The Spirit Of Laws Part 13

13.-What it is that destroys this Liberty Wherever commerce subsists, customs are established. Commerce is the exportation and importation of merchandise, with a view to the advantage of the state: customs are a certain right over this same exportation and importation, founded also on the advantage of the state. Hence it becomes necessary that the state should be neutral between its customs and its commerce, that neither of these two interferes with the other, and then the inhabitants enjoy a free commerce.

The farming of the customs destroys commerce by its injustice and vexations, as well as by the excess of the imposts: but independent of this, it destroys it even more by the difficulties that arise from it and by the formalities it exacts. In England, where the customs are managed by the king's officers, business is negotiated with a singular dexterity: one word of writing accomplishes the greatest affairs. The merchant needs not lose an infinite deal of time; he has no occasion for a particular commissioner, either to obviate all the difficulties of the farmers, or to submit to them.

14.-The Laws of Commerce concerning the Confiscation of Merchandise The Magna Charta of England forbids the seizing and confiscating, in case of war, the effects of foreign merchants, except by way of reprisals. It is an honor to the English nation that they have made this one of the articles of their liberty.

In the late war between Spain and England, the former made a law which punished with death those who brought English merchandise into the dominions of Spain; and the same penalty on those who carried Spanish merchandise into England.11 An ordinance like this cannot, I believe, find a precedent in any laws but those of j.a.pan. It equally shocks humanity, the spirit of commerce, and the harmony which ought to subsist in the proportion of penalties; it confounds all our ideas, making that a crime against the state which is only a violation of civil polity.

15.-Of seizing the Persons of Merchants Solon made a law that the Athenians should no longer seize the body for civil debts.12 This law he received from Egypt. It had been made by Boccoris, and renewed by Sesostris.13 This law is extremely good with respect to the generality of civil affairs; but there is sufficient reason for its not being observed in those of commerce.14 For as merchants are obliged to intrust large sums, frequently for a very short time, and to pay money as well as to receive it, there is a necessity that the debtor should constantly fulfil his engagements at the time prefixed; and hence it becomes necessary to lay a constraint on his person.

In affairs relating to common civil contracts, the law ought not to permit the seizure of the person; because the liberty of one citizen is of greater importance to the public than the ease or prosperity of another. But in conventions derived from commerce, the law ought to consider the public prosperity as of greater importance than the liberty of a citizen; which, however, does not hinder the restrictions and limitations that humanity and good policy demand.

16.-An excellent Law Admirable is that law of Geneva which excludes from the magistracy, and even from the admittance into the great council, the children of those who have lived or died insolvent, except they have discharged their father's debts. It has this effect: it creates a confidence in the merchants, in the magistrates, and in the city itself. There the credit of the individual has still all the weight of public credit.

17.-A Law of Rhodes15 The inhabitants of Rhodes went further. s.e.xtus Empiricus observes that among those people a son could not be excused from paying his father's debts by renouncing the succession. This law of Rhodes was calculated for a republic, founded on commerce. Now I am inclined to think that reasons drawn from commerce itself should make this limitation, that the debts contracted by the father since the son's entering into commerce should not affect the estate or property acquired by the latter. A merchant ought always to know his obligations, and to square his conduct by his circ.u.mstances and present fortune.

18.-Of the Judges of Commerce Xenophon, in his book of Revenues,16 would have rewards given to those overseers of commerce who despatched the causes brought before them with the greatest expedition. He was sensible of the need of our modern jurisdiction of a consul.

The affairs of commerce are but little susceptible of formalities. They are the actions of a day, and are every day followed by others of the same nature. Hence it becomes necessary that every day they should be decided. It is otherwise with those actions of life whice have a princ.i.p.al influence on futurity, but rarely happen. We seldom marry more than once; deeds and wills are not the work of every day; we are but once of age.

Plato17 says that in a city where there is no maritime commerce there ought not to be above half the number of civil laws: this is very true. Commerce brings into the same country different kinds of people; it introduces also a great number of contracts and species of wealth, with various ways of acquiring it.

Thus in a trading city there are fewer judges, and more laws.

19.-That a Prince ought not to engage himself in Commerce Theophilus,18 seeing a vessel laden with merchandise for his wife Theodora, ordered it to be burned. "I am emperor," said he, "and you make me the master of a galley. By what means shall these poor men gain a livelihood if we take their trade out of their hands?" He might have added, Who shall set bounds to us if we monopolize all ourselves? Who shall oblige us to fulfil our engagements? Our courtiers will follow our example; they will be more greedy and more unjust than we: the people have some confidence in our justice, they will have none in our opulence: all these numerous duties, the cause of their wants, are certain proofs of ours.

