London under the Romans--Gilds--Burghs--Charter of William the
Conqueror--Reflections--Subsequent Charters--City divided into
Wards--Civic Hospitality--The Quo Warranto Case--Restoration of the
Charter.

The first historical notice of the City of London occurs in that
portion of the Annals of Tacitus which treats of the insurrection of
Boadicea. At that time it was a place much frequented by merchants,
attracted partly by the natural advantages of the site, and partly by
the vicinity of the Roman camp at Islington. It is stated that 70,000
persons, of both sexes and of all ages, were massacred by that fierce
heroine in London and at St. Albans; but it must not be supposed that
the ordinary population of those two towns could have formed so large
an aggregate. It is far more probable that numbers of old men, women,
and children flocked thither from the neighbourhood, in the hope of
escaping from the violence and rapine of the patriot army. Their
expectations, however, were disappointed, as the Roman general deemed
it more prudent to evacuate an untenable post, than to risk the
dominion of the entire island on the event of a battle fought under
adverse circumstances. At the same time the slaughter of the
inhabitants justifies the inference that they were foreigners rather
than natives, some being traders from Gaul, but the majority either
Roman colonists or the followers and hangers-on of the stationary
camp. Indeed, it may be gathered from the description of Tacitus, that
these traders were chiefly commissariat contractors and brokers or
money-changers. The Romans do not appear to have evinced a high order
of commercial instinct, nor to have looked upon the development of
trade as one of the chief objects of government. Their mission was to
overrun other nations, and to prevent them from indulging in