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No part of it can be said to belong to any particular country；
till it has been spread as it were over the face of that country；
either in buildings or in the lasting improvement of lands。 No
vestige now remains of the great wealth said to have been
possessed by the greater part of the Hans towns except in the
obscure histories of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries。 It
is even uncertain where some of them were situated or to what
towns in Europe the Latin names given to some of them belong。 But
though the misfortunes of Italy in the end of the fifteenth and
beginning of the sixteenth centuries greatly diminished the
commerce and manufactures of the cities of Lombardy and Tuscany；
those countries still continue to be among the most populous and
best cultivated in Europe。 The civil wars of Flanders； and the
Spanish government which succeeded them； chased away the great
commerce of Antwerp； Ghent； and Bruges。 But Flanders still
continues to be one of the richest； best cultivated； and most
populous provinces of Europe。 The ordinary revolutions of war and
government easily dry up the sources of that wealth which arises
from commerce only。 That which arises from the more solid
improvements of agriculture is much more durable and cannot be
destroyed but by those more violent convulsions occasioned by the
depredations of hostile and barbarous nations continued for a
century or two together； such as those that happened for some
time before and after the fall of the Roman empire in the western
provinces of Europe。