Read it through once

At the period of which we are now writing its commerce was practically confined to trading in the products of the rural districts surrounding it—principally in malt, corn and flour. Being on the direct coach-road from London to the West of England, it was, naturally, a great and important centre for the carrying trade, as witness whereof the many quaint old inns still standing. An air of prosperity pervaded the streets, for the ancient borough was just beginning to rouse itself from the lethargy into which it had drifted when its staple trade, the manufacture of cloth, dwindled and died scarcely a century before.