had a great market in Germany; while the whole of the east of Europe, up to the frontiers of Turkey and the steppes of Asia, were supplied by German merchants. The poverty of the people, that is to say, the low rate of wages, made the outlay of many manufactures light and remunerative. In Hamburg and the cities of the Rhine, from Frankfort to Aix-la-Chapelle, the wholesale trade throve, and equally so in the frontier lands towards Poland, though in a ruder form, as it was one of barter. Goods and travellers were still conveyed down the Danube in rough wooden boats, which were built for a single voyage, and taken to pieces at the end of it, and sold as planks. And at Breslau the bearded traders from Warsaw and Novogorod sold the carts and horses of the steppes, on which they had brought their wares in long caravans to barter them for the costly products of western civilisation. Already do the Silesian merchants begin to complain that the caravans come less often, and foreigners are dissatisfied on account of the new Prussian red-tapism and customhouse regulations of a strict government. At the same time travelling traders, with their sample cases of knife-blades, and needles, began to find their way from Lennep and Bartscheid to the Seine and the Thames, and the younger sons of great manufacturers met together with Hamburghers in London, Lisbon, Cadiz, and Oporto, and there, as bold and expert speculators, founded numerous firms. As early as 1750, cosmopolitanism had developed itself in the families of great merchants, who looked down with contempt on the limited connections of home. And something of the enterprising and confident character of these men has been communicated to their business friends in the interior. A manly, firm, and independent spirit is to be found about this time pervading all classes.