epherds, there are hired servants, but men in a rude state
never hunt for wages: they are their own masters: they may hunt in
society or partnership, but never as slaves or hired servants.
-=-

The progress towards wealth in this new state of things was very slow,
but the equality that prevailed amongst feudal barons, their love of
war and glory, and the leisure they enjoyed, by degrees extended the
limits of commerce very widely, as the northern world never could
produce many articles which its inhabitants had by their connection
with the south learnt to relish and enjoy.

The intermediate countries, that naturally formed a link of connection
between the ancient nations of the east and the rough inhabitants of
the north, profited the most by this circumstance; and we still find the
borders of the Mediterranean Sea, though no longer the seat of power,
the places where wealth was chiefly concentrated.

The impossibility of the inhabitants of the northern countries
transporting their rude and heavy produce, in order to exchange it for
the luxuries of the south, gave rise to manufactures as well as fishing
on the southern confines of the Baltic Sea; from whence arose the
wealth of Flanders, Holland, and the Hans Towns. This forms an
epoch entirely new in its nature and description, and its termination
was only brought on by the great discovery of the passage to Asia, by
the Cape of Good Hope, and to America, by sailing straight out into
the Atlantic Ocean.

The nations that had till those discoveries been the best situated for
[end of page #3] commerce no longer enjoyed that advantage; by that
means it changed its abode; but not only did it change its abode, it
changed its nature, and the trifling commerce that had hitherto been
carried on by the intervention of caravans by land, or of little barks
coasting on the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, (never venturing,
without imminent danger, to lose sight of the shore,) {7} was dropt for
that bold and adventurous navigation, connecting the most distant
parts of the world; between which since then large vessels pass with
greater expedition and safety than they formerly did between the
Grecian Islands, or from Italy to Africa.

Three inventions, two in commerce and the other in war, nearly of
equal antiquity, formed this into one of these epochs that gives a new
feature to things.

The discovery of the magnetic power of the needle improved and
totally altered navigatio