20.-The same Subject continued When the Portuguese and Castilians bore sway in the East Indies, commerce had such opulent branches that their princes did not fail to seize them. This ruined their settlements in those parts of the world.

The viceroy of Goa granted exclusive privileges to particular persons. The people had no confidence in these men; and the commerce declined, by the perpetual change of those to whom it was intrusted; n.o.body took care to improve it, or to leave it entire to his successor. In short, the profit centred in a few hands, and was not sufficiently extended.

21.-Of the Commerce of the n.o.bility in a Monarchy In a monarchical government, it is contrary to the spirit of commerce that any of the n.o.bility should be merchants. "This," said the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius,19 "would be pernicious to cities; and would remove the facility of buying and selling between the merchants and the plebeians."

It is contrary to the spirit of monarchy to admit the n.o.bility into commerce. The custom of suffering the n.o.bility of England to trade is one of those things which have there mostly contributed to weaken the monarchical government.

22.-A singular Reflection Persons struck with the practice of some states imagine that in France they ought to make laws to engage the n.o.bility to enter into commerce. But these laws would be the means of destroying the n.o.bility, without being of any advantage to trade. The practice of this country is extremely wise; merchants are not n.o.bles, though they may become so. They have the hopes of obtaining a degree of n.o.bility, unattended with its actual inconveniences. There is no surer way of being advanced above their profession than to manage it well, or with success; the consequence of which is generally an affluent fortune.

Laws which oblige every one to continue in his profession, and to devolve it upon his children, neither are nor can be of use in any but despotic kingdoms; where n.o.body either can or ought to have emulation.20 Let none say that every one will succeed better in his profession when he cannot change it for another: I say that a person will succeed best when those who have excelled hope to rise to another.

The possibility of purchasing honor with gold encourages many merchants to put themselves in circ.u.mstances by which they may attain it. I do not take it upon me to examine the justice of thus bartering for money the price of virtue. There are governments where this may be very useful.

In France the dignity of the long robe, which places those who wear it between the great n.o.bility and the people, and without having such s.h.i.+ning honors as the former, has all their privileges; a dignity which, while this body, the depositary of the laws, is encircled with glory, leaves the private members in a mediocrity of fortune; a dignity in which there are no other means of distinction but by a superior capacity and virtue, yet which still leaves in view one much more ill.u.s.trious: the warlike n.o.bility, likewise, who conceive that, whatever degree of wealth they are possessed of, they may still increase their fortunes; who are ashamed of augmenting, if they begin not with dissipating, their estates; who always serve their prince with their whole capital stock, and when that is sunk make room for others, who follow their example; who take the field that they may never be reproached with not having been there; who, when they can no longer hope for riches, live in expectation of honors; and when they have not obtained the latter, enjoy the consolation of having acquired glory: all these things together have necessarily contributed to augment the grandeur of this kingdom; and if for two or three centuries it has been incessantly increasing in power, this must be attributed not to Fortune, who was never famed for constancy, but to the goodness of its laws.

23.-To what Nations Commerce is prejudicial Riches consist either in lands or in movable effects. The soil of every country is commonly possessed by the natives. The laws of most states render foreigners unwilling to purchase their lands; and nothing but the presence of the owner improves them: this kind of riches, therefore, belongs to every state in particular; but movable effects, as money, notes, bills of exchange, stocks in companies, vessels, and, in fine, all merchandise, belong to the whole world in general; in this respect, it is composed of but one single state, of which all the societies upon earth are members. The people who possess more of these movable effects than any other on the globe are the most opulent. Some states have an immense quant.i.ty acquired by their commodities, by the labor of their mechanics, by their industry, by their discoveries, and even by chance. The avarice of nations makes them quarrel for the movables of the whole universe. If we could find a state so unhappy as to be deprived of the effects of other countries, and at the same time of almost all its own, the proprietors of the lands would be only planters to foreigners. This state, wanting all, could acquire nothing; therefore, it would be much better for the inhabitants not to have the least commerce with any nation upon earth, for commerce in these circ.u.mstances must necessarily lead them to poverty.

A country that constantly exports fewer manufactures or commodities than it receives will soon find the balance sinking; it will receive less and less, until, falling into extreme poverty, it will receive nothing at all.

In trading countries the specie, which suddenly vanishes, quickly returns; because those nations that have received it are its debtors. But it never returns into those states of which we have just been speaking, because those who have received it owe them nothing.

