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his legitimate offspring, Commerce. As the once great Rome declined, so each separate state, no longer held in bondage, launched upon the waters; but their attempts were weak. Ages rolled on, and no great maritime power appeared. The sceptre of the sea was nowhere to be found. At last the lion of St. Mark, from his amphibious abode, descried the long-lost talisman. The repentant god permits its seizure, and sends it greeting to his future spouse, by the winged beast.

"Perched on the Rialto, he displays the sign as an earnest of the future prosperity and power of the infant state. Sweeping a broad circle round the sea-girt city of fishermen, and touching with the magic wand their humble cottages, at once are seen to rise her palaces, and proud argosies to fill her every channel, freighted with the treasures of the East and the wealth of the West.

"Satisfied, the winged lion alighted on the trophy pillar of St. Mark, and at each annual immersion of the ring, when Venice renewed her vows to her ocean lord, he gave away the bride.

"While reciting the deeds of the lords of the Rialto, let us not forget the bold navigators of Genoa la Superba, or the merchant princes of La bella Firenze, the ancestors of Columbus and Americus. The god, now no longer to be confined to narrow bays and land-locked waters, with one bound cleared the Pillars of Hercules and attained the

ocean sea.

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Here, on the nearest main, he discovered the descendants of Zidon, who inhabited the shores of Tarshish. These the god inspired with the adventurous spirit of Phoenicia's earliest sons, and a De Gama was chosen to lead new enterprises. The treasures of India were no longer to dribble through their ancient and accustomed channels, in a hundred insignificant rills, one half of each always absorbed by the scorched and thirsty medium through which they

COMMERCE IN THE OLDEN TIME.

17

passed; running the gauntlet of the rapacious Turk, the faithless Arab, and the insatiate Egyptian; but in future were destined to flow in one uninterrupted stream through the ocean wave.

"The inquiring spirit of the West was no longer to be baffled in fruitless attempts to penetrate to the dominions of 'Prester John,' through the phalanx of barbarians who stood sentinel over the ancient routes of commerce.

"The proud ensign of Don Vasco, unfurled to the breeze with the motto of 'Free Trade and Sailors' Rights,' floated over the heads of the modern Argonauts. Hereafter, the gold of Cobi, the spices of Cathay, the perfumes of Hydramaut, the chintses of Calicut, and the golden fleece of Serica, were to be laid at the feet of the daughters of Europe, enhanced in value only by the merited and well-earned rewards of their adventurous sons.

Let

"De Gama's enterprise being crowned with success, the doom of Venice and her eastern colonies was sealed. us, however, never forget this obscure and almost forgotten page of history. Let us of the West teach it to our sons, that they may remember and admire the noble expiring efforts of the commercial and political sages of the Rialto and the Piazza. Their wisdom and sagacity taught them, that unless some bold demonstration was promptly made the empire of St. Mark must fall. A plan was submitted to the Cerebus who guarded the passes of the Nile and Red Sea, to permit the ancient canal of the Pharaohs to be reopened, and commerce to flow through it as free as its waters, subject only to a small but sure transit duty; and the vessels of the island city to sail without interruption to India and home; thus securing for ages a certain income for Egypt, and a continued prosperity to Venice, which might have lasted to this day.

"But the proud Osmanlee, the ignorant, self-conceited, and opinionated Pharaoh of the day, vetoed the project for his

country's good, and the petition of the resident merchants was spurned from his footstool as a dangerous symptom of foreign influence.

"The canal of the Pharaohs still remains under the sands of the desert, and Egypt soon became what it now is; the arteries of the island city have become choked up, and Venice a by-word.

"The great highway of nations once opened to the farther East, the nations of the utmost West all strove for the prize it offered. The mynheer's amphibious capitals raised their proud heads above the fens of Holland, and became the marts of the Western World, the seats of learning and science, of religion and laws.

"And when, in the progressive order of things, the sceptre was to leave her, her mantle fell upon the shoulders of the ocean queen, the triune kingdom of the isles. The Babylonish garments which adorned the proud Semiramis in her best estate, or the robes, and fine linen, and Tyrian purple which decked King Solomon in all his glory, never imparted a tithe of the lustre which, by this newly-acquired ornament, the British throne was destined to acquire.

"Need I refer you to the voluminous pages of England's history, and follow her crescent fortunes up to the full orb of her meridian splendour? The veriest tyro can count the gradations upon his fingers, from Magna Charta to old Queen Bess, from Flodden Field to Waterloo, from the Spanish armada to the day of Aboukir.

"As Van Tromp, with the broom at masthead, swept clean the channels of the North, so did Nelson cause the besom of destruction to annihilate from 'Indus to the pole' the enemies of British commerce. Then

"The battle of the Nile

Shall be foremost on the file,'

as long as

"Britannia rules the main.'

WESTWARD MARCH OF COMMERCE.

19

"But another cycle of commercial and naval grandeur is fast approximating towards its final conclusion. The resplendent era of Old England's glory is growing dim; her sun has passed its zenith, and already casts its oblique rays upon the white cliffs of Albion.

"The spirit of the fatherland, descending upon its offspring, causes the 'Star of the West' to be a herald of glad tidings unto the nations. Then

"Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise;'

and, as long as

"The star-spangled banner shall wave o'er the free,'

may we and our children never forget, that, wherever commerce has been cherished, it has raised a tower of strength and a pillar of glory, the dread of tyrants and the envy of demagogues.

"The blood of our patriotic fathers was shed around this altar of our national pride. The soil has scarce yet absorbed the life-streams that flowed in its defence; the spirits of the departed are yet hovering around the holy fire which they bound themselves, in sacred honour,' ever to keep burning, to see if their sons are faithful to the trust they delegated to them.

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May its light be a beacon that shall continue to rally all good men and true, and the glare of its flame be a terror to all such roaring lions' as would seek to extinguish the living source of our independence and the palladium of our liberties.

"Call me enthusiast if you will; but I beg you to remember that, ages ere this became Holy Land' to the Christian world, events here took place, the influence of which has been felt throughout the world, and which gave an impulse to the human mind such as nothing of the same nature has ever equalled. Civilization, wealth, and refinement have been carried to the uttermost ends of the earth by systems of colonization and commerce, which took their initiative

from the spot where I am now writing. Say not that I would fain raise up here from the stones of the fallen altars of Moloch a temple unto Mammon, and fall down to worship at its shrine. No! a holier and a purer feeling is inspired by these reflections, when I consider that you and I are fathers, in our modern state, bound to place before our sons the best models from the earliest times down to our own.

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What have I to do with traffic and trade, colonies and commerce? doubtless will be your exclamation ere you get half through this long extract.

If I have wearied your patience with a topic which may seem out of place, and not in good keeping with what I proposed to entertain you withal from these regions, yet (to follow out one of the concluding ideas of the extract) let us remember that we are daughters of the modern Tyre, and that no few of our nearest and dearest are prone to "go down to the sea in ships" in quest of gain, or to profit by the noble vessels of our merchants, to roam the wide world over in search of pleasure, improvement, or health.

Since this epistle was commenced, we have had another interesting day; the most so since we landed in Syria. At midday we visited the site of Tyre, and are now encamped in the vicinity near some of the most extraordinary antiquities in the East, all of which I must reserve for another occasion to describe to you, as I am now called upon to listen to Mr. R.'s reading of the good book relating to "the crowning city, whose merchants were princes, whose traffickers were the honourable of the earth." Therefore, au revoir.

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