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it their interest to unite against Venice, and the Genoese, by supporting their ally with money, expelled the Venetians from Constantinople.  The imperial family was reinstated, and the Genoese had the suburbs of Pera as a reward for their assistance.  This quarter of the city the Genoese fortified, and the Venetians were compelled to return to their old channels by Egypt and Syria. {52}

During those contests, Florence arose, and became a rival both to Venice and Genoa; and some degree of civilization, or, at least, a taste for the luxuries and produce of the East was brought into the north of Europe by those who returned from the crusades.  The consumption of Asiatic produce in the North, occasioned depots to be established, and Bruges and Antwerp became to the north, what Venice and Genoa were to the south of Europe.  The Hans Towns rose to wealth and opulence just about that period; but the effects of wealth acquired by commerce in the north were found to be different from what they had been in southern climates.  Italy was going to decay, while three of its cities were increasing in splendour; but, in the north, the riches acquired by the cities set industry at work:  manufactures were improved, and affluence and the comforts of life became more generally diffused than they had ever before been, or than they are in the southern countries even at the present day.

While Constantinople was thus rivalling the cities of Italy, a new revolution took place there, which overturned the Greek empire, and established that of the Ottomans.

When Mahomet II. mounted the throne, the Genoese were expelled from Pera, {53} and Venice regained the preponderance in eastern

—–­ {52} The depot of India commerce being in the Crimea, which is near the mouth of the Wolga, is a strong reason for believing the trade was carried on through the Caspian Sea; but it has been asserted, that the chief route was directly by land from the Tigris to the Black Sea.  This seems a very good way; but, in that case, why cross the Black Sea to go to the Crimea?  Any one who looks at the map will be able to judge that as being very unlikely.  Doctor Robertson, however, has taken no notice of this difficulty.  Two things are certain:  that the depot was in the Crimea, and that merchants never go out of their road without having some cause for doing it.  The reader must then determine for himself.

{53} Before the Genoese were expelled, their insolence and avarice had time to display themselves in their full extent; about the year thirteen hundred and forty, says an eye-witness, [end of page #57] (Nicepho[r/i]as [illeg.] Gregoras,) they dreamed that they had acquired the dominion of the sea, and claimed an exclusive right to the trade of the Euxine, prohibiting the Greeks to sail to the Chersonesus, or any part beyond the mouth of the Danube, without a licence from them.  The Venetians were not excepted, and the arrogance of the Genoese went so far as to form a scheme for imposing a toll on every vessel passing through the Bosphorous. -=-