Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/23

 sing the two first counties by the right of prior possession, and the three last by the right of a successful invasion, owned at the same period about the same number of cities in subjection to Iseur their metropolis. Since the island was originally possessed from the south, the possessors must have gradually carried their settlements into the North, as they admitted other communities of their brethren into the island, or as the numbers of their own were augmented within it. Kent, the nearest to the continent, must have been first inhabited from it, and in all probability about a thousand years before the nativity of Christ ; and all the long range of the southern coast immediately afterwards. Having thus extended their settlements from the eastern to the western sea, the Celtic colonists would begin to advance towards the north, and must at last reach the southern borders of Lancashire. But the marshes of Cheshire, which extended to the east of Norton, and the unfordable depth of the Mersey, along the margin of which they extended, would effectually prevent their enterance into the county from the south-west. They must have entered it betwixt the village of Norton on one side and the hills of Yorkshire on the other; and the parishes of Ashton, Manchester, Flixton, Eccles, and Warrington must have been the first-inhabited parts of the county. And this memorable event must have happened a considerable time before the invasion of the Brigantes, which was made about the beginning of the Christian æra. At this period, the lengthening line of the Celtic settlements appear from that invasion to have been now carried on to the utmost limits of the present England. This memorable event must have happened even before the numerous colony of the Belgæ, three hundred and fifty years preceding that æra, passed over the narrow boundary of the sea, and settled, like the primitive possessors, along the southern coast of the island. At this period, many of the native inhabitants, relinquishing their, antient seats to the Belgæ, found all the central and northern parts of England already occupied, and therefore transported themselves into the uninhabited isle of Ireland. At this