Poland will serve us for an example. It has scarcely any of those things which we call the movable effects of the universe, except corn, the produce of its lands. Some of the lords possess entire provinces; they oppress the husbandmen, in order to have greater quant.i.ties of corn, which they send to strangers, to procure the superfluous demands of luxury. If Poland had no foreign trade, its inhabitants would be happier. The grandees, who would have only their corn, would give it to their peasants for subsistence; as their too extensive estates would become burdensome, they would divide them amongst their peasants; every one would find skins or wool in their herds or flocks, so that they would no longer be at an immense expense in providing clothes; the great, who are ever fond of luxury, not being able to find it but in their own country, would encourage the labor of the poor. This nation, I affirm, would then become more flouris.h.i.+ng, at least if it did not become barbarous; and this the laws might easily prevent.

Let us next consider j.a.pan. The vast quant.i.ty of what they receive is the cause of the vast quant.i.ty of merchandise they send abroad. Things are thus in as nice an equilibrium as if the importation and exportation were but small. Besides, this kind of exuberance in the state is productive of a thousand advantages; there is a greater consumption, a greater quant.i.ty of those things on which the arts are exercised; more men employed, and more numerous means of acquiring power; exigencies may also happen that require a speedy a.s.sistance, which so opulent a state can better afford than any other. It is difficult for a country to avoid having superfluities; but it is the nature of commerce to render the superfluous useful, and the useful necessary. The state will be, therefore, able to afford necessaries to a much greater number of subjects.

Let us say, then, that it is not those nations who have need of nothing that must lose by trade; it is those who have need of everything. It is not such people as have a sufficiency within themselves, but those who are most in want, that will find an advantage in putting a stop to all commercial intercourse.

1 This book was the beginning of the second part of "The Spirit of Laws" in all the editions published during the life of the author.-Ed.

2 Caesar said of the Gauls that they were spoiled by the neighborhood and commerce of Ma.r.s.eilles; insomuch that they who formerly always conquered the Germans had now become inferior to them.-"War of the Gauls," lib. VI.

3 Holland.

4 "Et qui modo hospes fuerat, monstrator hospitii."-"De Moribus Germanorum." Vide Caesar, "de Bello Gall." lib. VI.

5 t.i.t. 38.

6 "Nolo eundem populum imperatorem et port.i.torem esse terrarum."

7 Justin, lib. XLIII. cap. iii.

8 Du Halde, vol. ii. p. 170 9 This was first established by the Portuguese.-Fr. Pirard's "Voyages," chap. xv. part II.

10 Act of Navigation, 1660. It is only time of war that the merchants of Boston and Philadelphia send their in vessels directly to the Mediterranean.

11 Published in Cadiz in March, 1740.

12 Plutarch, in his treatise against lending upon usury.

13 Diodorus, book I. part II. chap. iii.

14 The Greek legislators were to blame in preventing the arms and plough of any man from being taken in pledge, and yet permitting the taking of the man himself.-Diodorus, book I. part II. chap. iii.

15 Hypotiposes, book I. chap. xiv.

16 "De Proventibus," III.

17 "On Laws," book VIII.

18 Zonaras.

19 Leg. "n.o.biliores," Cod. "de Comm," et leg. "ult. de rescind. vendit."

20 This is actually very often the case in such governments.

Book XXI

-Docuit qu maximus Atlas.-VIRGIL, aeneid Of Laws in Relation to Commerce, Considered in the Revolutions it has Met with in the World 1.-Some general Considerations THOUGH commerce be subject to great revolutions, yet it is possible that certain physical causes, as the quality of the soil, or the climate, may fix its nature forever.

We at present carry on the trade of the Indies merely by means of the silver which we send thither. The Romans carried annually thither about fifty millions of sesterces;1 and this silver, as ours is at present, was exchanged for merchandise, which was brought to the West. Every nation that ever traded to the Indies has constantly carried bullion and brought merchandise in return.2 It is nature itself that produces this effect. The Indians have their hearts adapted to their manner of living. Our luxury cannot be theirs; nor theirs our wants. Their climate demands and permits hardly anything which comes from ours. They go in a great measure naked; such clothes as they have the country itself furnishes; and their religion, which is deeply rooted, gives them an aversion for those things that serve for our nourishment. They want, therefore, nothing but our bullion to serve as the medium of value; and for this they give us merchandise in return, with which the frugality of the people and the nature of the country furnish them in great abundance. Those ancient authors who have mentioned the Indies describe them just as we now find them, as to their policy, customs, and marners.3 The Indies have ever been the same Indies they are at present; and in every period of time those who traded with that country carried specie thither and brought none in return.

