The object of the accompanying Paper is to draw attention to a series of financial transactions which, although intimately connected with our early history, and essential to its faithful development, have hitherto found no place in its pages. Political economy was the science most remote from the speculations of our chroniclers; nor had they, commonly, such an acquaintance with the affairs of the Exchequer as qualified them to transmit to us a correct exposition of the wealth and resources of the country. We are not surprised therefore to find their statements with regard to the revenue inaccurate and meagre; but we are at a loss to account for their silence respecting the Italian money-lenders who, as it will appear, were the main supporters of the King in periods of financial embarrassment, and who, everywhere dispersed throughout the kingdom, must have very beneficially influenced the commercial and even the political condition of the country, by an example of superior enterprise and intelligence, by their connexions with foreign governments, and by the immense capital which they introduced and circulated. This deficiency is supplied by the Public Records; and consequently the evidence which they yield becomes of interest and value. We find in them a vein of history, as it were, hitherto unexplored; and all that I have now attempted, is to present a sample of its produce.

The particular object of the following remarks are the Runes of the Anglo-Saxons, whether as to their use in inscriptions, or the manner in which they are introduced into manuscripts. I shall therefore have but little to say of the Scandinavian or old Norse characters of the same description, unless by way of illustrating the indigenous alphabet: and indeed these require less attention from us, inasmuch as they have been profoundly and successfully studied by those who had the most right to take an interest in them, the antiquaries of Scandinavia and Iceland.

In undertaking to submit to the Society of Antiquaries a notice of the ancient pieces of ordnance, and other relics, lately discovered in the Island of Walney, I am influenced by the wish you have so kindly expressed, rather than by any sense of fitness, on my part, for the task.

I beg to send for your perusal two official letters, addressed by Queen Elizabeth to Dr. Dale, her Ambassador at Paris, relative to her proposed marriage with the Duke of Alençon, afterwards Duke of Anjou. If you should think them worthy of the notice of the Society of Antiquaries, I hope you will feel no hesitation in having them read at their next meeting.

I am sensible that I undertake an unpopular task in endeavouring to restrain within ascertained limits the unknown date of the most revered objects of antiquarian curiosity extant in Great Britain ; but I also know that in the estimation of enlightened minds, truth, or (its near adjunct) probability, is preferable to indefinite wonder; and I shall venture to produce circumstantial evidence, that the antiquity of Stonehenge and even of Abury, falls short of the commencement of the Christian era.

I beg to transmit to you copies of two letters connected with the history of the Gunpowder Treason, which I think will be found worthy of consideration by the Society of Antiquaries.