Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/502

 Chap. XI!. O F TA A N C H E ST E R. 467 " Somferfetfhire was the fame for the moft part.. And Dorfet- « (hire too. was full of the like forefts. . And in thefe counties lc feem to have been the parts where the Belgaefirft. fettled."**^ All this is certainly falfe. The fbuthern coaft of the ifland muft naturally have been the beft-inhabited of any. And the iflands of Cornwall a&ually carried on a commerce with the Phoenicians before the Belgae arrived. Devonfhire Cornwall Dorfetfliire and Somerfetfhire were inhabited by no Jefs* than five tribes, and were planted with many towns, of the Britons before the Romans came, and had all a confiderable number of modern towns after they came. And if thefe counties were full of forefts before the Belgae came, and even remained fo afterwards, the fettlements of the Belgae muft have very little afFefted the con- dition of the country. But as the Belgae fettled, not merely in' thefe counties, but all along the fbuthern .coaft .(fee Caefar), fo they carried on a great trade from Hampfhire and the Jfle of Wight. P. 35. — " The Belgae had/been ufed to live, not, like the " Brigantes [or native Britons], in woods, but — in towns and " villages ; and — cities and towns now began to be built by the " Belgae." But fee Caefar* s and Dio's account of the Britifli town which Caefar ftormed among the, Belgae of Kent, and com- pare them with Caefar's account of Caflivelaun's town among the old Britons and his general defcription of the Britifh towns, and they will all be found to be the fame. — " The Belgae of Kent, not mixing with the Britons, as the " others feem to have done, formed a diftinft people— and were " called Nouantaeor new inhabitants." -The Nouantae are the inhabitants, not of Kent, butof Eflex, in Ptolemy, and of Eilex and Middlefex in Richard. —Thefe Nouantae were " called alfo Nou-cantae, and the Fore- The people are nowhere called Nou-cantae ; land the pro- montory is called by Ptolemy, not Noucantium, but Acantion -or Gantion, Promontory or The Promontory* O o o 2 P. 36.
 * " land of Kent was called from them Noucantium by Ptolemy/'