Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/304

Chap. VIII. OF MANCHESTER. 373 with mountains in every part, Siftuntia or Lancafhire could not have been divided into many. The country which lay to the. fouth of the Ribble could not have been divided into more than two hundreds, the one perhaps taking in the weftern fide of the country, and the other perhaps comprizing the eaftern. There, could not poflibly have been more than two hundred townfhips to the fouth of the Ribble at the period of this inftitution. And the county in general muft have been considerably populous even in this difpofition of the ibuth, being divided at leaft into three cantrevs or hundreds, and comprizing at leaft three hundred trevs or townfhips. Very populous, we are well aflured ?, was the whole circuit of the ifland in general ; and proportionably fo muft have been every kingdom of it in particular. And the counties of Durham York Cumberland Weftmoreland and Lan~ carter are exprefsly declared to have been uncommonly populous even before the Settlement of the Romans within them '. Nor was this interior difpofhion of the county deftroyed, as at firft fight it may feem to have been, by the conqueft of the Romans and the erection of their towns. . When Agricola in- duced the chiefs to fettle in towns with their amba&on, he did not prevail upon all.. He prevailed upon few. The greater number muft have adhered to their original mode of living. This the fewnefs of the towns which Agricola induced them to ere& very plainly demonftrates. The compafs merely of eight fmall towns, and the narrow precin&s of their cultivated areas, could never have contained the whole natiop, could have con- tained only a very infignificant number, of the Siftuntii. Only one of the neareft chiefs muft have been perfuaded to fettle in the town of Mancunium, atjtended by the train of his amba&on. And he muft have retained ail ii redly his old manfion and his old townfliip, keeping the former perhaps as a lodge for hunting, and ftill ufing the latter as a pafture for his cattle. This chieftain muft have continued to be, as I fliall (hew every of his fucceflbrs in the barony of Manchefter to have in* variably been, an hereditary member of the Britifh parliament ». At that period and for feveral ages after it, the Britifh councils N n muft