2.-Of the People of Africa The greatest part of the people on the coast of Africa are savages and barbarians. The princ.i.p.al reason, I believe, of this is, because the small countries capable of being inhabited are separated from each other by large and almost uninhabitable tracts of land. They are without industry or arts. They have gold in abundance, which they receive immediately from the hand of nature. Every civilized state is, therefore, in a condition to traffic with them to advantage, by raising their esteem for things of no value, and receiving a very high price in return.

3.-That the Wants of the People in the South are different from those of the North In Europe there is a kind of balance between the southern and northern nations. The first have every convenience of life, and few of its wants: the last have many wants, and few conveniences. To one nature has given much, and demands but little; to the other she has given but little, and demands a great deal. The equilibrium is maintained by the laziness of the southern nations, and by the industry and activity which she has given to those in the North. The latter are obliged to undergo excessive labor, without which they would want everything, and degenerate into barbarians. This has neutralized slavery to the people of the south: as they can easily dispense with riches, they can more easily dispense with liberty. But the people of the North have need of liberty, for this can best procure them the means of satisfying all those wants which they have received from nature. The people of the North, then, are in a forced state, if they are not either free or barbarians. Almost all the people of the South are, in some measure, in a state of violence, if they are not slaves.

4.-The princ.i.p.al Difference between the Commerce of the Ancients and the Moderns The world has found itself, from time to time, in different situations; by which the face of commerce has been altered. The trade of Europe is, at present, carried on princ.i.p.ally from the north to the south; and the difference of climate is the cause that the several nations have great occasion for the merchandise of each other. For example, the liquors of the south, which are carried to the north, form a commerce little known to the ancients. Thus the burden of vessels, which was formerly computed by measures of corn, is at present determined by tuns of liquor.

The ancient commerce, so far as it is known to us, was carried on from one port in the Mediterranean to another; and was almost wholly confined to the South. Now the people of the same climate, having nearly the same things of their own, have not the same need of trading amongst themselves as with those of a different climate. The commerce of Europe was, therefore, formerly less extended than at present.

This does not at all contradict what I have said of our commerce to the Indies: for here the prodigious difference of climate destroys all relation between their wants and ours.

5.-Other Differences Commerce is sometimes destroyed by conquerors, sometimes cramped by monarchs; it traverses the earth, flies from the places where it is oppressed, and stays where it has liberty to breathe: it reigns at present where nothing was formerly to be seen but deserts, seas, and rocks; and where it once reigned now there are only deserts.

To see Colchis in its present situation, which is no more than a vast forest, where the people are every day diminis.h.i.+ng, and only defend their liberty to sell themselves by piecemeal to the Turks and Persians, one could never imagine that this country had ever, in the time of the Romans, been full of cities where commerce convened all the nations of the world. We find no monument of these facts in the country itself; there are no traces of them, except in Pliny4 and Strabo.5 The history of commerce is that of the communication of people. Their numerous defeats, and the flux and reflux of populations and devastations, here form the most extraordinary events.

6.-Of the Commerce of the Ancients The immense treasures of Semiramis,6 which could not be acquired in a day, give us reason to believe that the a.s.syrians themselves had pillaged other rich nations, as other nations afterwards pillaged them.

The effect of commerce is riches; the consequence of riches, luxury; and that of luxury the perfection of arts. We find that the arts were carried to great perfection in the time of Semiramis;7 which is a sufficient indication that a considerable commerce was then established.

In the empires of Asia there was a great commerce of luxury. The history of luxury would make a fine part of that of commerce. The luxury of the Persians was that of the Medes, as the luxury of the Medes was that of the a.s.syrians.

Great revolutions have happened in Asia. The northeast parts of Persia, viz., Hyrcania, Margiana, Bactria, etc., were formerly full of flouris.h.i.+ng cities,8 which are now no more; and the north of this empire,9 that is, the isthmus which separates the Caspian and the Euxine Seas, was covered with cities and nations, which are now destroyed.

Eratosthenes and Aristobulus10 learned from Patroclus11 that the merchandise of India pa.s.sed by the Oxus into the sea of Pontus. Marcus Varro12 tells us that at the time when Pompey commanded against Mithridates, they were informed that people went in seven days from India to the country of the Bactrians, and to the River Icarus, which falls into the Oxus; that by this method they were able to bring the merchandise of India across the Caspian Sea, and to enter the mouth of Cyrus; whence it was only five days' pa.s.sage to the Phasis, a river that discharges itself into the Euxine Sea. There is no doubt but it was by the nations inhabiting these several countries that the great empires of the a.s.syrians, Medes, and Persians had communication with the most distant parts of the east and west.

