Note 187-6 — Chapter IV

What England is to-day, the Italian commercial cities were in the 16th and 17th centuries, viz.: the chief market for foreign loans. (Compare Mun, England's Treasure, 1664, ch. 4.) The Genovese loaned money in foreign countries at 2 and 3 per cent. (Montanari, Della Moneta, 1867, cap. 2.) It is said that the Dutch, in 1778 invested 1,500 millions of livres in foreign national debts, especially those of France and England. (Richesse de Hollande, II, 178.) According to J. G. Forster, Schriften, III, 335, in 1781 alone, in Europe, 800 millions loaned capital. The Niederl. Jaerboek of 1789, p. 729, estimates the amount of interest coming from abroad, English and French not included, at from 50 to 60 millions of florins. About 1844, according to official estimates, 1,000 million florins in foreign loans, that is one-third of whole national income. (Allgemeine Zeitung, 1844, No. 35.) Now, Belgium, 300 million florins, in Austrian evidences of indebtedness. (Quarterly Review, October, 1862, 402.) According to Baumstark, Staatswissensch. Versuche über Staatscredit, etc., 1833, 77, foreign nations, between 1818 and 1825, borrowed in England £49,000,000; and, about the same time, England participated in Russian, French and North American loans to the extent of £55,500,000. It is said that there were, in 1843, £25,000,000 English capital in the canals, railroads and banks of the United States. (Porter, Progress of the Nation, III, 4, 634.)