Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/667

This work is a commercial monthly periodical, and contains information upon the commerce of Spain and her western colonies, together with the condition of her trade with the principal cities of Europe. Prices-current, rates of exchange, and shipping business appear regularly in the volumes. The most important information which it affords with regard to Mexico is that relating to the freedom of the ports, and the shipping business at Vera Cruz. Mention is also made of the agricultural condition of various parts of the country, and of the culture of certain valuable productions. The rapid development of commerce had opened a new literary field which demanded a special treatment not unworthy of the highest order of ability. Bishop Huet had in common with other learned investigators given a dissertation on the trade of the ancients, in which the middle ages found an exponent in Ioannis Angelii a Werdenhagen de Rebuspublicis Hansaticis Tractcus; but these failed to meet the wants of the practical merchant. The well arranged maritime history of Morisot was more to his taste, but it was insufficient, and had to yield to Richard, Traité Général du Commerce. A still more practical work, and the most valuable so far issued, is An Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origin of Commerce, London, 1704, 2 vols, 4to, by Adam Anderson, a clerk of the South Sea Company for above forty years. Its success caused the issue of a new edition in 1787, enlarged to four volumes quarto, republished in 1801. 'Beginning with the earliest records of the Jews and Greeks, the development of industrial arts and sciences is reviewed in connection with trade, migration, and colonization, at first by centuries, but soon year by year. Legislative measures, finance, treaties, naval operations, and other projects affecting trade are also included. The first volume closes with the fifteenth century: the second with the seventeenth; the third with 1762; the latter containing to a great extent the personal observations of the author while connected with mercantile affairs. The fourth volume is a continuation by the publishers for the period 1762-88, bristling with details and statistics. The work is evidently the result of years of labor, and research into obscure as well as standard authorities. The earlier period indicates less judgment and completeness, but afterward it improves greatly, and shows more originality. The want of critical skill is a serious fault, and objections may be made to the abundance of statistical and unessential details in the text, and to the compilatory form, combined with a stilted, prosy style. England is of course the main object of the work, particularly in the later portions, wherein the spirit of national prejudice becomes rather glaring.

The success of Anderson's work, perhaps, rather than its faults, induced David Macpherson in 1805 to issue the Annals of Commerce, Manufactures, Fisheries, and Navigation, 4 vols, 4to, wherein he claims to present a complete revision of the former. He recognizes the care bestowed by Anderson upon the period after the discovery of America, and presumes only to prune it of cumbrous details and odd words, adding his own comments in notes; but the earlier period he found it necessary to rewrite. Somewhat over two volumes are devoted to the revision, and the remainder to a history of the last forty years, formed entirely by himself from official papers and public reports, and ignoring altogether the continuation by the publishers of the original work.