The compass opened, if I may so express myself, the
universe. Asia and Africa were found, of which only some borders were
known; and America, of which we knew nothing.
The Portuguese, sailing on the Atlantic Ocean, discovered the most
southern point of Africa; they saw a vast sea, which carried them to the
East Indies. Their danger upon this sea, the discovery of Mozambique,
Melinda, and Calicut, have been sung by Camoens, whose poems make us
feel something of the charms of the Odyssey and the magnificence of the
Æneid.
The Venetians had hitherto carried on the trade of the Indies
through the Turkish dominions, and pursued it in the midst of
oppressions and discouragements. By the discovery of the Cape of Good
Hope, and those which were made some time after, Italy was no longer the
centre of the trading world; it was, if I may be permitted the
expression, only a corner of the universe, and is so still. The commerce
even of the Levant depending now on that of the great trading nations to
both the Indies, Italy even in that branch can no longer be considered
as a principal.
The Portuguese traded to the Indies in right of conquest. The
constraining laws which the Dutch at present impose on the commerce of
the little Indian princes had been established before by the
Portuguese.
[140]
The fortune of the house of Austria was prodigious. Charles V
succeeded to the possession of Burgundy, Castile, and Aragon; he arrived
afterwards at the imperial dignity; and to procure him a new kind of
grandeur, the globe extended itself, and there was seen a new world
paying him obeisance.
Christopher Columbus discovered America; and though Spain sent
thither only a force so small that the least prince in Europe could have
sent the same, yet it subdued two vast empires, and other great states.
While the Spaniards discovered and conquered the west, the
Portuguese pushed their conquests and discoveries in the east. These two
nations met each other; they had recourse to Pope Alexander VI, who made
the celebrated line of partition, and determined the great suit.
But the other nations of Europe would not suffer them quietly to
enjoy their shares. The Dutch chased the Portuguese from almost all
their settlements in the East Indies; and several other nations planted
colonies in America.
The Spaniards considered these newly-discovered countries as the
subject of conquest; while others, more refined in their views, found
them to be the proper subjects of commerce, and upon this principle
directed their proceedings. Hence several nations have conducted
themselves with so much wisdom that they have given a kind of
sovereignty to companies of merchants, who, governing these far-distant
countries only with a view to trade, have made a great accessory power
without embarrassing the principal state.
The colonies they have formed are under a kind of dependence, of
which there are but very few instances in all the colonies of the
ancients; whether we consider them as holdings of the state itself, or
of some trading company established in the state.
The design of these colonies is to trade on more advantageous
conditions than could otherwise be done with the neighbouring people,
with whom all advantages are reciprocal. It has been established that
the metropolis,
[141]
or mother country, alone shall trade in the
colonies, and that from very good reason; because the design of the
settlement was the extension of commerce, not the foundation of a city
or of a new empire.
Thus it is still a fundamental law of Europe that all commerce with
a foreign colony shall be regarded as a mere monopoly, punishable by the
laws of the country; and in this case we are not to be directed by the
laws and precedents of the ancients, which are not at all
applicable.
[142]
It is likewise acknowledged that a commerce established between the
mother countries does not include a permission to trade in the colonies;
for these always continue in a state of prohibition.
The disadvantage of a colony that loses the liberty of commerce is
visibly compensated by the protection of the mother country, who defends
it by her arms, or supports it by her laws.
Hence follows a third law of Europe, that when a foreign commerce
with a colony is prohibited, it is not lawful to trade in those seas,
except in such cases as are excepted by treaty. Nations who are, with
respect to the whole globe, what individuals are in a state, are
governed like the latter by the laws of nature, and by particular laws
of their own making. One nation may resign to another the sea, as well
as the land. The Carthaginians forbade the Romans to sail beyond
certain limits,
[143]
as the Greeks had obliged the King of Persia to
keep as far distant from the sea-coast as a horse could gallop.
[144]
The great distance of our colonies is not an inconvenience that
affects their safety; for if the mother country, on whom they depend for
their defence, is remote, no less remote are those nations who rival the
mother country, and by whom they may be afraid of being conquered.
Besides, this distance is the cause that those who are established
there cannot conform to the manner of living in a climate so different
from their own; they are obliged therefore to draw from the mother
country all the conveniences of life. The Carthaginians,
[145]
to render
the Sardinians and Corsicans more dependent, forbade their planting,
sowing, or doing anything of the kind, under pain of death; so that they
supplied them with necessaries from Africa.
The Europeans have compassed the same thing, without having recourse
to such severe laws. Our colonies in the Caribbean islands are under an
admirable regulation in this respect; the subject of their commerce is
what we neither have nor can produce; and they want what is the subject
of ours.
A consequence of the discovery of America was the connecting Asia
and Africa with Europe; it furnished materials for a trade with that
vast part of Asia known by the name of the East Indies. Silver, that
metal so useful as the medium of commerce, became now as merchandise the
basis of the greatest commerce in the world. In fine, the navigation to
Africa became necessary in order to furnish us with men to labour in the
mines, and to cultivate the lands of America.
Europe has arrived at so high a degree of power that nothing in
history can be compared with it, whether we consider the immensity of
its expenses, the grandeur of its engagements, the number of its troops,
and the regular payments even of those that are least serviceable, and
which are kept only for ostentation.
Father Du Halde says
[146]
that the interior trade of China is much
greater than that of all Europe. That might be, if our foreign trade did
not augment our inland commerce. Europe carries on the trade and
navigation of the other three parts of the world; as France, England,
and Holland do nearly that of Europe.
