all with destruction. When, eventually, out of this struggle emerged five states—Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, and England—strong enough in armed might and rich enough in treasure to engage in larger enterprise, fortune opened for them, first, the Atlantic and then the world arena in which to deploy their unresting energies. As the grateful merchants of London long afterward carved on the tomb of William Pitt, that brilliant forerunner of modern imperialism, commerce was again united with war and made to flourish.
It was the age-old lure of substantial things that sent the path-breakers of the seas on their perilous journeys—Columbus across the Atlantic in 1492 and da Gama around the Cape to India six years later. Their adventures were only novel incidents in the continuous search for riches. Centuries before, the Romans had carried on an immense commerce with the gorgeous East; in Oriental markets they gathered spices, silks, perfumes, and jewels for the fashionable shops of the Eternal City, and from their treasure chests poured a golden stream of specie to pay for these luxuries. In vain did the stern Roman moralists—Puritans of that time—cry out against the thoughtless maidens and proud dames who emptied their purses buying gauds and trinkets brought at such cost from the ends of the earth. When the Romans passed, their Teutonic heirs gazed upon the spoils of the East with the same fascination that had gripped the grand ladies of the Via Sacra. All through the middle ages a traffic in the luxuries of the Orient continued with increasing volume, enriching the Mohammedan and Italian merchants who served as brokers for the bazaars of the Indies and the shops of Madrid, Lisbon, Paris, Bruges, and London. If the risks of the overland journeys were great, the gains of the dangerous business were enormous.
Inevitably, therefore, an ardent desire to enlarge their profits by direct operations seized the traders of Europe, driving first the Italians, then the Spanish, Portuguese,
