Ich to Ick, Cund to Cundigen, Lading, to Geladen:
eruing goods, to Erbnuss. So Thwyting, is properly the cutting of
little chippes from a stick. Pilme, the dust which riseth: Brusse,
that which lyeth: which termes, as they expresse our meaning more
directly, so they want but another Spencer, to make them passable.
The number of Cornish Inhabitants, though it cannot directly bee
summed, may yet proportionably be gessed at by the musters taken of
the able men (hereafter set downe) which wee will value at a third
part of the whole, in ensuing Bodins rate.
But another question falleth sometimes into scanning, namely,
whether Cornwall haue heretofore beene better stored with people,
then it is now. Some holde the affirmatiue, and vouch to prooue it,
the generall decay of Inland townes, where whole streets, besides
particular houses, pay tribute to Comdowne Castle, as also the
ruines yet resting in the wilde Moores, which testifie a former
inhabitance. Others incline againe to the negatiue, alleadging the
reasons heretofore touched, in the deare price of farmes or bargaines,
by which mine assent is rather swayed: for I suppose that those
waste grounds were inhabited, and manured, when the Saxons and Danes
continual inuasions draue them to abandon the sea coasts, saue in
such townes, as were able to muster, vpon any sodaine occasion,
a sufficient number for their owne defence.
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