Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/420

Chap. XI. O K MAN C H E'6 T* R. % >&s the firft veflel pf the Phoenicians to our coafts.* And MBdacritife opened the firft commerce of the Phoenicians .with our fathers* JIc found the gauntry to abound particularly with , tin, < a n)eta£ that was equally ufeftil 'and rare. JH[e trafficked with the Bri- tons for it. jA&d he returned home with a cargo of the filverf jnetal • Such was the firft faint effort of the commercial genius of Britain, which, was afterwards :toco»dij& the veffeis of the ifland to tine j(har«s of Cadi* of Carthage and of Tyre* and even to'raife the Bri toes fuperior in bolduefs and i» flcili to the Phoenicians i Such wa? the firft '.feint eiFort of the Commercial genius of Brit tain, which has fiuce difplayed fuch a variety of powers, has £nce opened fuch a variety of channels, and has diffufed tha Jbvsrflowing tide of this Britifh commeiice into all the quarters of the globe ! This faftort was firft imade&me years before the time tof . Herodotus and about the period of the &xfk inhabitation of JLancafliire* about five hundred years before the sera of Chrift The Belgae were not yet landed in the ifland The original Britons ftill poflefled 'all the fotithtm regions of it And the trade was opened wjth the Britqns of die Caffiterides fix Sillcy Hbuads Thefe iilands were tb*n. only ten in number, though they are now more than an hundred and forty ; and only nine of them were inhabited as late as the reign of Tibe- Tins V But one of them waft gregtly fujfcrior iniize to die reft, end was therefore diftinguiibed by tbegehecal appellation of the whole, being denominated Calfiteris Infiila or the one Titv- iflandf. This was the firft land of Britain, which the Phoeni- cians reached and with which Midactttus began the traffic for xin "« This was known amdngft the Britons by 'the appellation i of Silura, and muft have communicated the ftill-remaining name of Silley td its contiguous* ifles ?. And this was then a very con- siderable ifland, .being feparated only by a dangerous ftrait from v theihore of Cornwall 7 , and reaching beyond the prefent un- inhabited iflet of Silley. The prefent ifles of Brehar, Gue^ -Trefcaw, St^ Martin's, and St/Sampfon's, the rbdks and i (lets' ad- D-dd jdimn^