An entire stop is now put to this communication. All these countries have been laid waste by the Tartars,13 and are still infested by this destructive nation. The Oxus no longer runs into the Caspian Sea; the Tartars, for some private reasons, have changed its course, and it now loses itself in the barren sands.14 The Jaxartes, which was formerly a barrier between the polite and barbarous nations, has had its course turned in the same manner by the Tartars, and it no longer empties itself into the sea.15 Seleucus Nicator formed the project of joining the Euxine to the Caspian Sea.16 This project, which would have greatly facilitated the commerce of those days, vanished at his death.17 We are not certain it could have been executed in the isthmus which separates the two seas. This country is at present very little known, it is depopulated, and full of forests; however, water is not wanting, for an infinite number of rivers roll into it from Mount Caucasus; but as this mountain forms the north of the isthmus, and extends like two arms18 towards the south, it would have been a grand obstacle to such an enterprise, especially in those times, when they had not the art of making sluices.

It may be imagined that Seleucus would have joined the two seas in the very place where Peter I has since joined them; that is, in that neck of land where the Tanais approaches the Volga; but the north of the Caspian Sea was not then discovered.

While the empires of Asia enjoyed the commerce of luxury, the Tyrians had the commerce of economy, which they extended throughout the world. Bochard has employed the first book of his "Canaan" in enumerating all the colonies which they sent into all the countries bordering upon the sea; they pa.s.sed the pillars of Hercules, and made establishments on the coasts of the oceans.19 In those times their pilots were obliged to follow the coasts, which were, if I may so express myself, their compa.s.s. Voyages were long and painful. The laborious voyage of Ulysses has been the fruitful subject of the finest poem in the world, next to that which alone has the preference.

The little knowledge which the greatest part of the world had of those who were far distant from them favored the nations engaged in the economical commerce. They managed trade with as much obscurity as they pleased; they had all the advantages which the most intelligent nations could take over the most ignorant.

The Egyptians-a people who by their religion and their manners were averse to all communication with strangers-had scarcely at that time any foreign trade. They enjoyed a fruitful soil and great plenty. Their country was the j.a.pan of those times; it possessed everything within itself.

So little jealous were these people of commerce, that they left that of the Red Sea to all the petty nations that had any harbors in it. Here they suffered the Idumeans, the Syrians, and the Jews to have fleets. Solomon employed in this navigation the Tyrians, who knew those seas.20 Josephus21 says that this nation, being entirely employed in agriculture, knew little of navigation: the Jews, therefore, traded only occasionally in the Red Sea. They took from the Idumeans Eloth and Eziongeber, from whom they received this commerce; they lost these two cities, and with them lost this commerce.

It was not so with the Phoenicians: theirs was not a commerce of luxury; nor was their trade owing to conquest; their frugality, their abilities, their industry, their perils, and the hards.h.i.+ps they suffered, rendered them necessary to all the nations of the world.

Before Alexander, the people bordering on the Red Sea traded only in this sea, and in that of Africa. The astonishment which filled the globe at the discovery of the Indian Sea, under that conqueror, is a sufficient proof of this. I have observed22 that bullion was always carried to the Indies, and never any brought thence; now the Jewish fleets, which brought gold and silver by the way of the Red Sea, returned from Africa, and not from the Indies.23 Besides, this navigation was made on the eastern coast of Africa; for the state of navigation at that time is a convincing proof that they did not sail to a very distant sh.o.r.e.

I am not ignorant that the fleets of Solomon and Jehoshaphat returned only every three years; but I do not see that the time taken up in the voyage is any proof of the greatness of the distance.

Pliny and Strabo inform us that the junks of India and the Red Sea were twenty days in performing a voyage which a Greek or Roman vessel would accomplish in seven.24 In this proportion, a voyage of one year, made by the fleets of Greece or Rome, would take very nearly three when performed by those of Solomon.

Two s.h.i.+ps of unequal swiftness do not perform their voyage in a time proportionate to their swiftness. Slowness is frequently the cause of much greater slowness. When it becomes necessary to follow the coast, and to be incessantly in a different position, when they must wait for a fair wind to get out of a gulf, and for another to proceed, a good sailor takes the advantage of every favorable moment, while the other still continues in a difficult situation, and waits many days for another change.

