The progress of commerce during the last hundred years, the period of time to which we are at present to direct our attention, has been so rapid, its ramifications are so complicated, and the objects it embraces so various and numerous, that it will not be possible, within the limits to which we must confine ourselves, to enter on minute and full details respecting it; nor would these be consonant to the nature of our work, or generally interesting and instructive.

During the infancy of commerce, as well as of geographical science, we deemed it proper to be particular in every thing that indicated their growth; but the reasons which proved the necessity, or the advantage, of such a mode of treating these subjects in the former parts of this volume, no longer exist, but in fact give way to reasons of an opposite nature—­reasons for exhibiting merely a general view of them.  Actuated by these considerations, we have been less minute and particular in what relates to modern geography, than In what relates to ancient; and we shall follow the same plan in relation to what remains to be said on the subject of commerce.  So long as any of the causes which tended to advance geography and commerce acted obscurely and imperfectly—­so long as they were in such a weak state that the continuance of their progress was doubtful, we entered pretty fully into their history; but after a forward motion was communicated to them, such as must carry them towards perfection without the possibility of any great or permanent check, we have thought it proper to abstain from details, and to confine ourselves to more general views.  Guided by this principle which derives additional weight from the vastness to which commerce has reached within the last hundred years, we shall now proceed to a rapid and general sketch of its progress during that period, and of its present state.

From the first and feeble revival of commerce in the middle ages, till the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, the Italian republics, and the Hanseatic League, nearly monopolized all the trade of Europe; the former, from their situation, naturally confining themselves to the importation and circulation of the commodities supplied by the East, and by the European countries in the south of Europe, and the districts of Africa then known and accessible; while the latter directed their attention and industry to those articles which the middle and north of Europe produced or manufactured.

The discovery of the Cape of Good Hope gave a different direction to the commerce of the East, while at the same time it very greatly extended it; but as it is obvious that a greater quantity of the commodities supplied by this part of the world could not be purchased, except by an increase in the produce and manufactures of the purchasing nations, they also pushed forward in industry, experience, skill, and capital.  The Portuguese and Spaniards first reaped the fruits of the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope; subsequently