222 HANDEL
Mere destruction, however, does not explain everything. In some parts of
Europe, in neighbouring Bohemia, for example, the setbacks of the seventeenth
century acted as a spur for future development. In Poland's case, it is necessary
to explain not just the damage of the war years, but, more importantly, the fail-
ure to recover during the years of peace. Present-day Polish historians seek the
primary cause within the agrarian system, seeing serfdom and the folwark as
crucial elements in a vicious circle of increasing exploitation and diminishing
returns. Others pay equal attention to the growing deficiencies of both demand
and supply. Already in the 1640s, before the wars, ballast sailings from Danzig,
which rose from 5.7 per cent in 1641 to 20.5 per cent in 1648, indicate that for-
eign entrepreneurs were not finding grain in the required quantity or at the right
price.^25 In the 1650s, when Dutch merchants were again offering record prices
in Danzig, they could not fill their ships. Thereafter, conditions in Western
Europe changed, and demand fell. Large tracts of the Netherlands, of France,
and of East Anglia were drained, and turned over to cereal production. The
Dutch moederhandel was gradually overhauled by the French and English, who
had new preferences and new routes. As markets and price differentials shifted,
there was no longer the same strong incentive for entrepreneurs to send their
ships to Danzig. The break in continuity which occurred in the decade after 1648
was sufficient to interrupt people's habits and to sever contacts built up over the
preceding century. Like an engine starved of fuel, the Vistula Trade stalled, and,
although restarted, was never able to fire again at more than half power. It fell
into a vicious crisis of confidence, where diminished demand increasingly dam-
aged the producer's ability to effect supply. Once the Amsterdam Fleet failed to
appear in Danzig in its accustomed numbers, the Polish nobleman felt less will-
ing to risk the long river voyage with his grain, and having omitted to arrange
his contract in advance, would be less likely to make provision for a large sur-
plus in the following summer. In this way, he put himself in a position where he
could not have met the former demand for grain, even if it had reappeared. Once
the trade cycle was broken, it could not be easily restored. The western entre-
preneur needed to have confidence in the Polish market before dispatching his
fleet to the Baltic, just as the Polish producer needed to have confidence in the
foreign demand before he sowed his corn. Once their mutual confidence was
shaken, the Vistula Trade could not possibly flourish, even when the wind blew
fair and the corn grew tall.
Economic recovery was further hampered by the decentralized structure
of the Polish-Lithuanian state. In neighbouring Prussia, whose independent
existence was launched in the midst of the Republic's Swedish War, economic
problems of similar magnitude were overcome by state enterprise. The mercan-
tilism of the Hohenzollerns, whose Excise officers excelled their grenadiers in
determination and ruthlessness, brought the sandy wastes of Brandenburg into
bloom, and enabled Konigsberg to succeed to Danzig's supremacy on the south-
ern Baltic shore. In the Republic, such methods were simply not permissible.
The king possessed neither the means nor the opportunity to take control of