IN THE EAST AND WEST INDIES.
347
military navy ; and commerce will acquire a greater book
degree of extenfion throughout the whole univerfe.         XIX-
Commerce produces nothing of itfelf; for it is not commerce,
of a plaflic nature. Its bufinefs confifts in exchanges,
gy its operations, a town, a province, a nation, a part
of the globe, are difencumbered of what is ufelefs to
them, and receive what they are in want of. It is
perpetually engaged in fopplying the refpedive wants
ofmen. Its knowledge, its funds, and its labours, are
all devoted to this honourable and neceffary office. Its
influence could not exift without the arts and without
cultivation: but thefe would be very infignificant with-
out its influence. By pervading the earth, by eroding
the feas, by raifing the obftacles which oppofed them-
felves to the intercourfe or nations, by extending the
iphere or wants and the thirft of enjoyments, it mul-
tiplies labour, it encourages induftry, and becomes, in
fome meafure, the moving principle ofthe world.
The Phoenicians were the firft merchants of whom
hiftory hath preferved the remembrance. Situated on
the borders of the fea. on the confines of Afia and
Africa, to receive and difpenfe all the riches ofthe an-
cient world, they founded their colonies, ahd built
their cities, with no other view but that of commerce.
At Tyre, they were the mafters ofthe Mediterranean;
at Carthage, they laid the foundations of a republic
that traded, by the ocean, upon the richeft of the Eu-
ropean coafts.
The Greeks fucceeded the Phoenicians, as the Ro-
ws did the Carthaginians and the Greeks: they held
the dominion of the fea as well as of the land ; but
they carried on no other kind of commerce, except
that of conveying into Italy, for their own ufe, all the
tiches of Africa, Afia, and the conquered world. When
Rome had invaded the whole world, and had loft all
to acquifitions, commerce returned, as it were, to its
original fource towards the Eaft. There it was efta-
blifhed, while the Barbarians overran Europe. The
Ğraphe was divided ; the din of arms, and the art of
% remained in the Weft ; Italy, however, preferved