chap. XVI.

TRADE OF ITALY.

23

discovery, or rather the resource, of trading inmoney, or what afterwards obtained the nameof banking. Assuming the denomination of thecountry in which it had originated, or, to speakmore correctly, had been revived, the Lombards ofItaly formed establishments in the trading citiesof all other countries; and, as the channels throughwhich all the transactions in the precious metals,and their substitutes, bills of exchange, were con-ducted, such great profits accrued, and such greatfortunes were accumulated by the apparently smallcharges for brokerage, commissions, and exchanges,as made the most powerful monarchs of the age de-pendent on the Lombards for pecuniary assistance.

We are thus warranted in assuming, that as thegreater part of the precious metals must of ne-cessity remain in the country which is the mostrich in its stock of general commodities, the greatestportion of those metals which Europe containedwould be stored in the Italian peninsula.

In the age to which we now look, the empire ofGermany, with the territories which have sincebeen amalgamated with it, comprehending Bohe-mia, Prussia, and Hungary , furnished the littlegold and silver which kept up the general stockof the European world.

Those countries, under a rigid feudal system,were divided into various independent and pettysovereignties, all jealous of their neighbours, andfrequently embroiled with them. The roads and