UNIV. OF MIGN The QUARTERLY REVIEW OCTOBER, 1918 No. 457 I. The English in the Levant Horatio F. Brown II. The Ethics of Prussian Statecraft Walter Alison Phillips IV. The Principles of Reconstruction. 11. VIII. Charles L. Temple C. Ernest Fayle Herman Cohen J. Wells Arthur Waugh Constitutional Reform in India Valentine Chirol IX. Is India a Nation? J. M. Russell X. A Tame House of Lords Sumner XI. A Great Naturalist: Sir Joseph Hooker E. Ray Lankester Canada Subscription, $4.65 per year; Single Copies, $2.00 Entered at New York Post Office as Second Class Matter LONDON: JOHN MURRAY THREE YEARS From September 3, 1914 to September 3, 1917 By BARR FERREE A chronological survey of the bombardment of Reims from September 3, 1914 to September 3, 1917, giving the details of the bombardment day by day for the entire period of the siege. This is the first book in any language dealing with the bombardment of Reims in its entirety, and presents a remarkable picture of daily life at Reims under the shells. The book includes a general introduction on the bombardment, a sketch of the history of the cathedral, churches and other notable buildings, and a history of the destruction of the cathedral and other important structures in Reims. Price, post-paid, $2.00 LEONARD SCOTT PUBLICATION COMPANY 249 West 13th Street, New York THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. 457.-OCTOBER, 1918. Art. 1.-THE ENGLISH IN THE LEVANT. 1. Calendar of State Papers, Venetian. Vols VIII, IX. H.M. Stationery Office, 1894, 1897. 2. State Papers: Turkey MSS. Public Record Office. 3. Historical Manuscripts Commission; Hatfield Papers. Parts IV to XIII. H.M. Stationery Office, 1892-1915. 4. The Principal Navigations, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation. By Richard Hakluyt. Edition. Twelve vols. MacLehose, 1903-1905. New 5. Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches. By J. von Hammer. Pest: Hartleben, 1828. 6. Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches. By J. W. Zinkeisen. Gotha: Perthes, 1855. 7. Négociations de la France dans le Levant. Edited by E. Charrière, 1848-1860. 8. The Early History of the Levant Company. By M. Epstein. Routledge, 1908. THE early history of the English in the Mediterranean falls into two well-defined periods. The first, which forms the subject of this article, is concerned with sporadic attempts to create a Levant trade, which eventually became concentrated and effectively continuous in the Levant Company or Company of Turkey Merchants. This period covers the years 1553 to 1603, and is notable, chiefly, for the difficulties experienced by the London merchants and their agents in Constantinople. The material is to be found mainly in the despatches of those agents, addressed to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and to his son Robert, Lord Salisbury, as yet unpublished, and in the despatches of the Venetian ambassadors at Vol. 230.-No. 457. S the Sublime Porte, addressed to the Doge and Senate. The second period runs from the year 1603 to 1651; it begins in the illegal, fortuitous and unofficial operations of the pirates, continues through Mansell's official expedition in 1620, and ends with Blake's successful establishment of Great Britain as a sea-power in 1650. Burghley, in pursuit of his far-sighted commercial policy, encouraged and fostered every effort of the instinctive national tendency to expand. He bent his mind to the extension of the trading markets of England; and it is hardly too much to say that the history of modern British commerce begins with him. Burghley and the statesmen who worked with him clearly grasped the possibilities of England's island position. The policy of diffusus in orbe Britannus' was to be carried out by the opening of new 'vents' or markets for English goods. For Burghley, with singular lucidity and prescience, had already enunciated the fundamental doctrine of modern economists: 'It is manifest,' he says in a memorandum on the importation of wines, 'that nothing robbeth this realme of England but when more merchandise is brought into the realme than is carried forth,' because the balance must be payd with money.' For the furtherance of this policy of foreign trade it was necessary to foster the mercantile marine, the ultimate source of sea-power; for in peace it feeds trade, and in war it alone can feed the navy. The essentials of a mercantile marine are men, ships, sea-craft, and, when these have been secured, the erection of trading companies for the use of them and the exploitation of foreign markets. On the matter of men and sea-craft Burghley argued that there were three ways of breeding the one and learning the other-fishing, the carrying trade, and piracy. Piracy, though a good school, was abhorrent to the merchant, who was, in the last resort, the chief factor in Burghley's scheme; the carrying trade was still non-existent, though it would come with the development of his policy; fishing, therefore, was the great school in which men are made meter to abide stormes and become common mariners than by sailing in ships to Roone or Burdeaux.' Burghley fully grasped the fact that the wealth of a nation lies in its trade. The spectacle of Spain, whose policy aimed at amassing actual treasure, did not impress him. He no doubt was pleased if Drake could seize the Flotta; but he knew that all the riches of Peru would not make England so securely rich as a flourishing oversea trade; and so he bent his efforts to the creation of negotiable goods and the opening of markets for venting the same. Nor did the close restrictive policy which aimed at fostering native shipping by Navigation Acts, such as those adopted by Venice and Spain, meet with his approval. He was all for developing the healthy growth of the mercantile marine, nourished on the natural food of exchange and barter. So the question of foreign markets claimed his attention; and he set himself to encourage private venture, and to erect upon that foundation the fabric of the great trading companies, the Merchant Adventurers, the Muscovy Merchants, the Levant Company and, later, the India Company. It is with the Levant Company that we are here concerned. Undoubtedly, the richest field for commerce in the 16th century was the Mediterranean; it was the trade route for oriental merchandise, and also the producer of sugar, currants, sweet wines and oil. Both the Orient and the Levant were good markets for woollens, kersies, leather and tin, thus furnishing the outward and the homeward cargoes. This rich trade had hitherto virtually been a Venetian monopoly. Sir William Monson has recorded the reasons why England did not embark earlier upon traffic in the Levant. He says there was not enough English shipping; that the danger from Barbary pirates was prohibitive; and, lastly, that the trade was already in the hands of Venice. But the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, which eventually transferred the oriental trade-route from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, and the disastrous effects of the League of Cambrai (1510), gradually undermined Venetian commercial supremacy. Venetian trade to England slowly dwindled; in 1532 the last Flanders Galley' put into Southampton; and in 1587 the last Venetian argosy was cast away on the shingles at the Needles. The Levant trade thus became open to competitors at the very time when England was starting on her commercial career. In common with all the commercial developments of |