Note 15 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES
Reading edition
When Exeter stood forth for one moment ... the chief of a confederation of the lesser towns of the West ... we see that the path was opening by which Exeter might have come to be another Lübeck, the head of a Damnonian Hanse, another Bern, the mistress of the subject-lands of the western peninsula. Such a dream sounds wild in our ears.15