An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations Part 13

The wealth that came to Spain, came in a very unequal distribution, which is a considerable disadvantage, and hastens on that state of things which is the natural forerunner of the decay of a nation. Wealth, arising by commerce, however great its quant.i.ty, must be distributed with some degree of equality; but the great adventurers in the gold mines only shared with their sovereign, and the whole of their wealth came in prodigious quant.i.ties, pouring in upon the country. {63}

{62} Though the Dutch were subject to Spain, yet that had not prevented them from acting in an independent manner in their modes of following trade and commerce.

{63} We see an example of this in our own trade to India. Captains of s.h.i.+ps, merchants, and all those who get money by that trade, come home with moderate fortunes; but the governors, and civil and military officers, who have been settled in the country, come home with princely fortunes, and eclipse the old n.o.bility of the country.

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Both Spain and Portugal, finding that wealth came with such ease from India and America, neglected industry. This, indeed, was a very natural consequence; and, when the sources of their riches began to dry up, they found, though too late, that instead of having increased in wealth, they had only been enriching more industrious nations, and ruining themselves. The gold that arrives from the West pa.s.ses through the hands of its masters with almost the same rapidity as if they were only agents for the English and the Dutch; so chimerical an idea is that of wealth existing without industry.

The Dutch were the only rivals of the Portuguese in the East Indies; for though other nations came afterwards in for a share, yet the transition from wealth to weakness was already made by the Portuguese, before any of them had begun to set seriously to work, in acquiring possessions, or in carrying on trade with that country.

Portugal thus fell, merely from the rivals.h.i.+p of a more industrious and less advanced nation, after having embraced more territory than she had power to keep. Spain fell, because she had embraced a wrong object as a source of riches. {64}

The Hans Towns, which owed their prosperity, partly to their own wisdom and perseverance, in the beginning, and partly to the contempt with which sovereigns, in the days of chivalry, viewed commerce, might, with very little penetration, and much less exertion of wisdom than they had displayed, have seen that the spirit of commerce was becoming general, and that moderation and prudence were necessary to preserve them in their proud situation; but the prudence which they possessed at first had given way to pride, and abandoned them; and the first great stroke they received was from Queen Elizabeth. The ruin of so widely-extended a confederacy could not be astonis.h.i.+ng, and, indeed, was a natural consequence of the changes in the manners of the times: but it was not so with Flanders. There was nothing to have prevented the Flemish from continuing to enjoy wealth, and follow up industry, except in the rivals.h.i.+p of other nations,

{64} So short a time did the wealth remain in the country, that, when the famous armada was fitted out against England, a loan of money was solicited, from Genoa, for the purpose.

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particularly of Holland and England; for, though France was farther advanced, as a manufacturing and wealthy nation, than England, yet it was not in the same line of industry with the people of the Netherlands, whose prosperity was not therefore injured by it in the same degree.

As for the Dutch, they continued to increase in wealth till the end of the seventeenth century, and their decline requires a more particular attention.

In addition to their great industry, the fisheries, and art of curing fish, the Dutch excelled in making machines of various sorts, and became the nation that supplied others with materials, in a state ready prepared for manufacturing: this was a new branch of business, and very lucrative, for, as the machines were kept a secret, the abbreviation of labour was great, and the materials had still the advantage in their sale that a raw material has over manufactured goods; so that the advantages were almost beyond example.

Add to all this, that the Dutch were the first who established the banking system, (copying in part from the Italians,) on a solid plan.

The advantages that Holland enjoyed were, indeed, all of its own procuring, but they were numerous and inappretiable, without counting the trade to India, of which it enjoyed a greater share than any other nation, for a considerable period.

No nation has shewn, so completely as the Dutch, how exterior enemies may be repelled, and difficulties overcome, while there is a true attention to the real welfare of the country. The exertions of the Romans, to conquer others, scarcely surpa.s.sed those of the Dutch to preserve themselves, when they were in a state of necessity; but, when they became affluent, energy and unanimity left them. The manufacturers became merchants, and the merchants became agents and carriers; so that the solid sources of riches gradually disappeared.

All this time, taxation increased, and though no nation ever allowed its manners to be less corrupted by the possession of wealth, yet there was a sensible change; but the change in the way of thinking was the most pernicious. Discontent with the government, and disagreements amongst themselves, completed their misfortunes, while England was [end of page #66] all the time endeavouring to supplant them in the most beneficial sources of their wealth.