The slowness of the Indian vessels, which in an equal time could make but the third of the way of those of the Greeks and Romans, may be explained by what we every day see in our modern navigation. The Indian vessels, which were built with a kind of sea-rushes, drew less water than those of Greece and Rome, which were of wood and joined with iron.

We may compare these Indian vessels to those at present made use of in ports of little depth of water. Such are those of Venice, and even of all Italy in general,25 of the Baltic, and of the province of Holland.26 Their s.h.i.+ps, which ought to be able to go in and out of port, are built round and broad at the bottom; while those of other nations, who have good harbors, are formed to sink deep into the water. This mechanism renders these last-mentioned vessels able to sail much nearer the wind; while the first can hardly sail, except the wind be nearly in the p.o.o.p. A s.h.i.+p that sinks deep into the water sails towards the same side with almost every wind; this proceeds from the resistance which the vessel, while driven by the wind, meets with from the water, from which it receives a strong support; and from the length of the vessel which presents its side to the wind, while, from the form of the helm, the prow is turned to the point proposed; so that she can sail very near the wind, or, in other words, very near the point whence the wind blows. But when the hull is round and broad at the bottom, and consequently draws little water, it no longer finds this steady support; the wind drives the vessel, which is incapable of resistance, and can run them but with a small variation from the point opposite to the wind. Whence it follows, that broad-bottomed vessels are longer in performing voyages.

1. They lose much time in waiting for the wind, especially if they are obliged frequently to change their course. 2. They sail much slower, because not having a proper support from a depth of water, they cannot carry so much sail. If this be the case at a time when the arts are everywhere known, at a time when art corrects the defects of nature, and even of art itself; if at this time, I say, we find this difference, how great must that have been in the navigation of the ancients?

I cannot yet leave this subject. The Indian vessels were small, and those of the Greeks and Romans, if we except those machines built for ostentation, much less than ours. Now, the smaller the vessel the greater danger it encounters from foul weather. A tempest that would swallow up a small vessel would only make a large one roll. The more one body surpa.s.ses another in size, the more its surface is relatively small. Whence it follows, that in a small s.h.i.+p there is a less proportion, that is, a greater difference in respect to the surface of the vessel, compared with the weight or lading she can carry, than in a large one. We know that it is a pretty general practice to make the weight of the lading equal to that of half the water the vessel could contain. Suppose a vessel will contain eight hundred tons, her lading then must be four hundred; and that of a vessel which would hold but four hundred tons of water would be two hundred tons. Thus the largeness of the first s.h.i.+p will be to the weight she carries as 8 to 4, and that of the second as 4 to 2. Let us suppose, then, that the surface of the greater is to the surface of the smaller as 8 to 6; the surface of the latter will be to her weight as 6 to 2,27 while the surface of the former will be to her weight only as 8 to 4. Therefore, as the winds and waves act only upon the surface, the large vessel will, by her weight, resist their impetuosity much more than the small.

7.-Of the Commerce of the Greeks The first Greeks were all pirates. Minos, who enjoyed the empire of the sea, was only more successful, perhaps, than others in piracy; for his maritime dominion extended no farther than round his own isle. But when the Greeks became a great people, the Athenians obtained the real dominion of the sea; because this trading and victorious nation gave laws to the most potent monarch of that time,28 and humbled the maritime powers of Syria, of the isle of Cyprus, and Phnicia.

But this Athenian lords.h.i.+p of the sea deserves to be more particularly mentioned. "Athens," says Xenophon,29 "rules the sea; but as the country of Attica is joined to the continent, it is ravaged by enemies while the Athenians are engaged in distant expeditions. Their leaders suffer their lands to be destroyed, and secure their wealth by sending it to some island. The populace, who are not possessed of lands, have no uneasiness. But if the Athenians inhabited an island, and, beside this, enjoyed the empire of the sea, they would, so long as they were possessed of these advantages, be able to annoy others, and at the same time to be out of all danger of being annoyed." One would imagine that Xenophon was speaking of England.

The Athenians, a people whose heads were filled with ambitious projects; the Athenians, who augmented their jealousy instead of increasing their influence; who were more attentive to extend their maritime empire than to enjoy it; whose political government was such that the common people distributed the public revenues among themselves, while the rich were in a state of oppression; the Athenians, I say, did not carry on so extensive a commerce as might be expected from the produce of their mines, from the mult.i.tude of their slaves, from the number of their seamen, from their influence over the cities of Greece, and, above all, from the excellent inst.i.tutions of Solon. Their trade was almost wholly confined to Greece and to the Euxine Sea, whence they drew their subsistence.

