in full enjoyment of wealth, and of every thing they
wanted.

The Hanseatic Towns, from at first merely defending their trade
against the Danes, became their conquerors at sea, and, in the years
1361 and 1369, they took and burnt Copenhagen, the capital, twice.
Crowned heads became desirous of their alliance, and no power, at
sea, was equal to oppose them; but their insolence to the Dutch, their
oppressions of the English, of Spain, and other powers, laid the
foundation for their decline in less than half a century afterwards.
{44}

As the first three centuries of this extraordinary and unexampled
association, were employed in protecting commerce and protecting
trade, all those concerned in its success were ambitious of being
admitted members, or received as friends: but when they began to
assume the pride and dignity of sovereigns, and to meddle in political
quarrels, to become irascible and unjust, their numbers diminished;
and of those members that remained, the wealth and prosperity
gradually began to fall.

The Dutch, by great industry, by a strict attention to their interest, and
by keeping down pride, continued to increase in wealth, while the
Hans Towns and Flanders were considerably advanced in their
decline.

While this was happening on the northern shores of the continent of
Europe; to which and to Italy trade had been nearly confined, Spain
and Portugal, France and England, began to see the advantages of
manufactures and commerce, and to encourage them. If money was
wanted to be borrowed, it was either in Italy or Flanders, or in some of
the Hans Towns, that it could alone be found; so, that though the
monarchs of those days rather despised commerce, yet, as a means
merely of procuring what they found so indispensably necessary, they
began to think of encouraging it.

Spain had taken possession of the Canary Islands, and Portugal had
made conquests on the coast of Africa, and seized the island of

---
{44} In 1411 they were compelled, by Henry IV. of England, to give
him satisfaction for some of the injuries done.
-=-

[end of page #48]

Madeira in the early part of the fifteenth century, and by an attention
to naval affairs, and setting a value on possessions beyond seas, laid a
foundation for those new discoveries which have totally changed the
face of the world.

In Europe then, at the end of the fifteenth century, the nations were
nearly in the following state. The Italians, possessed of