Note 29 — PART II. THE EASTERN QUESTION.

“In the sixteenth century all Europe was aghast at the designs of Philip II. of Spain. He had the great mines of the New World, or at least levied a heavy tax on their produce. He seemed to be possessed of inexhaustible riches. He was baffled, beaten, made bankrupt by the Dutch, in whose country there was not an ounce of natural gold or silver, who got all their money by trade, were rapidly becoming the richest nation of Europe when Philip had ruined Spain and brought down the Genoese traders, on his declaring himself bankrupt” (J. E. Thorold Rogers’s, “The Economic Interpretation of History,” p. 95).