they must also sound forth their ignorance, or there would have been none in improving them.  If the Britons were that wretched people they are represented by the Romans, they could not be worth conquering:  no man subdues a people to improve them, but to profit by them.  Though the Romans at that time were in their meridian of splendor, they pursued Britain a whole century before they reduced it; which indicates that they considered it as a valuable prize.  Though the Britons were not masters of science, like the Romans; though the fine arts did not flourish here, as in Rome, because never planted; yet by many testimonies it is evident they were masters of plain life; that many of the simple arts were practiced in that day, as well as in this; that assemblages of people composed cities, the same as now, but in an inferior degree; and that the country was populous is plain from the immense army Boadicia brought into the field, except the Romans increased that army that their merit might be greater in defeating it.  Nay, I believe we may with propriety carry them beyond plain life, and charge them with a degree of elegance:  the Romans themselves allow the Britons were complete masters of the chariot; that when the scythe was fixed at each end of the axle-tree, they drove with great dexterity into the midst of the enemy, broke their ranks, and mowed them down.  The chariot, therefore, could not be made altogether for war, but, when the scythes were removed, it still remained an emblem of pride, became useful in peace, was a badge of high-life, and continues so with their descendants to this day.

We know the instruments of war used by the Britons were a sword, spear, shield and scythe.  If they were not the manufacturers, how came they by these instruments?  We cannot allow either they or the chariots were imported, because that will give them a much greater consequence:  they must also have been well acquainted with the tools used in husbandry, for they were masters of the field in a double sense.  Bad also as their houses were, a chest of carpentry tools would be necessary to complete them.  We cannot doubt, therefore, from these evidences, and others which might be adduced, that the Britons understood the manufactory of iron.  Perhaps history cannot produce an instance of any place in an improving country, like England, where the coarse manufactory of iron has been carried on, that ever that laborious art went to decay, except the materials failed; and as we know of no place where such materials have failed, there is the utmost reason to believe our fore-fathers, the Britons, were supplied with those necessary implements by the black artists of the Birmingham forge.  Iron-stone and coal are the materials for this production, both which are found in the neighbourhood in great plenty.  I asked a gentleman of knowledge, if there was a probability of the delphs failing?  He answered, “Not in five thousand years.”

The two following circumstances strongly evince this ancient British manufactory:—­