ants of Antwerp had a central place where they could meet for
purposes of union and combination. Those of London had none. As yet
union had only been practised for the regulation of trade prices and
work. True, the merchant adventurers existed, but the spirit of
enterprise had as yet spread a very little way.

Gresham determined to present to his fellow citizens such a Bourse as
the merchants of Antwerp had enjoyed for centuries. He built his Bourse;
he gave it to the City: he gave it as a place of meeting for the
merchants: he gave it for the advance of enterprise. The Queen opened it
with great State, and called it the Royal Exchange. It stood exactly
where the present Royal Exchange stands, but its entrance was on the
south side, not the west. And no gift has ever been made to any city
more noble, more farseeing, more wise, or productive of greater
benefits.

45. TRADE.

PART III.

The merchants got their Exchange. What did they do in it? They did most
wonderful things with it. Greater things were never done in any
Exchange. For the first time they were enabled to act together: and it
was the most favourable opportunity that ever happened to any trading
community. The charters of the foreigners were abolished: the markets of
Bruges were depressed in consequence of the civil wars already
beginning: that city itself, with Antwerp and Ghent, was on the point of
ruin. The way was open, and the spirit of enterprise was awakened. In
ordinary times it would have been the love of gain alone that awakened
this spirit. But these were not ordinary times. The people of Western
Europe took a hundred years to discover that Columbus had doubled the
world: that there was a new continent across the ocean. They began to
send their ships across: nobody as yet knew the possibilities of that
continent with its islands: the Spaniards had the first run, but the
French and the English were beginning to claim their share. Then a way
to India and the East had been found out: we were no longer going to be
dependent on the Venetians for the products of Persia, India, the
Moluccas, China. All those turbulent and restless spirits who could not
settle down to peaceful crafts or the dull life of the desk, longed to
be on board ship sailing Westward Ho. Fortune was waiting for them
there: fortune with fighting, privation, endurance--perhaps death by
fever or by battle: yet a glorious life. Or they might sail southwards
and so round the