier, viz. in 1699, Venice sent at least one
ship annually for Archangel: the first instance we believe of a direct
commercial intercourse between the northern and southern extreme seas of
Europe.
We must turn to the northern nations of Europe, Sweden, Denmark and Russia,
and glean what few important materials we can respecting their commerce
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. We have already seen that
the commerce of the Scandinavian nations of the middle ages was by no means
despicable, though it was chiefly confined to Britain and Iceland, and
among themselves: the establishment of the Hanseatic League, some of the
cities composing which lay in the Baltic, gradually made the Scandinavian
nations better known, and by creating a demand for their produce,
stimulated them to industry and commerce. In a poor country, however, with
a sterile soil and ungenial climate; where winter prevented intercourse by
sea, for several months every year, capital must increase very slowly, and
commerce, reciprocally the cause and effect of capital, equally slow.
Pages:
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729