rude tribes which fettled there acquiring infenfibly fome idea of regular government, and fome relifh for the functions and comforts of civil life, Europe began to awake from its torpid and inactive ftate. The firft fymptons of revival were difcerned in Italy. The northern tribes which took poffeffion of this country, made progrefs in improvement with greater rapidity than the people fettled in other parts of Europe. Various caufes, which it is not the object of this work to enumerate or explain, concurred in restoring liberty and independence to the cities of Italy i). The acquifition of these roused induftry, and gave motion and vigour to all the active powers of the human mind. Foreign commerce revived, navigation was attended to and improved. Conftantinople became the chief mart to which the Italians reforted. There they not only met with a favourable reception, but obtained fuch mercantile privileges as enabled them to carry on trade with great advantage. They were fupplied both with the precious commodities of the east, and with many curious manufactures, the product of ancient arts and inge nuity, which still fubfifted among the Greeks. As the labour and expence of conveying the productions of India to Conftantinople by that long and indirect courfe which I have defcribed rendered them extremely rare, and of an exor. bitant price, the Induftry of the Italians difco

i) Hift. of Charles V. vol. I p. 33.

vered other methods of procuring them in grea ter abundance, and at an easier rate. They fometimes purchased them in Aleppo, Tripoli, and other ports on the coast of Syria, to which they were brought by a route not unknown to the ancients. They were conveyed from India by fea, up the Perfian Gulph, and afcending the Euphrates and Tigris, as far as Bagdad, were carried by land across the Defert to Palmyra, and from thence to the towns on the Mediterranean. But from the lengt of the journey, and the dangers to which the caravans were exposed, this proved always a tedious, and often a precarious mode of conveyance. At lenght, the Soldans of Egypt, having renewed the commerce with India in its ancient channel, by the Arabian Gulf, the Italian merchants, notwithstanding the violent antipathy to each other with which Chriftians and the followers of Mahomet were then poffeffed, repaired to Alexandria, and enduring, from the love of gain, the infolence and exactions of the Mahometans, established a lucrative trade in that port. From that period the commercial spirit of Italy became active and enterprifing. Venice, Genoa, Pifa, rofe from inconfiderable towns to be populous and whealty cities. Their naval power increased; their veffels frequented not only all the ports in the Mediterranean, but venturing fometimes beyond the Streights, vifited the Maritime towns of Spain, France, the Low Countries and England; and

by diftributing their commodities over Europe, began to communicate to its various nations fome tafte for the valuable productions of the east, as well as fome ideas of manufactures and arts, which were then unknown beyond the precincts of Italy.

Their progrefs favoured by the Crufades.

While the cities of Italy were thus advancing in their career of improvement, an event happened, the moft extraordinary perhaps in the history of mankind, which, instead of retarding the commercial progrefs of the Italians, rendered it more rapid. The martial fpirit of the Europeans, heightened and inflamed by religious zeal, prompted them to deliver the Holy Land from the dominion of infidels. Vaft armies, compofed of all the nations in Europe, marched towards Afia, upon this wild enterprise. The Genoefe, the Pifans, and Venetians furnished the transports which carried them thither. They fupplied them with provifions and military ftores. Befide the immenfe fums which they received on this account, they obtained commercial privileges and establishments, of great confequence in the fettlements which the Crufaders made in Palestine, and in other provinces of Afia. From thofe fources, prodigious wealth flowed into the cities which I have mentioned. This was accompanied with a proportional increase of power, and by the end of the Holy War, Venice, in

particular, became a great maritime ftate, poffeffing an extenfive commerce, and ample territories k). Italy was not the only country in which the Crusades contributed to revive and diffuse fuch a fpirit as prepared Europe for future difcoveries. By their expeditions into Afia, the other European nations became well acquainted with remote regions, which formerly they knew only by name, or by the reports of ignorant and credulous pilgrims. They had an opportunity of obferving the manners, the arts, and the accommodations of people more polifhed than themfelves. This intercourfe between the eaft and weft fubfifted almoft two centuries, The adventurers, who returned from Afia, communicated to their countrymen the ideas which they had acquired, and the habits of life they had contracted by vifiting more refined nations. The Europeans began to be fenfible of wants with which they were formerly unacquainted; new defires were excited; and fuch a tafte for the commodities and arts of other countrys gradually spread among them, that they not only encouraged the refort of foreigners to their harbours, but began to perceive the advantage and neceffity of applying to commerce themselves 1).

By the difcoveries of travellers by land.

The communication, which was opened between Europe and the western provinces of k) Effai de l'Hiftoire du Commerce de Venife p. 52. &c. 1) Hift, Charles V. vol. I. p. 25. &c.

Afia, encouraged feveral perfons to advance far beyond the countries in which the Crusaders carried on their operations, and to travel by land into the more remote and opulent regions of the eaft. The wild fanaticism, which feems at that period to have mingled in all the fchemes of individuals no less than in all the counfels of nations, firft incited men to enter upon those long and dangerous peregrinations. They were afterwards undertacken from prospects of commercial advantage, or from motives of more curiofity, Benjamin, a Jew of Tudela, in the kingdom of Navarre poffeffed with a fuperftitious veneration for the law of Mofes, and folicitous to vifit his countrymen in the eaft, whom he hoped to-find in such a state of power and opulence as might redound to the honour of his fect, fet out from Spain in the year 1160, and travelling by land to Constantinople, proceeded through the countries to the north of the Euxine and Cafpian feas, as far as Chinese Tartary. From thence he took his route towards the fouth, and after traverfing various provinces of the farther India, he embarked on the Indian Ocean, vifited feveral of its iflands, and returned at the end of thirteen years, by the way of Egypt, to Europe, with much information concerning a large diftrict of the globe, altogether unknown at that time to the western world m). The zeal of the head of the Chriftian church cooperated with the fuper

m) Bergerou Recueil des Voyages, &c, tom, I, p. 1.