Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/51

Rh gnomes and distributed by them among men. Their uses have never been known; but I explain them thus. Money is a ticket entitling the bearer to goods of a given value.....Masonic medals were tickets entitling one initiate to receive assistance from another. It may be objected, that there was no great difficulty of stealing or forging them. True; but to be a beneficial holder of these baubles it was necessary that you should be able to explain the meaning of all the devices upon them. According to the sort of explanation given by the party, it would appear whether he was an authorized holder, and, if such, what rank of initiation he had attained, and consequently to what degree of favour and confidence he was entitled. The names selected to adorn these British medals are unequivocally marked with hatred for the Romans, and love for the memory of those Britons who warred against them ; and they imply an exhortation and a compact to expel and exclude the Roman nation from the island." This view is supported by some plausible arguments; but it is far from being altogether satisfactory. The denial, however, of the title of these coins or medals to be accounted a species of ancient money, is no mere piece of modern scepticism. Camden, though he inclines to a different opinion, expresses himself upon the point with the greatest hesitation. "For my part," he says, "I freely declare myself at a loss what to say to things so much obscured by age; and you, when you read these conjectures, will plainly perceive that I have groped in the dark." "Whether this sort of money passed current in the way of trade and exchange," he observes in conclusion, "or was at first coined for some special use, is a question among the learned. My opinion (if I may be allowed to interpose it) is this. After Cæsar had appointed how much money should be paid yearly by the Britons, and they were oppressed under Augustus with the payment of customs, both for exporting and importing commodities, and had, by degrees, other taxes laid upon them, namely, for corn-grounds, plantations, groves, pasturage of greater and lesser cattle, as being