Also read Beatles Lyrics State Of Things This extraordinary and unprecedented state of things gave rise to the Hanseatic League, which rose at last to such importance that those who had been so long seeking after glory, without finding it, began to see the importance which was derived from wealth. They began to see that, even in the pursuit of their favourite object, wealth was an excellent assistant, and the friendship of merchants begun to be solicited by princes, as in the days of Tyre and Sidon. This progress was greatly facilitated and accelerated by the crusades, which, at the same time that they beggared half the nobility of Europe, gave them a taste for the refinements of the East, and taught them to set some value on the means by which such refinements could be procured. In this manner were things proceeding, when three great discoveries changed the situation of mankind. The mariners compass, gunpowder, and the art of printing, were all discovered nearly about the same time; and, independent of their great and permanent effects, they were wonderfully calculated to alter the situation of nations at that period. The navigation of the ocean, which led to the discovery of a passage to the East Indies, and of America, gave a mortal blow to the nations situated on the borders of the Mediterranean Sea, who thus found themselves deprived of the commerce of the East. The discovery of gunpowder, a means so powerful of annoying an enemy, without the aid of human force, which places a giant and a dwarf in some sort upon an equality, was wonderfully adapted for doing away the illusions of knight errantry, that had such a powerful effect in making war be preferred to commerce: while printing facilitated the communication of every species of knowledge. It was then that northern nations began to cultivate arts and sciences, as those of the south under a mild heaven, and on a fertile soil, had done three thousand years before. But ingenuity and invention took a different direction in the north from what they had done in the southern climates; instead of sovereigns and slaves, men were more in mutual want of each other, and therefore a more equal division of the fruits of industry was required. The manufactures of former times had been confined chiefly to luxuries for the great, and simple necessaries for slaves; and commerce, though productive of great wealth to a few, was in its limits equally confined. --- For the dates see the chart, and for their effects, chap. i. book ii. [Transcriber's note: See in the Chart "Mariners Compass /Gunpowder/Printing Invented 1300-1400"]. It was natural that the two nations which had first discovered the passage to the East, and the continent of the West, which abounded with the precious metals, should become rich and powerful, as those cities had formerly done that possessed exclusively the channels of commerce. Those two countries were Spain and Portugal; but here again we find the same fatality attend the acquisition of wealth that had formerly been remarked. It was, indeed, not to be expected, that the steadiness and virtue of the Spaniards and Portuguese could resist the operation of a cause, that neither the wisdom of the Egyptians; the arts and industry of Greece, nor the stubborn and martial patriotism of the Romans could withstand.