canton and Cassivellaunus. The danger increased
with every onward step, and the attack, which the princes of Kent
by the orders of Cassivellaunus made on the Roman naval camp,
although it was repulsed, was an urgent warning to turn back.
The taking by storm of a great British tree-barricade,
in which a multitude of cattle fell into the hands of the Romans,
furnished a passable conclusion to the aimless advance and a tolerable
pretext for returning. Cassivellaunus was sagacious enough
not to drive the dangerous enemy to extremities, and promised,
as Caesar desired him, to abstain from disturbing the Trinobantes,
to pay tribute and to furnish hostages; nothing was said
of delivering up arms or leaving behind a Roman garrison,
and even those promises were, it may be presumed, so far as
they concerned the future, neither given nor received in earnest.
After receiving the hostages Caesar returned to the naval camp
and thence to Gaul. If he, as it would certainly seem,
had hoped on this occasion to conquer Britain, the scheme
was totally thwarted partly by the wise defensive system
of Cassivellaunus, partly and chiefly by the unserviceableness
of the Italian oared fleet in the waters of the North Sea;
for it is certain that the stipulated tribute was never paid.
But the immediate object--of rousing the islanders out of their haughty
security and inducing them in their own interest no longer to allow
their island to be a rendezvous for continental emigrants--
seems certainly to have been attained; at least no complaints
are afterwards heard as to the bestowal of such protection.

The Conspiracy of the Patriots

The work of repelling the Germanic invasion and of subduing
the continental Celts was completed. But it is often easier
to subdue a free nation than to keep a subdued one in subjection.
The rivalry for the hegemony, by which more even than by the attacks
of Rome the Celtic nation had been ruined, was in some measure set
aside by the conquest, inasmuch as the conqueror took the hegemony
to himself. Separate interests were silent; under the common
oppression at any rate they felt themselves again as one people;
and the infinite value of that which they had with indifference
gambled away when they possessed it--freedom and nationality--
was now, when it was too late, fully appreciated by their infinite
longing. But was it, then, too late? With indignant shame they
confessed to themselves that a nation, which numb