Its
principal ports are Stockholm and Gothenburgh. The political event in the
history of this country which gave the most favourable impulse to its
commerce in modern times, is the alteration in its constitution after the
death of Charles XII.; by this the liberties of the people were encreased,
and a general stimulus towards national industry was given: agriculture was
improved, the produce of the mines doubled, and the fishery protected. More
lately, the revolution in 1772, and the loss of Finland, have been
prejudicial to Sweden. The principal exports are, iron, copper,
pine-timber, pitch, tar, potash, fish, &c.; the principal imports are,
corn, tobacco, salt, wines, oils, wool, hemp, soap, cotton, silk and
woollen goods, hardware, sugar, and other colonial produce.
The most important commercial port on the southern shore of the Baltic is
Dantzic, which belongs to Prussia. This town retained a large portion of
the commerce of the Baltic after the fall of the Hanseatic League, and with
Lubec, Hamburgh, and Bremen, preserved a commercial ascendency in the
Baltic. It suffered, however, considerably by the Prussians acquiring
possession of the banks of the Vistula, until it was incorporated with the
kingdom in 1793. Dantzic exports nearly the whole of the produce of the
fertile country of Poland, consisting of corn, hides, horse-hair, honey,
wax, oak, and other timber; the imports consist principally of manufactured
goods and colonial produce.
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