one another, he gave up, and proposed peace. Julius
Caesar was very glad to grant peace easily, and to go away again with all
his remaining ships and men. He had expected to find pearls in Britain,
and he may have found a few for anything I know; but, at all events, he
found delicious oysters, and I am sure he found tough Britons--of whom, I
dare say, he made the same complaint as Napoleon Bonaparte the great
French General did, eighteen hundred years afterwards, when he said they
were such unreasonable fellows that they never knew when they were
beaten. They never _did_ know, I believe, and never will.

Nearly a hundred years passed on, and all that time, there was peace in
Britain. The Britons improved their towns and mode of life: became more
civilised, travelled, and learnt a great deal from the Gauls and Romans.
At last, the Roman Emperor, Claudius, sent AULUS PLAUTIUS, a skilful
general, with a mighty force, to subdue the Island, and shortly
afterwards arrived himself. They did little; and OSTORIUS SCAPULA,
another general, came. Some of the British Chiefs of Tribes submitted.
Others resolved to fight to the death. Of these brave men, the bravest
was CARACTACUS, or CARADOC, who gave battle to the Romans, with his army,
among the mountains of North Wales. 'This day,' said he to his soldiers,
'decides the fate of Britain! Your liberty, or your eternal slavery,
dates from this hour. Remember your brave ancestors, who drove the great
Caesar himself across the sea!' On hearing these words, his men, with a
great shout, rushed upon the Romans. But the strong Roman swords and
armour were too much for the weaker British weapons in close conflict.
The Britons lost the day. The wife and daughter of the brave CARACTACUS
were taken prisoners; his brothers delivered themselves up; he himself
was betrayed into the hands of the Romans by his false and base
stepmother: and they carried him, and all his family, in triumph to Rome.

But a great man will be great in misfortune, great in prison, great in
chains. His noble air, and dignified endurance of distress, so touched
the Roman people who thronged the streets to see him, that he and his
family were restored to freedom. No one knows whether his great heart
broke, and he died in Rome, or whether he ever returned to his own dear
country. English oaks have grown up from acorns, and withered away, when
they were hundreds of years old--and other oaks have sprung up in