Corinth was admirably situated; it separated two seas, and opened and shut the Peloponnesus; it was the key of Greece, and a city of the greatest importance, at a time when the people of Greece were a world, and the cities of Greece nations. Its trade was more extensive than that of Athens, having a port to receive the merchandise of Asia, and another that of Italy; for the great difficulties which attended the doubling Cape Malea, where the meeting of opposite winds causes s.h.i.+pwrecks,30 induced every one to go to Corinth, and they could even convey their vessels over land from one sea to the other. Never was there a city in which the works of art were carried to so high a degree of perfection. But here religion finished the corruption which their opulence began. They erected a temple to Venus, in which more than a thousand courtesans were consecrated to that deity; from this seminary came the greatest part of those celebrated beauties whose history Athenaeus has presumed to commit to writing.

It seems that in Homer's time the opulence of Greece centred in Rhodes, Corinth, and Orchomenus; "Jupiter," he says, "loved the Rhodians, and made them a very wealthy nation."31 On Corinth he bestows the epithet of rich.32 In like manner, when he speaks of cities that have plenty of gold, he mentions Orchomenus, to which he joins Thebes in Egypt. Rhodes and Corinth preserved their power; but Orchomenus lost hers. The situation of Orchomenus in the neighborhood of the h.e.l.lespont, the Propontis, and the Euxine Sea makes us naturally imagine that she was indebted for her opulence to a trade along that maritime coast, which had given rise to the fable of the golden fleece; and, indeed, the name of Minyeios has been given to Orchomenus as well as to the Argonauts.33 But these seas becoming afterwards more frequented, the Greeks planted along the coasts a greater number of colonies, which traded with the barbarous nations and at the same time preserved an intercourse with their mother country. In consequence of this, Orchomenus began to decline till at length it was lost in the crowd of the other cities of Greece.

Before Homer's time the Greeks had scarcely any trade but among themselves, and with a few barbarous nations; in proportion, however, as they formed new colonies, they extended their dominion. Greece was a large peninsula, the capes of which seemed to have kept off the seas, while its gulfs opened on all sides to receive them. If we cast an eye on Greece, we shall find, in a pretty compact country, a considerable extent of sea-coast. Her innumerable colonies formed an immense circle round her; and there she beheld, in some measure, the whole civilized world. Did she penetrate into Sicily and Italy, she formed new nations. Did she navigate towards the sea of Pontus, the coast of Asia Minor, or that of Africa, she acted in the same manner. Her cities increased in prosperity in proportion as they happened to have new people in their neighborhood. And what was extremely beautiful, she was surrounded on every side with a prodigious number of islands, drawn, as it were, in a line of circ.u.mvallation.

What a source of prosperity must Greece have found in those games with which she entertained, in some measure, the whole globe; in those temples, to which all the kings of the earth sent their offerings; in those festivals, at which such a concourse of people used to a.s.semble from all parts; in those oracles, to which the attention of all mankind was directed; and, in short, in that exquisite taste for the polite arts, which she carried to such a height that to expect ever to surpa.s.s her would be only betraying our ignorance!

8.-Of Alexander: his Conquests Four great events happened in the reign of Alexander which entirely changed the face of commerce: the taking of Tyre, the conquest of Egypt, that likewise of the Indies, and the discovery of the sea which lies south of that country.

The Empire of Persia extended to the Indus.34 Darius, long before Alexander, had sent some vessels, which sailed down this river, and pa.s.sed even into the Red Sea.35 How then were the Greeks the first who traded with the Indies by the south? Had not the Persians done this before? Did they make no advantage of seas which were so near them, of the very seas that washed their coasts? Alexander, it is true, conquered the Indies; but was it necessary for him to conquer a country in order to trade with it? This is what I shall now examine.

Ariana,36 which extended from the Persian Gulf as far as the Indus, and from the South Sea to the mountains of Paropamisus, depended, indeed, in some measure, on the Empire of Persia; but in the southern part it was barren, scorched, rude, and uncultivated.37 Tradition relates38 that the armies of Semiramis and Cyrus perished in these deserts; and Alexander, who caused his fleet to follow him, could not avoid losing in this place a great part of his army. The Persians left the whole coast to the Ichthyophagi,39 the Oritae, and other barbarous nations. Besides, the Persians were no great sailors,40 and their very religion debarred them from entertaining any such notion as that of a maritime commerce. The voyage undertaken by Darius's direction upon the Indus and the Indian Sea proceeded rather from the capriciousness of a prince vainly ambitious of showing his power than from any settled regular project. It was attended with no consequence either to the advantage of commerce or of navigation. They emerged from their ignorance only to plunge into it again.

