290 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
THE EARLY COMMERCE OF PLYMOUTH. 
BY MR. R. N. WORTH, F.G.8. 
(Read November 29th, 1877; February 21st, 1878.) 
WE may fairly assume that commerce first took her seat on the 
shores of the Sound far back in pre-historic times. We may 
indulge in the belief that to these waters, as well as to those of 
the harbours further west, came the Phoenicians on their quest for 
tin. We know that the keels of Roman galleys, and the sea- 
snakes of Northern Vikingr, stemmed these tides and grated upon 
these shores. And we may feel convinced that these vessels came 
in peace as well as in war; and that the large Keltic population, 
of whose existence in this immediate neighbourhood the great 
cemetery at Mount Batten bears witness, was occupied with some- 
thing more than the hunting or the fishing needed for the supply 
of its own wants. But we cannot prove this, and whether 
Plymouth represents or not the Roman Tamara or the Saxon 
Tamarworth, it is only when our recorded history has well advanced 
that we can take up the tale of the commercial fortunes of the 
chief port of the West. 
In all probability—and Domesday affords a very definite basis 
for the calculation—the populations of the two Suttons did not 
much, if at all, exceed a hundred souls when the Conqueror took 
his seat on the English throne. And Leland, who derived his 
information from local traditions current, and records extant, three 
centuries and a half since, states that in the reign of Henry IL, 
1154-1189, Plymouth was “‘a mene thing as an Inhabitation for 
fischars, and after increased by litle and litle.” ‘This is confirmed 
by an interesting series of documents, of which copies remain 
among the municipal archives.* On an inquisition taken by 
* Nearly the whole of this paper is based upon the authority of our 
municipal records; for permission to inspect which I am indebted to the 
courtesy of our Town Clerk, Mr. Whiteford. They have been re-examined 
throughout with this object. 
