A Continued series of events during the middle ages kept the attention of European nations directed towards the East. In Greece and Italy the advantages of the Indian trade were never totally lost sight of. The crusades, though they could not fail to create at first much anarchy and distress in the countries whence they emanated, must have had an amazing influence in enlarging the minds of men, and diffusing an acquaintance with the luxuries of the East. The ill effects of those expeditions against the Saracens, in exhausting the resources and retarding the internal developement of European nations, were remotely counterbalanced by the relations to which they gave birth between countries widely separated from one another. The infatuation which led the princes of the West to spend their treasure in the attempt to rescue the Holy Land from the hands of infidels, redounded much to the profit of the Venetians and other maritime states of Italy, who could alone transport the troops or supply them with the provisions which were necessary to enable them to carry on their operations. This influx of wealth into the chief Italian republics gave fresh stimulus and an advantageous direction to their mercantile activity, and contributed to raise them to that degree of maritime prosperity which was destined, at no distant period, to attract the attention and awaken the rivalry of powerful kingdoms.