AN

HISTORICAL DISQUISITION

CONCERNING

ANCIENT INDIA.

THUS

SECTION IV.

General Observations.

IV.

HUS I have endeavoured to describe the S E C T. progress of trade with India, both by sea and by land, from the earliest times in which history affords any authentic information concerning it, until an entire revolution was made in its nature, and the mode of carrying it on, by that great discovery which I originally fixed as the utmost boundary of my inquiries. Here, then, this Disquisition might have been terminated. But as I have conducted my readers to that period when a new order of ideas, and new arrangements of policy began to be introduced into Europe, in consequence of the value and importance of commerce being so thoroughly understood, that in almost every country the

SE C T. encouragement of it became a chief object of

IV.

public attention; as we have now reached that point whence a line may be drawn which marks the chief distinction between the manners and political institutions of ancient and modern times, it will render the work more instructive and useful, to conclude it with some general observations, which naturally arise from a survey of both, and a comparison of the one with the other. These observations, I trust, will be found not only to have an intimate connection with the subject of my researches, and to throw additional light upon it; but will serve to illustrate many particulars in the general history of commerce, and to point out effects or consequences of various events, which have not been generally observed, or considered with that attention which they merited.

I. AFTER viewing the great and extensive effects of finding a new course of navigation to India by the Cape of Good Hope, it may appear surprising to a modern observer, that a discovery of such importance was not made, or even attempted, by any of the commercial states of the ancient world. But in judging with respect to the conduct of nations in remote times, we never err more widely, than when we decide with regard to it, not according to the ideas and views of their age, but of our own. This is not, perhaps, more conspicuous in any instance, than in that under consideration. It was by the Tyrians, and by the

IV.

Greeks, who were masters of Egypt, that the SECT different people of Europe were first supplied with the productions of the East. From the account that has been given of the manner in which they procured these, it is manifest that they had neither the same inducements with modern nations, to wish for any new communication with India, nor the same means of accomplishing it. All the commercial transactions of the ancients with the East were confined to the ports on the Malabar coast, or extended, at farthest, to the island of Ceylon. To these staples the natives of all the different regions in the eastern parts of Asia brought the commodities which were the growth of their several countries, or the product of their ingenuity, in their own vessels, and with them the ships from Tyre and from Egypt completed their investments. While the operations of their Indian trade were carried on within a sphere so circumscribed, the conveyance of a cargo by the Arabian Gulf, notwithstanding the expense of land-carriage, either from Elath to Rhinocolura, or across the desert to the Nile, was so safe and commodious, that the merchants of Tyre and Alexandria had little reason to be solicitous for the discovery of any other. The situation of both these cities, as well as that of the other considerable commercial states of antiquity, was very different from that of the countries to which, in later times, mankind have been indebted for keeping up intercourse with the remote parts of the globe. Portugal, Spain,

IV.

SEC T. England, Holland, which have been most active and successful in this line of enterprise, all lie on the Atlantic ocean (in which every European voyage of discovery must commence), or have immediate access to it. But Tyre was situated at the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean, Alexandria not far from it; Rhodes, Athens, Corinth, which came afterwards to be ranked among the most active trading cities of antiquity, lay considerably advanced towards the same quarter in that sea, The commerce of all these states was long confined within the precincts of the Mediterranean; and in some of them, never extended beyond it. The pillars of Hercules, or the straits of Gibraltar, were long considered as the utmost boundary of navigation. To reach this was deemed a signal proof of naval skill; and before any of these states could give a beginning to an attempt towards exploring the vast unknown ocean which lay beyond it, they had to accomplish a voyage (according to their ideas) of great extent and much danger. This was sufficient to deter them from engaging in an arduous undertaking, from which, even if attended with success, their situation prevented their entertaining hopes of deriving great advantage."

BUT could we suppose the discovery of a new passage to India to have become an object of desire or pursuit to any of these states, their science as well as practice of navigation was so

a See NOTE LV.

IV.

defective, that it would have been hardly pos- SEC T sible for them to attain it. The vessels which the ancients employed in trade were so small as not to afford stowage for provisions sufficient to subsist a crew during a long voyage. Their construction was such, that they could seldom venture to depart far from land, and their mode of steering along the coast (which I have been obliged to mention often) so circuitous and slow, that from these, as well as from other circumstances which I might have specified", we may pronounce a voyage from the Mediterranean to India, by the Cape of Good Hope, to have been an undertaking beyond their power to accomplish, in such a manner as to render it, in any degree, subservient to commerce. this decision, the account preserved by Herodotus, of a voyage performed by some Phenician ships employed by a king of Egypt, which, taking their departure from the Arabian Gulf, doubled the southern promontory of Africa, and arrived at the end of three years, by the straits of Gades, or Gibraltar, at the mouth of the Nile, can hardly be considered as repugnant; for several writers of the greatest eminence among the ancients, and most distinguished for their proficiency in the knowledge of geogra phy, regarded this account rather as an amusing tale, than the history of a real transaction; and either entertained doubts concerning the possi

b Goguet Orig. des Loix des Artes, &c. ii. 303.329. c Lib. iv. c. 42.

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