NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

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to follow that route to which they were accustomed. Togo from Alexandria to Mustris, required (according toPliny) ninety-four days. In the year 17885 the Boddam,a ship belonging to the English East-India Company, of athousand tuns burden, took only fourteen days more tocomplete her voyage from Portsmouth to Madras- Such arethe improvements which have been made in navigation,

NOTE XX. Sect. II. p.

It was the opinion of Plato , that in a well-regulatedcommonwealth the citizens should not engage in commerce,nor the state aim at obtaining maritime power. Commerce,he contends, would corrupt the purity of their morals,and by entering into the fea-fervice, they would be accustomedto find pretexts for justifying a conduct so inconsistent withwhat was manly and becoming, as would gradually relaxthe strictness of military discipline. It had been better forthe Athenians , he asserts, to have continued to fend annuallythe sons of seven of their principal citizens to be devouredby the Minotaur, than to have changed their ancientmanners, and to have become a maritime power. In thatperfect republic, of which he delineates the form, heordains that the capital should be situated at least ten milesfrom the sea; De Legibus, lib. iv. ab initio. These ideasof Plato were adopted by other philosophers. Aristotleenters into a formal discussion of the question, whether aState rightly constituted should be commercial or not; andthough abundantly disposed to espouse sentiments oppositeto those of Plato , he does not venture to decide explicitlywith respect to it; De Repub. lib. vii. c. 6. In ages whensuch opinions prevail, little information concerning com-merce can be- expected.

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