Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, a book written nearly two centuries ago, and the obsolete language of which has not entirely obscured the elegance and spirit with which it is penned, has in the following passage, which I have copied yerbatim, recorded the sentiments of his countrymen on this subject, and at the same time establishes the truth of the actual recess of the sea. "The sea gradually encroaching on the shore hath ravined from Cornwall the whole tract of countrie called LION NESSE, together with divers other parcels of no little circuite; and that such a countrie of Lionnesse there was, these proofes are yet remaining. The space between the Land's End and the Isles of Scilley, being about thirtie miles, to this day retaineth that name, in Cornish Lethowsow, and carrieth continually an equal depth of forty or sixty fathom, (a thing not usual in the sea's proper dominion,) saue that about the midway, there lieth a rocke, which at low water discovereth its head. They term it the Gulphe, suiting thereby the other name of Scilla. Fishermen also casting their hookes thereabouts have drawn up pieces of doores and windowes. Moreover the ancient name of Saint Michel's Mount was Caracloase in Cowse, VOL. VI. R Cowse, in English the hoare rocke in the wood, which now is at every flood incompassed by the sea, and yet at some low ebbes roots of mightie trees are discryed in the sands about it. The like overflowing has taken place in Plymouth-Haven, and divers other places."* Situated nearly opposite to the coast of Galicia, in Spain, the voyage from Gades to the Cassiterides might be accomplished by the Phoenicians in no great length of time; and, under the guidance of Spanish mariners, who were doubtless not acquainted with the navigation of that part of the Atlantic, at no very imminent hazard. What the particular articles of commerce which they brought with them to Britain, and what they carried back in exchange, at that early period, were, we have the good fortune to have express information from so authentic an author as Strabo. "The Phoenicians," says that writer," imported from Gades into Britain salt, pottery, and utensils of brass; they exported from Britain tin, lead, and the skins of beasts." It is remarkable, that Pliny, in the very same chapter in which he relates that such a quan * Carew's Survey of Cornwall, p. 7. tity of lead was found in Britain, that it became necessary to enact a particular law, to prevent its being dug up in such an abundance as might tend to depreciate its value, acquaints us, India neque as neque plumbum habet; gemmisque suis ac margaritis hæc permutat: India itself has no mines of copper or lead; but is content to barter for these commodities her precious gems and pearls.* By this means we are immediately enabled to discover what was at least one of the principal articles which the Indians derived from Britain, and of what nation were the merchants who trafficked in it to that distant coast; even those who so assiduously explored it in the farthest regions of the west. The articles used in exchange between the two nations deserve some consideration. On the one side were given salt, pottery, and brass; on the other, tin, lead, and skins. By the first article it appears that the art of procuring salt from the waters of the ocean, or the practice of digging in their own abundant mines for rock-salt, was not then known in Britain: yet to a race living on an island, of which the surrounding sea and the numerous Plinii Nat. Hist. lib. xxxv. cap. 17. R 2 rivers rivers were plentifully stocked with fish of the most excellent sort, salt, either marine or fossil, for preserving and pickling it, if not for their own use, (since Cæsar asserts, though with no shadow of probability, they entirely abstained from eating fish,) yet for the use of others, and the purposes of commerce, was indispensably necessary, as well as for seasoning and preserving the flesh of the beasts killed in hunting, and whose skins, we see, formed also a material article of barter. The salt imported hither by the Phoenicians was, probably, of the fossil kind, and obtained from the mountains of Catalonia, in Spain, where are stupendous mines of rock-salt, probably wrought in the remotest periods by a people naturally led to subterraneous researches, by the vast profit arising from those which they possessed of metal. Such were the principal uses to which our painted ancestors applied the salt brought to them by the Phoenicians, no doubt in very large quantities, as our forests abounded in game, and our coasts probably then as now swarmed with overflowing treasures of the choicest fish; that game and that fish, which, preserved from putrefaction by this pungent and powerful ingredient, possibly made no small part part of the cargo which that maritime race carried away with them from this island, to support the crews of their vessels during their long voyages to distant and different regions of the earth. If, however, to them and to their fleet, in that infant state of navigation, this grand article of naval consumption was so immediately, so indispensably, necessary, how much more so, and in what an astonishingly increased proportion must it be to the modern Phoenicians of the western world: to us, whose innumerable fleets cover the ocean, and whose sails are expanded (oh ! may they long continue so !) in every climate and almost every harbour of the now circumnavigated globe. When we consider the immense quantity of salted provisions constantly laid up in magazines at home for the use of the greatest navy that ever the world beheld, and the amazing expenditure of the same commodity in such as are annually exported to the plantations, how much reason have we to applaud the patriot spirit, so similar to that displayed in respect to the highly increased exportation of the ancient national staple, TIN, and other articles of British growth and manufacture, by the Court of Directors; that spirit, I say, which explored the bosom of our own rich country |