ir insolence and avarice
had time to display themselves in their full extent; about the year
thirteen hundred and forty, says an eye-witness, [end of page #57]
(Nicepho[r/i]as [illeg.] Gregoras,) they dreamed that they had acquired
the dominion of the sea, and claimed an exclusive right to the trade of
the Euxine, prohibiting the Greeks to sail to the Chersonesus, or any
part beyond the mouth of the Danube, without a licence from them.
The Venetians were not excepted, and the arrogance of the Genoese
went so far as to form a scheme for imposing a toll on every vessel
passing through the Bosphorous.
-=-

commerce, which she maintained, till the discovery of the passage by
the Cape of Good Hope, which opened a new channel, more certain,
much less expensive, and not so liable to interruption from the
revolutions that nations are liable to. It is deserving of observation,
that whatever alterations took place in the channel through which the
India trade was carried on, whatever were the vicissitudes or the
difficulties, the trade itself never was suspended; so great was the
propensity of those who were affluent in the West, to enjoy the
productions of the East. {54}

The vicissitudes of this eastern commerce were thus very great in
former times. The wealth and arrogance which the possession of it
produced, and the envy it excited, may, in general, be ascribed as the
cause; indeed it is not certain whether the envy of the Genoese, at the
success of the Venetians, did not make them, in an underhand manner,
favour those attempts to find out a new channel which might destroy
the prosperity of a haughty and successful rival. {55}

Whether it was so or not, it is certain that the discovery of the passage
by the Cape of Good Hope was not accidental; but that the Portuguese
were induced to listen to the proposal of trading to India by that route,
under the certainty of rivalling the greatest commercial city of the
world, if she should succeed.

Though no new channel can now be expected, and the present one is
every day becoming more easy and frequented, yet the capricious
shiftings of the India trade were not ended by this new discovery.

Instead of the contest being, as formerly, between cities situated on

---
{54} The prices of Asiatic produce were exorbitant. Silk was sold for
its weight in gold; and a Roman emperor refused his empress the
luxury, or rather the splendour, of a silk gown.

{55} Amongst the passions that