Besides, it was a received opinion41 before the expedition of Alexander that the southern parts of India were uninhabitable.42 This proceeded from a tradition that Semiramis43 had brought back thence only twenty men, and Cyrus but seven.

Alexander entered by the north. His design was to march towards the east; but having found a part of the south full of great nations, cities, and rivers, he attempted to conquer it, and succeeded.

He then formed a design of uniting the Indies to the Western nations by a maritime commerce, as he had already united them by the colonies he had established by land.

He ordered a fleet to be built on the Hydaspes, then fell down that river, entered the Indus, and sailed even to its mouth. He left his army and his fleet at Patala, went himself with a few vessels to view the sea, and marked the places where he would have ports to be opened and a.r.s.enals erected. Upon his return from Patala he separated the fleet, and took the route by land, for the mutual support of fleet and army. The fleet followed the coast from the Indus along the banks of the country of the Oritae, of the Ichthyophagi, of Carmania, and Persia. He caused wells to be dug, built cities, and would not suffer the Ichthyophagi to live on fish,44 being desirous of having the borders of the sea inhabited by civilized nations. Nearchus and Onesecritus wrote a journal of this voyage, which was performed in ten months. They arrived at Susa, where they found Alexander, who gave an entertainment to his whole army.

This prince had founded Alexandria, with a view of securing his conquest of Egypt; this was a key to open it, in the very place where the kings his predecessors had a key to shut it;45 and he had not the least thought of a commerce of which the discovery of the Indian Sea could alone give him the idea.

It even seems that after his discovery he had no new design in regard to Alexandria. He had, indeed, a general scheme of opening a trade between the East Indies and the western parts of his empire; but as for the project of conducting this commerce through Egypt, his knowledge was too imperfect to be able to form any such design. It is true he had seen the Indus, he had seen the Nile, but he knew nothing of the Arabian seas between the two rivers. Scarcely had he returned from India when he fitted out new fleets, and navigated on the Euleus,46 the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the ocean; he removed the cataracts, with which the Persians had enc.u.mbered those rivers; and he discovered that the Persian Gulf was a branch of the main sea. But as he went to view this sea47 in the same manner as he had done in respect to that of India; as he caused a port to be opened for a thousand s.h.i.+ps, and a.r.s.enals to be erected at Babylon; as he sent five hundred talents into Phoenicia and Syria, to draw mariners into this service whom he intended to distribute in the colonies along the coast; in fine, as he caused immense works to be erected on the Euphrates, and the other rivers of a.s.syria, there could be no doubt but he designed to carry on the commerce of India by the way of Babylon and the Persian Gulf.

There are some who pretend that Alexander wanted to subdue Arabia,48 and had formed a design to make it the seat of his empire: but how could he have pitched upon a place with which he was entirely unacquainted?49 Besides, of all countries, this would have been the most inconvenient to him; for it would have separated him from the rest of his empire. The Caliphs, who made distant conquests, soon withdrew from Arabia to reside elsewhere.

9.-Of the Commerce of the Grecian Kings after the Death of Alexander At the time when Alexander made the conquest of Egypt, they had but a very imperfect idea of the Red Sea, and none at all of the ocean, which, joining this sea, on one side washes the coast of Africa, and on the other that of Arabia; nay, they thought it impossible to sail round the peninsula of Arabia. They who attempted it on each side had relinquished their design. "How is it possible," said they,50 "to navigate to the southern coast of Arabia, when Cambyses's army, which traversed it on the north side, almost entirely perished; and the forces which Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, sent to the a.s.sistance of Seleucus Nicator at Babylon, underwent incredible hards.h.i.+ps, and, upon account of the heat, could march only in the night?"

The Persians were entire strangers to navigation. When they had subdued Egypt, they introduced the same spirit into that country as prevailed in Persia: hence, so great was the supineness of the Persians in this respect, that the Grecian kings found them quite strangers, not only to the commerce of the Tyrians, Idumeans, and the Jews on the ocean, but even to the navigation of the Red Sea. I am apt to think that the destruction of the first Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar, together with the subversion of several petty nations and towns bordering on the Red Sea, had obliterated all their former knowledge of commerce.

Egypt, at the time of the Persian monarchy, did not front the Red Sea; it contained only that long narrow neck of land which the Nile covers with its inundations, and is inclosed on both sides by a chain of mountains.51 They were, therefore, under the necessity of making a second discovery of the ocean and the Red Sea; and this discovery engaged the curiosity of the Grecian monarchs.