the social evils they were supposed to promote, as from the hatred engendered by religious prejudice. Yet, in spite of the atrocious treatment which the Jews[1] received from the so-called Christians, they were the means of greatly developing the commerce of the middle ages, and have ever since rendered important service in promoting friendly intercourse between nations, and thereby extending civilization. To the Jews, as much as to the Lombard merchants, we are indebted for the introduction of bills of exchange, by which great facilities have been afforded for the development of trade, and a system of the most perfect security established for remittances to the most distant parts of the globe.
The records of Marseilles demonstrate that the French had for many centuries carried on an important trade with all the Mediterranean ports, as also with India by way of Alexandria,[2] but they do not seem to have made voyages to any of the Atlantic ports. Though daring as mariners in the early portion of their commercial career, the French relapsed during the middle ages into idleness, and, with the exception of the inhabitants of Marseilles, were more notorious as wreckers, who plundered any vessel cast on their shores, than as industrious and honest seamen. Those who resided on its western shores had a wide field for their plunder; for in those days, when vessels hugged the land, the wrecks
- ↑ One of the most atrocious massacres of the Jews on record is that which broke out on the departure of Richard I. (who had protected them) for the Holy Land in A.D. 1190. (William of Newbury, iv. c. 1. Matthew Paris, p. 157.)
- ↑ See full details of the course of the trade of Marseilles in Pardessus, i. pp. 62-5; ii. p. 6, &c. Ruffi, Hist. de Marseille, 2 vols. fol. 1696; and Fabre, Hist. de Marseille, i. p. 301, &c.
