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 purposes. Skins were no doubt still used as articles of dress by many of the less civilized inhabitants who resided in the remote parts of the island; but those Britons who occupied the frequented parts of the coast, or the chief towns, were, from the observations of Cæsar, clothed in better and more comfortable garments, very likely in woollen cloths. As manufactures in wool were among the earliest arts which first brought England into notice as a great commercial nation many centuries afterwards, it is reasonable to suppose that woollen fabrics may, even in early times, have been part of the staple of the country.

Colchester, the principal city of eastern Britain, was made by Claudius, at the commencement of the Christian era, as appears from his coins, a Roman colony. Here Cunobeline, king of the countries lying between the Thames and the Nen, established a mint, of which as many as sixty varieties have been engraved by Mr. Evans. No descriptive account of this ancient town has been preserved, but it is reasonable to suppose that, as the capital in which the king resided, it was better built than the "fenced collection of huts" Cæsar describes.

Some doubts have been expressed as to the very early antiquity of London; and, on the whole, it is most likely that it was not till Claudius had appointed Plautius to the supreme command of the island, that the Romans directed their attention to London, and established it as the chief commercial