Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/475

 '440 THE HISTORY Book tonally among the Romans ah appellation equivalent to Britarv* micus, and was applied equally with it to all the Gathel and Gael of all the ifland *. But about forty-five years after the Chriftian epoch, when Vefpafian attacked the Proper Belgae, the Durotriges, and the Damnonii, fought thirty battles with them and took more than twenty of their towns * many of the Belgae would naturally put to fea from the coafts of Dorfetfhire Devonshire Somerfet and Cornwall, and fteer for the fbuthern coafts of Ireland ia. That the Belgae or Fir-Bolg were fettled in feveral colonies upon the fbuthern fliore of the ifland, is fufficiently evident upon the face of the Irifh hiftory. That the Belgae or Fir-Bolg came gene- rally from the coafts of Devonfhire Cornwall and South-Somer- fetfhire, or the extended dominions of the Damnonii, is equally evident from their other appellation of Fir-Damnon among the Irifh. The firft body of the Belgae that landed in Ireland was a finall embarkation from Inis-huna or the green-ifland * This is fuppofed by Macpherfon to be fome part of the great ifland of Britain and fomewhere upon the fouth-weftern coaft of it. But as the name demonstrates it to have been an ifland, fo the cir- cumftances mentioned concerning it evince it to have been a confiderable ifland at the point of Cornwall. It is plainly im- plied to have been an ifland eminent for its arts of navigation, and is exprefsly declared to be feparated from another land by a narrow tempeftuous frith and to ftand at the meeting of two feas **. It muft therefore have been one of the Silley iflands, Flaecus to Vefpafian, he fays thus, Tuque o Pelagi cui major aperti Fama, Cakdoniut poftquam tua Carbata vexit Oceanus, Phrygios prius indignatus Iulos. Here we fee the word Galedonius applied even to the Britifh or fouthern channri» to the fea which is (aid to have difdained the yoke of Julius Cacfar. And even at the death of Vefpafian the Romans had not yet entered into the real Caledonia at aS. the i
 * Many inftances might be given. But one will be fufficient. In an addrefi of Valerius