hey are fierce; the sea is
their school of war and the storm their friend; they are sea-wolves that
live on the pillage of the world!"

[Sidenote: Britain]

Of the three English tribes the Saxons lay nearest to the Empire, and
they were naturally the first to touch the Roman world; at the close of
the third century indeed their boats appeared in such force in the
English Channel as to call for a special fleet to resist them. The piracy
of our fathers had thus brought them to the shores of a land which, dear
as it is now to Englishmen, had not as yet been trodden by English feet.
This land was Britain. When the Saxon boats touched its coast the island
was the westernmost province of the Roman Empire. In the fifty-fifth year
before Christ a descent of Julius Caesar revealed it to the Roman world;
and a century after Caesar's landing the Emperor Claudius undertook its
conquest. The work was swiftly carried out. Before thirty years were over
the bulk of the island had passed beneath the Roman sway and the Roman
frontier had been carried to the Firths of Forth and of Clyde. The work
of civilization followed fast on the work of the sword. To the last
indeed the distance of the island from the seat of empire left her less
Romanized than any other province of the west. The bulk of the population
scattered over the country seem in spite of imperial edicts to have clung
to their old law as to their old language, and to have retained some
traditional allegiance to their native chiefs. But Roman civilization
rested mainly on city life, and in Britain as elsewhere the city was
thoroughly Roman. In towns such as Lincoln or York, governed by their own
municipal officers, guarded by massive walls, and linked together by a
network of magnificent roads which reached from one end of the island to
the other, manners, language, political life, all were of Rome.

For three hundred years the Roman sword secured order and peace without
Britain and within, and with peace and order came a wide and rapid
prosperity. Commerce sprang up in ports amongst which London held the
first rank; agriculture flourished till Britain became one of the
corn-exporting countries of the world; the mineral resources of the
province were explored in the tin mines of Cornwall, the lead mines of
Somerset or Northumberland, and the iron mines of the Forest of Dean. But
evils which sapped the strength of the whole Empire told at last on the
province of Britain. Wealth