THE SPIRIT OF LAWS. BOOK XXI. ·Docuit quæ maximus Atlas. VIRGIL. ENEID. OF LAWS RELATIVE TO COMMERCE CONSIDERED IN THE REVOLUTIONS IT HAS MET WITH IN THE WORLD. CHAP. I. Some general Considerations. THOUGH commerce be subject to great revolutions, yet it is possible that certain physical causes, as the quality of the soil, or the climate, may fix its nature for ever. We, at present, carry on the trade of the Indies, merely by means of the silver which we send thither. The Romans carried annually thither about fifty millions of sesterces; and this silver, as ours is at present, was exchanged for merchandizes, which were brought to the west. Every nation that ever traded to the Indies, has constantly carried bullion, and brought merchandizes in return. It is nature itself that produces this effect. The Indians have their arts adapted to their manner of living. Our luxury cannot be theirs; nor theirs our wants. Their climate neither demands, nor permits, hardly any thing which comes from ours. They go in a great measure naked; such clothes as they have, the country itself furnishes; and their religion, which is deeply rooted, gives them an aversion for those things that serve for our nourishment. They want therefore nothing but our bullion, to serve as the medium of value; and for this they give us merchandizes in return, with which the frugality of the people, and the nature of the country, furnish them in great abundance. Those ancient authors, who have mentioned the Indies, describe them just as we now find them, as to their policy, customs, and manners.* The Indies have ever been the same Indies they are at present; and in every period of time, those who traded to that country, carried specie thither, and brought none in return. CHAP. II. Of the People of Africa. THE greatest part of the people on the coast of Africa are savages and barbarians. The principal reason, I believe, of this, is, because the small countries, capable of being inhabited, are separated from each other by large and almost uninhabitable tracts of land. They are without industry or arts. They have gold in abundance, which they receive immediately from the hand of nature. Every civilized state is therefore in a condition to traffic with them to advantage, by raising their esteem for things of no value, and receiving a very high price in return. CHAP. III. That the Wants of the People in the South are different from those of the North. IN Europe, there is a kind of balance between the southern and northern nations. The first have every convenience of life, and few of its wants: the last have many wants, and few conveniences. To one, nature has given much, and demands but little; to the other, she has given but little, and demands a great deal. The equilibrium * See Pliny, book 6. chap. 19. and Strabo, book 15. is maintained by the laziness of the southern nations, and by the industry and activity which she has given to those in the north. The latter are obliged to undergo excessive labour, without which, they would want every thing, and degenerate into barbarians. This has naturalized slavery to the people of the south: as they can easily dispense with riches, they can more easily dispense with liberty. But the people of the north have need of liberty, for this can best procure them the means of satisfying all those wants which they have received from nature. The people of the north, then, are in a forced state, if they are not either free or barbarians. Almost all the people of the south are, in some measure, in a state of violence, if they are not slaves. CHAP. IV. The principal Difference between the Commerce of the THE world has found itself, from time to time, in different situations; by which the face of commerce has been altered. The trade of Europe is, at present, carried on principally from the north to the south; and the difference of climate is the cause that the several nations have great occasion for the merchandizes of each other. For example, the liquors of the south, which are carried to the north, form a commerce little known to the ancients. Thus the burthen of vessels, which was formerly computed by measures of corn, is at present determined by tons of liquor. The ancient commerce, so far as it is known to us, was carried on from one port in the Mediterranean to another; and was almost wholly confined to the south. Now the people of the same climate, having nearly the same things of their own, have not the same need of trading amongst themselves as with those of a different climate. The commerce of Europe was therefore formerly less extended than at present. This does not at all contradict what I have said of our commerce to the Indies: for here the prodigious difference of climate destroys all relation between their wants and ours. CHAP. V. Other Differences. COMMERCE is sometimes destroyed by conquerors, sometimes cramped by monarchs; it traverses the earth, flies from the places where it is oppressed, and stays where it has liberty to breathe it reigns at present where nothing was formerly to be seen but desarts, seas, and rocks; and where it once reigned, now there are only desarts. To see Colchis in its present situation, which is no more than a vast forest, where the people are every day decreasing, and only defend their liberty to sell themselves by piece-meal to the Turks and Persians; one could never imagine, that this country had ever, in the time of the Romans, been full of cities, where commerce convened all the nations of the world. We find no monument of these facts in the country itself; there are no traces of them, except in Pliny* and Strabo.† The history of commerce, is that of the communication of people. Their numerous defeats, and the flux and reflux of populations and devastations, here form the most extraordinary events. CHAP. VI. Of the Commerce of the Ancients. THE immense treasures of Semiramis, which could not be acquired in a day, give us reason to believe, that the Assyrians themselves had pillaged other rich nations, as other nations afterwards pillaged them. The effect of commerce is riches, the consequence of riches, luxury; and that of luxury the perfection of arts. We find that the arts were carried to great perfection in the time of Semiramis; which is a sufficient indication, that a considerable commerce was then established. In the empires of Asia, there was a great commerce of luxury. The history of luxury would make a fine part of |