Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/413

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    • '* tf M £ * & f S'T'OR V -Book*

into Britain till fourteen or fifteen ages at lead after its original commencement, and till an hundred or an hundred and fifty years before the period of Caefar's invafion. At the aera of that inva- fion v the ufe of woolen veftures was nearly confined to the Belgic colonies in the fouth. {• .And'ipoft of ;the original Britons ftill retained the original drefles of their fathers When the county of Lancafter ftooped with a forced fub- jection to the arms and bowed with a chearful fubmiflion to the virtues of Agricola, many woolen manufactories were then car- ried on with fuccefs within the circuit of the Roman empire *• j^ very considerable one was particularly eftablifhed in Garuk fhis was & ioanufa£tory of that pkided, 4*apery which I have mentioned before % And this had beqn long proiecuted by the* ipJEiabitant^ qf Gaul This these^Mre, ip the opep co^msres ^t, was carded oa betwixt the. Gauls itjdthe Britons, mull have been neoeflarily wafted aver intq Britain * : £nd was actually in- troduced into the-iftaud by the commercial colonifts upon its coafts- TUefe coloaifta appear equally fo have; ufed the drapery aBr>ong them and r to have, not impcrtedjt fropi t^e continent % Sycb muft h^MQ cect^inly bepn; the ,,Cfiigiaar gqaw^npemeot of a mat nufa&Qry jq Britain* i whic^ jhaf fiu/ce .been. o£ fijeh po)i|icat confequencq tp the nation,, the iburce of all. her accumulated, weajtji, the bails ofc all her extended power I- But thkmaniw &&bty' could, not long have been confined within the pale of the Belgic' ft^tes. . l£veh ii* the: d^y S: of Caafar feVfcral of tjie Bjritifl* monarchs leem already to. have introduced it. uatp their own kingdoms 9 . f And . from- them it muft have beenea/ily difJufed and" appears to have been actually : fpread over the fhoJ9 face o£ thp ifland ' **. Such muff f have certainty been the original com* mehcemeriV of a, wobFen manufa&Ory u> Lancashire* which ha$. fince been ; or fucfi conS^erable importance to Vt, the^ kind origin of all its commerce, the laeheficial occafi'on of all its greatQefs! E^ut; thi£ manufaftory muft jiaye made little prbgrefs in Lan- cashire before the epoch of the R6ma# advanqe into the Gounty . 1ftie Siftuntraii monarch muft have invited artifts- and* imported. HHplemen'ts from 1 the Ibuthi ; and da,cli Siftunttin baron hatf pro- ' 3 J ' hably