is armed vessels in proper stations
around the island, and was sure to meet the Danish ships, either before
or after they had landed their troops, and to pursue them in all their
incursions. Though the Danes might suddenly, by surprise, disembark
on the coast, which was generally become desolate by their frequent
ravages, they were encountered by the English fleet in their retreat;
and escaped not, as formerly, by abandoning their booty, but paid, by
their total destruction, the penalty of the disorders which they had
committed.

[* Asser. p. 9. M. West. p. 179.]

In this manner Alfred repelled several inroads of these piratical
Danes, and maintained his kingdom, during some years, in safety and
tranquillity. A fleet of a hundred and twenty ships of war was stationed
upon the coast; and being provided with warlike engines, as well as
with expert seamen, both Frisians and English, (for Alfred supplied the
defects of his own subjects by engaging able foreigners in his service,)
maintained a superiority over those smaller bands, with which England
had so often been infested.[*]

[* Asser. p. 11. Chiron Sax p. 86, 87. M. West. p. 176.]

But at last Hastings, the famous Danish chief, having ravaged all the
provinces of France, both along the sea-coast and the Loire and Seine,
and being obliged to quit that country, more by the desolation which
he himself had occasioned, than by the resistance of the inhabitants,
appeared off the coast of Kent with a fleet of three hundred and thirty
sail. The greater part of the enemy disembarked in the Rother and seized
the fort of Apuldore. Hastings himself, commanding a fleet of eighty
sail, entered the Thames, and fortifying Milton, in Kent, began to
spread his forces over the country, and to commit the most destructive
ravages. But Alfred, on the first alarm of this descent, flew to the
defence of his people, at the head of a select band of soldiers, whom he
always kept about his person,[*] and, gathering to him the armed militia
from all quarters, appeared in the field with a force superior to the
enemy. All straggling parties, whom necessity, or love of plunder, had
drawn to a distance from their chief encampment, were cut off by the
English;[**] and these pirates, instead of increasing their spoil, found
themselves cooped up in their fortifications, and obliged to subsist by
the plunder which they had brought from France. Tired of this situation,
which must in the end pro