Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/156

Chap. V. OF MANCHESTER. 127 anchors rings and nails of Imall vcffcls that have been difco- vered near the extenfive area of the church Thefe indeed may be fuppofed to have been wrought at a Roman foundery there, and to have been afterwards tranfported by land to the veflels at the Ribble-mouth. But fuch a fuppofition would be as abfurd in itfelf as it would be unfupported by evidence. The fite x)f Ribchefter has no mines of iron in its neighbourhood. Every fijte had then a fufficiency of fuel around it. And the trou- ble of the conveyance and the expence of the carriage would be equally great and fuperfluous. Thefe anchors rings and nails j> muft have belonged to the veflels of the garrifon ; and the large ftill-remainiiig cut upon the weftern fide of the church-yard does plainly confirm k. That cut extends for two hundred yards from the river to the north, and is for part of its extent three or four yards in depth and eight or nine in breadth. It could never have been defigned for a military fbfle, becaufe it has no foffes or veftiges of fofles at all corresponding with k. It could have been defigned only for the dock of the garrifon* as the channel of it falls with a gradual defcent to the river. * It was clearly a flip by which at high water a new boat was launched into the river, or an old boat brought up from it for reparation. The ground adjoining to it on the eaft muft have been originally the dock-yard of the town. The veflels muft have ordinarily lain, in the river moored to the banks by rings. And thefe muft have been the many flats and barges in which the Romans made voyages upon the river, warping up the channel ■ with the tide f and laden with the contents of the ftiips that lay „ at anchor in the harbour Thus plainly does the Ribble appear to have been navigated ' by the Romans from the mouth of its current to the town of Bibchefter. Thus plainly does the tide appear to have flowod up the channel of the river to the fite of the town, covering all ■ the rocks in ks channel and all the fsndy meadows and foft jnarihes on its margin, and being bounded only by the natural limits of its lofty banks. And the great difference which now appears indie flow of the tide could never have been occa&mod by