rately think it a wise measure to quit their country
in a body, that they might obtain in a foreign land a settlement which
must wholly depend upon the chance of war? Yet this resolution was taken
and actually pursued by the entire nation of the Helvetii, as it is
minutely related by Caesar. The method of reasoning which led them to it
must appear to us at this day utterly inconceivable. They were far from
being compelled to this extraordinary migration by any want of
subsistence at home; for it appears that they raised, without
difficulty, as much corn in one year as supported them for two; they
could not complain of the barrenness of such a soil.

This spirit of migration, which grew out of the ancient manners and
necessities, and sometimes operated like a blind instinct, such as
actuates birds of passage, is very sufficient to account for the early
habitation of the remotest parts of the earth, and in some sort also
justifies that claim which has been so fondly made by almost all nations
to great antiquity.

Gaul, from whence Britain was originally peopled, consisted of three
nations: the Belgae, towards the north; the Celtae, in the middle
countries; and the Aquitani, to the south. Britain appears to have
received its people only from the two former. From the Celtae were
derived the most ancient tribes of the Britons, of which the most
considerable were called Brigantes. The Belgae, who did not even settle
in Gaul until after Britain had been peopled by colonies from the
former, forcibly drove the Brigantes into the inland countries, and
possessed the greatest part of the coast, especially to the south and
west. These latter, as they entered the island in a more improved age,
brought with them the knowledge and practice of agriculture, which,
however, only prevailed in their own countries. The Brigantes still
continued their ancient way of life by pasturage and hunting. In this
respect alone they differed: so that what we shall say, in treating of
their manners, is equally applicable to both. And though the Britons
were further divided into an innumerable multitude of lesser tribes and
nations, yet all being the branches of these two stocks, it is not to
our purpose to consider them more minutely.

Britain was in the time of Julius Caesar what it is at this day, in
climate and natural advantages, temperate and reasonably fertile. But
destitute of all those improvements which in a succession of ages it has
receive