upwards of three centuries ago. There is no doubt, however, that woollen weaving was much more prevalent here than woollen milling.

The woollen manufacture on the primitive domestic system was introduced into England by the Romans, and Camden says, that " in the city of Winchester, the Roman Emperors had their imperial weaving houses, for cloth of both woollen and linen, for the Emperor and the army." At the time Agricola, the Roman general, held possession of Manchester, A. D. 79, there was a considerable number of Frisian soldiers in his service. Many of these natives of Batavia remained in this part of the kingdom after the departure of the Romans, and it is probable they imparted to the Britons all the knowledge they possessed of manufactures, and becoming intermixed with the natives by kindred, the ingenuity of the Frisii was engrafted on the resoluteness of the Briton. The Saxons do not appear to have ever made any material progress with the woollen manufacture. Flanders and the Netherlands acquired some degree of eminence in this trade about A.D. 960, before which period there were scarcely any mercantile men in Europe, except a few in the opulent and refined republics of Italy, who traded with the Indian caravans of the Levant. Shortly after the conquest, the English woollen trade revived, and in the reign of Henry the Second, 1154-1189, London, Lincoln, York, and other cities were flourishing seats of the art. Although the manufacture continued inconsiderable until the reign of Edward the Third, it had already increased to that stage when frauds began, for an act was obliged to be passed in the ninth year of Henry the Third, 1225, to require that " there shall be but one measure throughout the realm." The woollen manufacture was introduced at Manchester, as early, if not earlier, than 1322, for Dr. Keurden, in preserving a MS. of the extent of the manor of Manchester of that date (the15th of Edward the Second), makes mention of "a

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