Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/501

 4 6$, THE HISTORY. Booklt therefore very different conftru&ions, though nearly in the fame : line. — >« The natives were.difarmed." See the falfity of this before. P. 8. — " The Pifts feem to have been a tribe of the native Britifh " race, who, having been chaced into the northern parts by the M tient inhabitants." What a medley of miftakes! The Pifts were certainly of the native Britifh race. They had not been chaced into the north by the conquefts of Agricola. They were themfelves the antient inhabitants. Mr. Hume gliding over thefe parts of liis hiftory in an hafty fuperficial manner, fo as fcarcely to give us any real information concerning the interior ftate of the ifland during the whole Rod- man period, he could not poffibly fall into fo many miftakes as muft unavoidably attend a minute and particular detail of them. . Such is Mr. Carte's. CTa-rte vol. I. P.' 1 5 — 22. — Britain is fuppofefd by Mr. Carte to be firft planted in the reign of Pluto or of Mercury and about two thoufand years before Chrift.' But the ferics of his own Hiftory pretty plainly oppofes it, which fixefc the firft migrations of the Geltae of which we. can fettle the period, migrations occafioned by populbufnefs, not till* nearly fifteen hundred years after the fupppfed population of Britain (p. 22).' And indeed the hiftory of the population of "England, and v particularly of Ireland, . evinces the ifland not to have been inhabited till about a thou- fand years before Chrift. P. 22. — The Belgae came into Gaul (fays MK Carte) about one hundred and thirty years before Chrift. — They came even . into Britain about three hundred and fifty before Chrift. P, 24. — " The Britons in all probability received the Belgae " friendlily." See-Richard for thecontrary, and indeed Caefar. — " Devonfhire andCornwalle were all in amanherawild foreft '*• at the coming of the Belgae, as they continued to be in a great- s-degree till one- hundred and fifty years after the Conqueflt " Somerfet- -
 * < conquefts of Agricola, had there intermingled with the an*-