The Dutch, fairly sunk by that rivals.h.i.+p, and natural change of things, which transfers the seat of wealth and commerce from one nation to another. There was no violent revolution, no invasion by an enemy; it was the silent operation of that cause of decline, which has been already mentioned in the Second Chapter, and will be farther and more particularly ill.u.s.trated and explained.

The Dutch had a superabundance of capital; the interest of money was low; and wealth had begun to leave Holland long before the symptoms of decay became visible; by which means, the trade of other countries was encouraged, and, as always will be the case, capital emigrated, the moment it could find secure employment, and greater profits than were to be obtained at home. The leading causes of the decline of Holland may be distinguished thus:

The taxes were gradually increasing.

Its superiority in manufactures over other countries was continually diminis.h.i.+ng; consequently, industry was not so well rewarded, and less active.

The merchants preferred safe agencies for foreigners to trading on their own bottom, thereby lending their credit.

Dutch capital was employed to purchase goods in one country and sell them in another: so that the Dutch became carriers for others, instead of manufacturing and carrying for themselves.

The trade to India, and the banking business, were both taken up by other nations; so that Holland then lost her superiority in these branches.

Thus circ.u.mstanced, Holland was gradually sinking, when political troubles, the end of which it is not easy to foresee, put her at the feet of France: an event that would not have happened in the manner it did, when the true spirit of patriotism reigned, that distinguished her in her more prosperous days. From this, at least, there is one distinct lesson to be learnt, that however it may be natural for nations to lose a superiority, owing to arts, inventions, or foreign trade, yet, if the minds of the people and their manners remain pure, they will not be degraded, by falling a prey to an enemy. When Holland was not rich [end of page #67] it resisted Spain in all her glory, during a very hard, arduous, and continued struggle; but then the people were united as one man: there were no traitors to raise a voice for Spain against their country. When Holland was wealthy, it did not even attempt to resist France when invaded; but then Holland was divided, and there were in every city men, who wished more for the plunder than the prosperity of their country.

In viewing the fall of those nations that sunk before the discovery of America, the eastern empire was the last that attracted attention. It had been reduced by the Turks, with a vigour and energy that promised a renovation, which, however, it did not effect. The Turks brought with them the Mahometan religion, which has debased the manners and degraded the minds of every people. Constantinople, by this change, lost the remains of ancient learning and of commerce, which even the weakness of the emperors, and the repeated wars, had not been able entirely to destroy. The Greeks were reduced to a state of subordination and slavery, but the Turks were not civilized. They adopted what was luxurious and effeminate of Grecian manners, yet still retained their former ignorance and ferocity. Amongst modern nations, the Turkish government is, in form, a monster, and its existence an enigma; yet it extended its sway over all that was most valuable or most splendid in the ancient world. Greece, Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, the three Arabias, and countries then but little known, are subject to a brutish people, who do not even condescend to mix with the inhabitants of the country, but who rule over them in a manner the most humiliating and disgraceful. {65}

The Turkish government has never been powerful. The city of Venice was always its equal at sea; and, as it disdains to adopt the systems of other nations, it is every day becoming weaker, in comparison with them. It has formerly maintained successful struggles against

{65} In all other conquests, the conquered and the conquerors have become, at last, one people, when they have settled in the same country, whether Christians or Pagans; but the Turks and Greeks keep as distinct to this day as at the first, and this is probably owing to the nature of the Turkish religion.

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Germany, Poland, and Russia; but that time is now over, and it owes its present existence to the jealousy of other powers. It is possessed of a greater quant.i.ty of good territory than all the leading nations of Europe, Russia excepted; and it is not the interest of men living in less favoured climates, to endeavour to renovate the country of Alexander, and of the other great nations of antiquity.

The Turkish nation is represented as greatly on the decline, but, soon after its establishment, it had every vice that could well exist in a government, and its greatest weakness now arises more from the alteration produced in other nations for the better, than in itself for the worse. The difficulty of keeping people in ignorance is becoming every day greater; and when the Ottoman throne falls the usual order of things will be reversed. For, as other governments may attribute their destruction to corruption of manners, and to ignorance, the Turkish government looks there for its security; and the day that any reasonable degree of light breaks in amongst its subjects will be its last.

