^2 Before Chritt 550. 



genes Laertius, profefled a great averfion to the fea j or that the Phoe- 

 nicians ihould not many ages ago have found out, that an anchor with 

 only one fluke had fcarcely a chance of taking hold of the ground. 



550— THE BRITISH COMMERCE, 



which in the prefent day animates the mofl diftaut quarters of the 

 o-lobe by the vaft extent of its operations, and covers the Ocean with 

 the innumerable multitude of its fliips, begins now to emerge from the 

 thick darknefs which had hitherto overwhelmed the tranfadions of the 

 Phoenicians and their colonifts with our iflands, by means of a faint 

 ray of light, proceeding from a poem upon the Argonautic expedition, 

 written by Onomacritus in the charader of Orpheus. This Grecian 

 poet leads his heroes over every part of the world known to him ; and, 

 in the courfe of their adventures in the Atlantic ocean, he makes them 

 pafs an ifland called lerne, which is apparently Ireland. The llory, 

 though ridiculoully abfurd, is a valuable document of the mofl: antient 

 commercial hiftory of Britain ; as it affords a flrong prefumption, that 

 Phoenician traders mufl have reforted to the Britifli iflands for a very 

 confiderable time, feeing that even the Greeks had obtained fome con- 

 futed idea of the exiftence of the mofl remote of the two principal Brit- 

 ifli iflands, which had tranfpired from fome of the Phoenicians of Gadir, 

 or the Carthaginians, the only Mediterranean navigators, by whom our 

 iflands could be vifited in early times *. 



* The notion of an extenfive Iradi; carried on even in his time, 1[ three centuries after Herodotus) 



with Britain by the Greeks in a very early age, though there was a coiifidcrrble trading intcr- 



and of the Dritilli language being compoftd in a couifc with the people living on both fuies of the 



great meafurc of words learned from tranfieiit Straits of Abydos, (now the Dardanelles) tliere 



Grecian feamcn, (as if the Britons had till then were vciy tew who palfcd the Straits of Hercules ; 



been deftitute of words to exprefs the moll com- there was little intercourfe with the nations living 



mon objefts of nature) though taken up by fevetal in the extremities of Europe and Libya (or 



authors of rcfpec^table abilities, in grateful parti- Africa) ; and the outer fea (the Atla.itie ocean) 



ality to the Greeks, as tlic authors of feience and wasunknown, that istofay, unknowntotheGreeks, 



literature to the other parts of Europe, appears to who knew the Straits of Abydos, for furely it was 



be contradicted by Herodotus ; who, tliough he well known to tlie Phoenicians of Gadir. And 



was the bell Grecian geographer of his age, and this obfcrvation of fo judicious and faithfid an a>i- 



liad made every inquiry in his power, acknowleg- thor is a dccidve proof, that the trade to Tar- 



<d, tliat he knew r^othing of the Caffiterides, (gc- teflus, fo accidentally Humbled upon by Cola'us, 



ncrally agreed to have been I'.ic Sillcy ifles, or the was not kept up by the Greeks, and that there 



fouth-wtll part of Britani) fuilher tlian that tin was no Grecian commerce ivith Britain. Strabo 



was brought fiom them ; a clear proof that no alfo fays exprcfsly, [Z. \\\, p. 265] tiiat the Phcc- 



Grceks had any dirid't intercourfe with them, nicians of Gadir monoj)ohzed the trade to the 



Moreover he tcllV. us, that TartclTus, in the fouth Cafliterides, even after the Romans had vcffels on 



part of Spain, near the weft entry of the Straits, the Ocean ; though he feenia therein to have lo!l 



was an iintiicd and unknown emporium, when Co- fight of the trade carried on acrofs the Channel, 



Ixusavrivedat it by accident 641 years beforeChrifl, which will be noticed in due tinic. 



whicli it could fcarcely have been, if any Grecian Were it neceffary to add any further proof, it 



vcliels had ever palfed it in the way to the Caffitcri- niiglit be obfervcd, that Timoflhcncs, Eratofthc- 



dej, which, by every hypothefis, were fituated be- nes, and the wiitcrc before them, knew very little 



yoiid the Straits. [HeroH. I., iii, c. 115 ; L. iv, of Spanifli or Gallic affairs, and ftill lefs of Ger- 



0152.] Polybiusobfervee, [Z,. xvi, f.if.. I4]that, many, Britain, and the Gctic and Baftarnic na- 



I 



