etail.

Europeans, with the superior degree of knowledge they possessed, and
particularly that of the use of fire-arms: incited also by the love of
gold; and careless of keeping their word with the unsuspecting
natives, soon triumphed wherever they went, and the consequence
was, that both nations brought home immense riches. The trade of
Venice, Alexandria, and Aleppo, was all transferred to Lisbon, {60}
and never was so small a country so suddenly enriched; and it may be
added, more quickly deprived afterwards of the chief source of its
wealth.

The Dutch had triumphed over the power of Spain, on their own soil,
and they soon rivalled that of Portugal in the East. It was a very
different thing to combat the natives, and to fight with the Dutch, who
very soon deprived Portugal of the rich means of wealth she had
discovered in India.

The prosperity of Portugal, arising from its possession =sic= in the
East, continued at its height exactly a century. Its decline is accounted
for by the following causes.

---
{60} Lisbon had its depot for the north of Europe, at Antwerp, and the
value of the consignments have been estimated at a million of crowns,
annually; but this is, probably, an exaggeration.
-=-

[end of page #62]

Its domineering principles, too great an extent of conquests, which
were widely scattered, and the haughtiness of the Portuguese, both
towards the natives and Europeans; the envy and rivalship which
brought the Dutch into the same countries; a great want of attention
and energy; and, lastly, giving a preference to the trade to the Brazils.
The Brazils had been first discovered by the Portuguese, afterwards
seized upon by the Dutch, whom they, however, expelled about the
middle of the sixteenth century; that is, about fifty years after its first
discovery, and an equal period of time previous to the decline of their
trade in India.

The possession of the whole of this lucrative trade, that had enriched
so many great nations, and that by so easy a channel, and without
almost any contest, for nearly a whole century, had so enriched the
small kingdom of Portugal, that after being too eager, and grasping at
too much, it was almost ready to resign the whole without a struggle,
had it not been for some reasons of another sort. {61} So immense
was the influx of wealth, from the united sources of India and the
Brazils, that the former, which has been at every other period the
object of ambition of all n