and India, exhausted by the repeated ravages of Mohammedan conquerors. But fince that important discovery may be looked upon as the commencement of a new era in riches and in commerce, the incidents arifing from it do not properly come under our furvey in a Differtation on the wealth of the ancient world. Till that discovery took place, the great marts of Europe poffeffed but a very fcanty portion of gold and filver; for, the jealous avarice and gloomy bigotry of the Mohammedans, in whofe hands now centred the whole trade of Afia, had combined to shut out the European merchants from the rich port of Alexandria, and other maritime cities of the East. During this interval, however, a very feasonable supply of gold and filver bullion was fortunately met with in the mines of Germany, first discovered and wrought, according to Dr. Brown, about the year of Chrift 700; traditions on the spot having fixed the working of that of CHREMNITZ, the principal and most productive, several English miles in length, to that period. The rigid maxims that urged the Mahommedan defpots of the East to exclude from all participation of the Indian commerce the Christian traders being afterwards somewhat mitigated, Europe received, through the medium of the Genoefe and the Venetians, an additional influx of the precious metals produced on the coast of Africa and the regions bordering on the Aurea Cherfonefus. Still, however, in the great trading-cities of Europe, gold and filver were comparatively fcarce, and continued fo, till a series of fuccefs, as unexpected as unmerited, opened to the Spaniards the vast ftorehouses of these metals in America, whence the golden deluge has never fince ceafed to flow into their ports; and, being thence diffused through the courts and palaces of Europe, has given them the appearance of Afiatic fplendour, and fixed on the heads of her auguft fovereigns diadems more brilliant than those that anciently sparkled on the brow of the great Shah of Perfia or the magnificent Mogul of India. END OF THE DISSERTATION ON THE IMMENSE TREASURES IN BULLION AND COINED MONEY OF THE ANCIENT SOVEREIGNS OF ASIA. |