To endeavour tracing the causes of decline in a state that owes its existence to its defects, and is in every respect different from other nations, would be useless in the present Inquiry, it has only been noticed to shew, that, in the infinite variety of things, some may owe their existence to what is in general the cause of destruction. [end of page #69]

CHAP. VII. [=sic=--error in printer's copy, should read VIII.]

_General View and a.n.a.lysis of the Causes that operated in producing the Decline of all Nations, with a Chart, representing the Rise, Fall, and Migrations of Wealth, in all different Countries, from the Year 1500, before the Birth of Christ, to the End of the Eighteenth Century, --a Period of 3300 Years_.

From the revolutions that have taken place amongst wealthy and powerful nations to the present time, though the origin has been owing to very different causes, and the decline and removal from one place to another has been attended with circ.u.mstances not similar; yet the same leading cause for that decline may not only be traced easily and distinctly, but is so evident that it is impossible for it to be overlooked or mistaken.

Local situation, or temporary circ.u.mstances, have always afforded the first means of rising to wealth and greatness. The minds of men, in a poor state, seem never to have neglected an opportunity, presented either by the one or the other, and they have generally proved successful, till energy of mind and industry were banished, by the habits of luxury, negligence, and pride, which accompany, or at least soon follow, the acquisition of either.

Where wealth has been acquired first, power has generally been sought for afterwards; and, where power came first, it has always sought the readiest road to wealth, by attacking those who were in possession of it.

The nations and cities on the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, where arts and commerce first began, where agriculture flourished, and population had risen to a high pitch, carried on perpetual struggles to supplant each other; and, in those struggles, the most wealthy generally sunk under; till Alexander, the first great conqueror, with whose history we are tolerably well acquainted, reduced them all to [end of page #70] his yoke; one small and brave people triumphing over the Egyptian and a.s.syrian empires, where wealth and luxury had already produced their effects.

Though this triumph of poverty over riches was very complete, except in one single instance, it did not occasion any real change, either in the abodes of wealth, or the channels of commerce. Tyre, the richest commercial city till then, was ruined, to make way for the prosperity of Alexandria, which became the most wealthy; drawing great part of the commerce from Carthage on the west, and taking the whole from Rhinocolura on the east: but, in Egypt and Syria, Babylon and Memphis still remained great cities.

The whole of this ancient world was for a moment under one chief, but was soon again divided amongst the generals who succeeded to that great conqueror; and the Egyptian and Persian empires became rivals, as Egypt and Syria had been before. The Grecian nations still remained the chief seats of civilization and the fine arts; and this continued till the Romans, originally a poorer people than the Macedonians, conquered the whole. This was the second great triumph of poverty and energy over wealth and grandeur, and, in this struggle, Greece itself fell.

The effects of wealth were not less formidable to the Romans themselves, than they had been to those nations they had enabled that brave and warlike people to conquer; so that the mistress of the world, in her turn, fell before nations that were rude and barbarous, but uncorrupted by wealth and luxury.

The conquerors of Rome were too rude, and too many in number, to become themselves enervated by wealth, which disappeared under their rapacious grasp, and which they neither had the art nor inclination to preserve.

This invasion of the fertile and rich provinces by men rude and ignorant, but who came from northern climates, established a new order of things; and only a small remnant of former wealth and greatness was preserved in Egypt and at Constantinople.

For several centuries of war and confusion commerce and the arts appear to have been undervalued and neglected; but still the taste [end of page #71] for oriental luxuries was not entirely banished, and, at the first interval of peace and safety, sprung up again. It was then that Alexandria, Venice, Genoa, and Constantinople, became the channels through which the people of Europe procured the luxuries of Asia.

Babylon, Memphis, Palmyra, and all the other great cities of antiquity, were no more; even Greece had lost its arts and splendour; Alexandria and Constantinople were repeatedly a.s.sailed, taken, and conquered, by the barbarians, who envied their wealth, but who still found an interest in continuing them as channels for procuring to European nations the refinements of the East. Though Venice and Genoa were wealthy, they were but small, and of little importance; and all the nations who might have crushed them at a blow, only considering them as sea-ports of convenience and utility, allowed them to remain independent.

As an intercourse had been established between the northern and southern parts, a taste for the luxuries of Asia had extended to the sh.o.r.es of the Baltic, soon after the victorious arms of Charlemagne had carried there some degree of civilization, and the Christian religion.