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Some account of the
PORT OF LONDON

and of the rise and progress of the
commercial Navy of Great Britain. 1834

SOURCE: The Saturday Magazine, No. 117. Supplement, April, 1834

Such was the progress of this Port, that, A. D. 60, little more than a century after the landing of Julius Caesar, it is described by Tacitus as "the chief residence of merchants, and the great mart of trade." In the year 211, it is styled a "great and wealthy city; illustrious for the vast number of merchants which resort to it, for its widely extended commerce, and for the abundance of every species of commodity which it could supply." In the year 359, not long before the Romans abandoned Britain, it is said that 800 vessels were engaged in the import and export of corn, to and from London alone. During the times of the Saxons, by whom it was called Lundenceaster, it suffered various severe reverses from the aggressions of the Danes and other foreign enemies; yet it still appears to have progressed in trade, for the venerable Bede terms it, in 604, "a princely mart town." It was not, however, till the reign of Alfred, in the ninth century, that it was constituted the capital of all England.

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