l throne,
had despoiled the island of those who, in this desperate extremity, were
best able to defend it. The Picts and Scots, finding that the Romans had
finally relinquished Britain, now regarded the whole as their prey, and
attacked the northern wall with redoubled forces. The Britons, already
subdued by their own fears, found the ramparts but a weak defence for
them; and deserting their station, left the country entirely open to
the inroads of the barbarous enemy. The invaders carried devastation and
ruin along with them; and exerted to the utmost their native ferocity,
which was not mitigated by the helpless condition and submissive
behavior of the inhabitants.[*]

[* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. Allured. Beverl. p. 45.]

The unhappy Britons had a third time recourse to Rome, which had
declared its resolution forever to abandon them. AEtius, the patrician,
sustained at that time, by his valor and magnanimity, the tottering
ruins of the empire, and revived for a moment among the degenerate
Romans the spirit, as well as discipline, of their ancestors. The
British ambassadors carried to him the letter of their countrymen, which
was inscribed, "The groans of the Britons." The tenor of the epistle was
suitable to its superscription. "The barbarians," say they, "on the one
hand, chase us into the sea; the sea, on the other, throws us back upon
the barbarians; and we have only the hard choice left us of perishing by
the sword or by the waves."[*]

[* Gildas, Bede, lib. i. cap. 13. William of
Malmesbury, lib. i. cap. 1 Alured. Beverl. p. 45.]

But AEtius, pressed by the arms of Attila, the most terrible enemy that
ever assailed the empire, had no leisure to attend to the complaints of
allies, whom generosity alone could induce him to assist.[*]

[* Saxon Chron. p. 11, edit. 1692.]

The Britons, thus rejected, were reduced to despair, deserted their
habitations, abandoned tillage, and flying for protection to the forests
and mountains, suffered equally from hunger and from the enemy. The
barbarians themselves began to feel the pressures of famine in a country
which they had ravaged; and being harassed by the dispersed Britons, who
had not dared to resist them in a body, they retreated with their spoils
into their own country.[*]

[* Alured. Beverl, p. 45.]

The Britons, taking advantage of this interval, returned to their usual
occupations; and the favorable seasons which succeeded, seconding the