om of the
Baltic. It was a typical naval war for sea control and commercial
advantage, in which the Dutch as a rule seem to have got the better,
and in which the legend first made its appearance of a Dutch admiral
sweeping the seas with a broom nailed to his mast.

From this time the power of the Hansa declined. This was partly
because the free cities came more and more under the rule of German
princes with no interest in, or knowledge of, commerce; partly
because of rivalry arising from the union of the Scandinavian states
(1397) and the growth of England, France, and the Low Countries
to national strength and commercial independence; and partly also
because of the decline of German fisheries when the herring suddenly
shifted from the Baltic to the North Sea. Underlying these varied
causes, however, and significant of the far-reaching effect of
changing trade-routes upon the progress and prosperity of nations,
was the fact that, when the Mediterranean trade route was closed
by the Turks, and also the route through Russia by Ivan III, the
German cities were side-tracked. Antwerp and Amsterdam were not
only more centrally located for the distribution of trade, but
also much nearer for Atlantic traffic--an advantage which Germany
has ever since keenly envied.

Long before the rise of the Low Countries as a maritime power,
Ghent and Bruges had enjoyed an early preeminence owing to their
development of cloth manufacture, and the latter city as a terminus
for the galleys of Venice and Genoa. After the silting up of the
port of Bruges (1432), Antwerp grew in importance, and in the 16th
century became the chief market and money center of Europe. Its
inhabitants numbered about 100,000, with a floating population
of upwards of 50,000 more. It contained the counting-houses of
the great bankers of Europe--the Fuggers of Germany, the Pazzi
of Florence, the Dorias of Genoa. Five thousand merchants were
registered on the Bourse, as many as 500 ships often left the city
in a single day, and two or three thousand more might be seen anchored
in the Scheldt or lying along the quays.[1] Amsterdam by 1560 was
second to Antwerp with a population of 40,000, and forged ahead
after the sack of Antwerp by Spanish soldiers in 1576 and the Dutch
blockade of the Scheldt during the struggle with Spain.

[Footnote 1: Blok, HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE NETHERLANDS, Part
II, Ch. XII.]

This early prosperity of the Netherland cities may be attrib