2500 to 3000 years ago, were extracting from their native soil the tin which was to adorn the temples of the Eastern world, and to form the armour of the heroes engaged in the fearful struggles which are described by Homer; possibly the helmet of Agamemnon and the shield of Achilles were manufactured from the brass which was made from the Cornish tin imported by the Phoenicians and sold for that

purpose.

"The Britons at this time, according to Cæsar and other Roman historians, were very numerous, and had their country well stocked with cattle; their houses resembled those of the Gauls, and they used copper or iron plates weighed by a certain standard, instead of money; their towns were a confused parcel of huts placed at a small distance from one another, generally in the middle of a wood, to which all the avenues were slightly guarded by ramparts of earth or with trees. All the nations were in a state of the most wretched barbarism, even when compared with the barbarous Gauls on the continent.

"The use of clothes was scarcely known in the islands; only the inhabitants of the southern coast covered their nakedness with the skins of beasts, and this rather to avoid giving offence to the strangers who came to trade with them than out of any principle of decency. It was a general custom among the Britons to paint their bodies with the juice of woad, but whether this was designed as ornament or for any other purpose is not known; they shaved their beards, all except their upper lip, and wore long hair; they also had their wives in common, a custom which made them detestable to all other nations.

"The arms of the Britons were a sword, a short lance, and a shield; breast-plates and helmets they looked upon rather as encumbrances, and therefore made no use of them; they usually fought in chariots, some of which are armed with scythes at the wheels; they were fierce and cruel, and exceedingly bloodthirsty. When driven to distress, they could subsist themselves even on the bark and roots of trees; and

Dio Cassius tells us that they had ready, on all occasions, a certain kind of food of which if they took but the quantity of a bean, they were not troubled with hunger or thirst for a considerable time after. The southern nations, however, were somewhat more civilized, and the Cantii or inhabitants of Kent more so than any of the rest.

"Notwithstanding all the barbarism of the ancient Britons, it is pretty certain they were acquainted with commerce for several centuries before the Christian era. The Phoenicians. visited the coast of Cornwall for tin, with which that county has ever abounded; they must therefore have either formed settlements for the purpose of working mines, or the natives could not have been ignorant of the nature of metals. From the Phoenicians or Greeks, who succeeded them in this trade the Scilly Islands received the appellation of Cassiterides, or islands of tin. Strabo says they were ten in number, lying close together, of which only one was inhabited; the people led a wandering life, lived upon the produce of the cattle, wore an under garment which reached down to their ankles, and over that another, both of the same colour, which was black, girt round a little below the breast with a girdle, and walked with staves in their hands.

"The riches of these islands were tin and lead, which, as well as the skins of their cattle, they exchanged with foreign merchants, that is the Phoenicians from Cadiz, for earthenware, salt, and utensils made of brass."

"These islands are represented to have been in circumstances very different from their present, since an author of great antiquity seems to include a part at least of Cornwall amongst these islands, or rather he suggests that they were not perfect islands except at full sea, but that at ebb the inhabitants passed from one to another upon the sands, and that they even transported their tin in large square blocks upon carriages from one island to another.

"He further takes notice that such as inhabited about Belerium (the Land's End) were in their conversation with strangers remarkably civil and courteous. Other ancient

writers style these islands Hesperides, from their western situation and Estrymnides, asserting that the land was extremely fertile as well as full of mines, and that the people, though very brave, were entirely addicted to commerce, and boldly passed the seas in their leather boats.

"It appears probable that the Britons, like the Gauls, consisted chiefly of three different ranks, the common people, the gentry, and the Druids.

"The common people were accounted as servants, dared to undertake nothing of their own authority, and were present at no councils. Many of them, when they were oppressed either with debts, or the weight of taxes, or the injuries of the powerful, sold themselves into servitude to the nobles, who possessed over them the same dominion as masters had over their servants."

