While Preston, as we have seen, has been rising into importance as a port, and the Ribble has been made worthy of vessels of considerable tonnage, Lancaster, though the county town, has declined very swiftly in maritime importance in the course of the last hundred years. No one looking at John of Gaunt's old home in the present day, and upon the business transacted on the Lune, which passes by it, could guess that it was a very considerable emporium of commerce, being, indeed, ranked above Liverpool when Charles I. levied the ship-money which brought him to disaster. At that time Lancaster was assessed at £30 and Liverpool at £25. Even then the Lancaster ships sailed regularly to the West Indies and the Baltic. The sinuosity of the channel and the shallowness of the ancient ford near the town became a serious hindrance to navigation, but by dint of enterprising dredging Lancaster is still reckoned amongst the English ports, and at Glasson, where the little Conder flows into the estuary under the railway, there is a harbour and dock which may yet revive the prosperity of the town. Lancaster is one of the many Roman settlements about whose name antiquaries are entitled to contend. A piece of brass money, found under one of the foundation-stones of the arch of a former Lancaster bridge, was described as Danish, and in the time of King John the Abbot of Furness had royal permission to get timber from the King's forests of Lancaster for such of the repairs of the bridge as he was "liable to" for his fisheries. These fisheries, like those of the Ribble, were once of the first class, and were granted to the Abbot of Furness in the reign of Stephen. There were always disputes, however, and sometimes hot quarrels, as to the rights in both salmon and timber, and king after king, according to the necessity of those days, backed up the Church, while legal regulations from time to time controlled the fisheries. From this, coupled with the fact that its first charter was granted by Richard I., we may without more ado conclude that Lancaster is an ancient borough. Indeed, there are many curious evidences of this kept alive in surviving customs, the origin of which must be found in musty grants and charters.