Full Title: A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies. Translated from the French of the Abbe Raynal, By J. Justamond, M.A. The Third Edition: Revised and Corrected. With Maps Adapted to the Work, and a Copious Index. In Five Volumes. Volume the First. London: Printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand. MDCCLXXVII.
Book I. Introduction.
No event has been so interesting to mankind in general, and to the inhabitants of Europe in particular, as the discovery of the New World, and the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope. It gave rise to a revolution in commerce, and in the power of nations; and in the manners, industry, and government of the whole world. At this period, new connexions were formed by the inhabitants of the most distant regions, for the supply of wants that had never before experienced. The productions of climates situated under the equator, were consumed in countries bordering on the pole; the industry of the north was transplanted to the south; and the inhabitants of the West were clothed with the manufactures of the East; a general intercourse of opinions, laws and customs, diseases and remedies, virtues and vices, was established among men.
Every thing has changed, and must change again. But it is a question, whether the revolutions that are past, or those which must hereafter take place, have been, or can be of any utility to the human race? Will they ever add to the tranquillity, the happiness, and the pleasures of mankind? Can they improve our present state, or do they only change it?
The Europeans have founded colonies in all parts, but are they acquainted with the principles on which they ought to be formed? They have established a commerce of exchange, of the productions of the earth and of manufactures. This commerce is transferred from on people to another. Can we not discover by what means, and in what situations this has been effected? Since America and the passage by the Cape has been known, some nations that were of no consequence are become powerful: others, that were the terror of Europe have lost their authority. How has the conditions of these several people been affected by these discoveries? How comes it to pass that those to whom Nature has been most liberal, are not always the richest and most flourishing? To throw some light on these important questions, we must take a view of the state of Europe before these discoveries were made; we must trace circumstantially the events they have given rise to; and conclude with examining it, as it presents itself at this day.
The commercial states have civilized all others. The Phoenicians, whose extent of country and influence were extremely limited, acquired by their genius for naval enterprises, an importance which ranked them foremost in the history of the ancient nations.
They are mentioned by writers of every class. They were known in the most distant climes, and their fame has been transmitted to succeeding ages.
Situated on a barren coast, separated from the continent by the Mediterranean on the one side, and the mountains of Libanus on the other; they seem to have been destined by Nature for the navigation of the sea. Fishing taught them the art of navigation, and furnished them with the purple dye which they extracted from the murex: at the same time the sea-sand led them to discover the secret of making glass. Happy in possessing so few natural advantages, since the want of these awakened that spirit and invention and industry, which is the parent of arts and opulence! […]
Eighteenth-Century Reading Room 