The gentry or nobility were constantly trained to war, and such of them as were the most distinguished for birth and riches had the greatest number of followers and dependants. Another author informs us that

"The Britons exported, principally from the estuary of Sabrina, tin, a little gold and silver, lead, iron, hides, cattle, some species of corn, perhaps oats, some brilliant stones they denominate gems, mussel-pearls, horse-bits formed of bone, horse-collars, amber toys, and glass vessels. They imported earthenware, salt, instruments, weapons, and trinkets of brass, and small quantities of iron. The Romans created, or improved, parts of that commerce by stimulating, sometimes forcing the industry of the Britons, and by improving all the branches of their art of navigation.”

In those circumstances, their means of exchange or money are objects of curiosity. According to Strabo, the commerce of the Phoenicians with the southern extremities of Britain was by an exchange in kind, and even in the reign of Tiberius, the British trade is said to have been conducted without the aid of money. Cæsar says the Britons possessed no money, but used pieces of brass and iron unstamped, and

which they estimated by weight. Strabo, however, affirms that Cæsar, in his expeditions, found considerable treasure of booty. The first coins are those of Cunobeline, the successor of Cassivelaun, King of the Trinobantes, and the device proves the art was Roman, for it is generally a centaur, a Pegasus, a Sphinx, or a Janus. The inscriptions are imitations of the Roman alphabet, and sometimes in the Latin language. As the Romans extended their dominion in the island, they usurped the right of coining.

Cæsar and Pliny describe the ships of Britain as clumsy frames of rough timber, ribbed with hurdles and lined with hides, of which models in miniature may be seen in the coracles still in use on the rivers of Carmarthen and Cardigan. The sea-boats had masts and sails, according to Claudian, but were generally rowed, the rowers singing, accompanied by the harp. The signal of the commander was given by striking on a shield hanging on the mast. They steered by the stars.

The Romans, as is well known, occupied Britain from B.C. 55 to A.D. 409, during which period the Cornish tin mines were largely worked by the ancient Britons, possibly for their own. advantage, but more probably as serfs, and in A.D. 409 the Romans had to give way to the Saxons.

During the Saxon dominion (from 410 to 1066) the mines were almost entirely neglected, frequent intestine commotions and the subsequent wars with the Danes allowing no time for such innocent and peaceful pursuits.

The only records of this Saxon dynasty were a few manuscripts written on skins and preserved by the monks. In the year of the conquest 1066, the Saxons in their turn were pushed aside by the Normans, and subsequently the tin mines in Cornwall were again vigorously developed.

The Norman sovereigns derived immense revenues from the export of this metal, and in the year 1198, when the country was almost ruined by the Crusades, Richard Coeur de Lion, then abroad, placed the management of the mines in the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, from this and other sources, was enabled to collect and remit

to his employer a sum of money exceeding 1,000,0007. sterling.

In the reign of King John, 1199–1216, the produce was so inconsiderable, that the rent of the tin farm amounted to no more than 100 marks.

At this period the Jews were sole managers if not proprietors of the mines, and memorials of them are still to be found in the names of different places in the county of Cornwall.

The right of working the mines was then wholly possessed by the King, who, being sensible of the languishing state of the manufacture, bestowed some valuable privileges on the county by relieving it from the operation of the arbitrary forest laws, and granting a charter to the tinners.

It is not very easy to understand how, in the absence of foreign competition, this depression of the trade came about, for up to the year 1240 Cornwall possessed a monopoly of the supply for Europe.

Tin mines were known to exist in Spain, but the constant invasions of the Moors caused the mines to be abandoned or neglected.

In the year 1240, however, tin was discovered in the mountains of Bohemia by a Cornish tinman banished from England, either on account of his religion or because he had committed murder. Further discoveries followed at Altenburg in Saxony, 1458, and in Barbary, 1640.

Richard Duke of Cornwall, brother to Henry III., 1216– 1272, derived immense profits from the mines, the produce of which was subject at this period to a royalty of forty shillings for every 10007. in value payable to the duke, and twice every year all tin produced had to be brought to appointed places, where it was officially stamped and weighed.

Truro possessed a coinage hall as early as the reign of King John, where the blocks of tin were to be seen in heaps about the streets, and were left entirely unguarded, as their great weight rendered it difficult to remove them without immediate detection.