India and Europe and of the resultant profits levied on transit merchandise. The Mediterranean, hitherto a middle sea, no longer held that position ; it had to wait three and a half centuries, till the opening of the Suez Canal, before it could resume its place as a highway and a battlefield.
Syrian merchants had therefore to depend more upon overland trade. As the terminus of the route leading to Baghdad and Basrah, Aleppo began to flourish as a centre of internal trade for the empire and of international trade between Europe and Asia. It eclipsed for the time being Damascus, as the ports of Alexandretta and Tripoli eclipsed Beirut. In fact it remained until the mid-seventeenth century the principal market of the entire Near East. A sizable Venetian colony grew in Aleppo. Their consular reports refer to arrivals at both Aleppo and Damascus of caravans with spices from India. Spices were in special demand for preserving meat in those pre-refrigeration days.
Venetian traders in the Syrian cities and ports soon had competitors — first French, then English. A 1740 Franco- Turkish treaty put not only French pilgrims to the Holy Land but all other Christians visiting the Ottoman empire under the protection of the French flag. These concessions served as the basis of the later French claim to protect all Catholic Christians of Syria. Besides Aleppo the French had settlements (factories) at Alexandretta, Tripoli, Sidon, Acre and al-Ramlah. They and their English rivals tried to satisfy the Western taste for Eastern luxuries promoted during the Crusades. The list of native products was headed by silk from Lebanon, cotton from Palestine, wool and oil. Competition with sea traders was keen but the Portuguese insistence on high, almost monopolistic, prices gave the traders in Syria their chance. No enduring benefits evidently accrued to Syria from this new development in its trade, which was largely in European hands. The population of the land continued on its downward course in numbers as in prosperity.
