“The commercial and friendly intercourse,” remarks Macpherson in his Annals of Commerce,[450] “between the Britons and Gauls, which had subsisted before the invasion of Julius Cæsar, still continued, and was probably increased in consequence of the greater assortment of goods now in the hands of the Romanized Gallic merchants.” Tin, which was still the chief article of British commerce, after being cast into cubic masses, remained, and long continued, the general staple of the British trade. “But besides it,” continues the same author, “there was then exported to Gaul, either for sale in that country, or for further transit, lead, corn, cattle, hides, under the description of which, perhaps, wool is included; gold, silver, iron, ornaments for bridles, and various toys made of a substance which the Romans called ivory, but more probably the bone of some large fish; ornamental chains, vessels made of amber and of glass, with some other trifling articles; also precious stones and pearls; slaves, who were captives taken in the wars carried on by the tribes against each other; dogs of various species, all excellent in their kinds, which were highly valued by the Roman connoisseurs in hunting, and by the Gauls, who used them not only against wild animals in the chase, but also against their enemies in the field of battle; and bears for the sanguinary sport of the Roman circus, though probably not so early as the age of Augustus.” Brass, brazen vessels, salt, and earthenware, were then, with the lighter articles and trinkets previously named, the chief articles of import from Gaul into Britain. Though chiefly occupied in pastoral and agricultural pursuits, the ancient Britons, from the character of their exports, evidently understood, not merely the arts of extracting tin and lead and even gold silver and iron from their mines, but were skilled in the manufacture of objects in glass and amber, and also in some works purely ornamental, as well as in the conversion of iron to many useful 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. [Sidenote: Colchester, and its mint.]