132 A. D. 14. 



The payments were made with the tributes extorted from the conquered 

 provinces ; and thus the money given for produce and manufadures 

 preferved fome degree of balance between induflry and rapine, without 

 which the later mufl in a fhort time have drained the fprings, from 

 which its infatiable appetite was fed : or in other words, the farmers 

 and manufadurers were paid with their own money. But let us hear 

 from a Roman author, what Rome beftowed upon the world. ' Italy 

 ' [or rather Rome] is the nurfe and mother of all countries, chofen by 

 * divine providence to make the heavens themfelves more bright, to col- 

 ' ledl into one point the fcattered jurifdidions, and to polifh the rude 

 ' cuftoms of other countries, to unite by intercourfe and converfation 

 ' the difcordant and favage languages of lo many nations, to civilize 

 ' mankind, and, in a word, is deftined to become the one mother-coun- 

 ' try of all the nations upon the face of the earth.' [P/in. Hijl. nat. L. 

 iii, c. 5.] 



But luxury and fuperabundant wealth could not be fatisfied with the 

 produdions of nature and art within the Roman empire, however plen- 

 tiful and various, while there were other gratifications to be found in 

 remoter countries. In order to relieve the wealthy Roman from the 

 load of his fuperfluous riches, the induflrious natives of the moit dif- 

 tant parts of the world were employed in preparing and tranfmitting 

 articles, which were of no real utility, and which, for that very reafon, 

 are mofl eagerly fought after by thofe who want nothing. 



In the review of what may be called the foreign trade of Rome, our 

 own ifland of Britain prefents itfelf firft to our notice, as being con- 

 neded by vicinity and intercourfe with Gaul, the country which con- 

 cluded the furvey of the home trade of that great empire. We luckily 

 pofTefs the materials for a more ample detail of the Britifh trade ; and 

 in a work intended for Britifh readers, a more particular attention to 

 the antient commerce of our own ifland, will not, I prefume, need any 

 apology. 



The commercial and friendly intercourfe between the Britons and 

 Gauls, which had fubfifl;ed before the invafion of Julius Caefar, flill 

 continued, and was probably increafed in confequence of the greater 

 aflortment of goods now in the hands of the Romanized Gallic mer- 

 chants. But the trade appears to have been entirely paffive on the part 

 of the Britons No antient author has mentioned any other kind of 

 veflels belonging to them than boats, of which the keel and principal 

 timbers were made of light wood, and the bottom and fides of a kind 

 of bafket work of ofiers, the whole being covered with hides. [T'inueus 

 ap. Plin. L. iv, c. 16 — C<^f. Bell. civ. L. i, c. 54 Solin. c. 24 and ap- 

 parently Ruf. Fejl. ylvien. Or a mar. v. 105] At this time the Ibuthern 

 mouth of the Rhcnus, or, more properly fpcaking, the fliore of the 

 Morini (antient inhabitants of Ficardy and Flanders) in whofe terri- 



