on <* Bant in Kent, &c. 12$

of the abbey of St. Auftin at Canterbury. To thefe I may add ac- counts in Regiftrum Roffenfe by Mr.Thorpe, other pages of regifters not published by him, and the confiftorial and archidiaconal acts of that diocefe; and I am much miftaken if in any of the accounts a coeval Arabic figure will be difcovered before the conclusion of the fixteenth century. Mr. Boys, who has had accefs to all the records of Sandwich, and who, while he was writing his hiftory of that town, and of many places connected with it, examined the books and papers with the clofeft attention, acquaints me that no Arabic characters occur in the accounts before the middle of the fixteenth century ; and in the old churchwardens accounts of the parim of Lambeth, which be- gin in the year 1,505, there is not for feveral years a common figure inferted, all the entries being in Roman characters. The churchwardens accounts of Shome, a parifh not far from Rochef- ter, are entered in Roman numerals as late as the year 1 63 1 ; and yet it is obfervable, that the common figures are ufed to mark the date of the year 1556, the fecond and third years of the reynes of Philipp and Mary, kyng and quene. For private accounts I may refer to the Northumberland Houfe Book, wherein the fame numerals are ufed ; and in the original letters published by the late fir John Fenn, " the refpective fums which William Ebe- iham had received for tranfcribing books for his worfchipful matter fir John Pafton, and what was paid about the year 1459 [0]," are in the fame characters. And Ihould it be remarked that thefe are only negative proofs, the anfwer is obvious, that fuch a feries of them as might be produced will preponderate, whilil there is not, as yet, any pofitive proof to put in the opposite fcale. But as the chief evidences in fupport of an early introduction of Arabic numerals were drawn from infcriptions, fome rudely exe- cuted, others mutilated, and others where the fuppofed figures al- [] Vol. II. p. 10, et fcq. luded