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CHAP. VII.
Of the Causes that brought on the Decline of the Nations that had flourished in the middle Ages, and of Portugal, Spain, Holland, and the Hans Towns.
THE trade with India, which had been almost the only one, and always an occasion for envy and contest, was sought for by the Spaniards and the Portuguese; who, as we have seen, were the first amongst modern nations that seemed to aspire at naval discovery.
The manner in which Spain discovered America; and Portugal, the passage by the Cape of Good Hope, both nearly at the same period, and at the beginning of the sixteenth century, is too well known to require the smallest detail.
Europeans, with the superior degree of knowledge they possessed, and particularly that of the use of fire-arms: incited also by the love of gold; and careless of keeping their word with the unsuspecting natives, soon triumphed wherever they went, and the consequence was, that both nations brought home immense riches. The trade of Venice, Alexandria, and Aleppo, was all transferred to Lisbon, {60} and never was so small a country so suddenly enriched; and it may be added, more quickly deprived afterwards of the chief source of its wealth.
The Dutch had triumphed over the power of Spain, on their own soil, and they soon rivalled that of Portugal in the East. It was a very different thing to combat the natives, and to fight with the Dutch, who very soon deprived Portugal of the rich means of wealth she had discovered in India.
The prosperity of Portugal, arising from its possession =sic= in the East, continued at its height exactly a century. Its decline is accounted for by the following causes.
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{60} Lisbon had its depot for the north of Europe, at Antwerp, and the value of the consignments have been estimated at a million of crowns, annually; but this is, probably, an exaggeration.