The Britons, at the time of Caesar's arrival, like the Gauls from whom they sprung, were divided into many petty kingdoms ; in each of which there were subordi nate chieftains, who respectively governed their own tribes. On extraordinary occasions, they united under a common leader ; but this king of kings had but a short and limited rule ; and their confederacies were neither numerous nor lasting. "There was one thing," says Tacitus, " which gave us an advantage over these powerful nations, that they never consulted together for the advantage of the whole. It was rare that even two or three of them united against the common enemy." By this means, as each of them fought separately, they were all successively subdued. Little is known of the limits of regal authority among the ancient Britons ; but, if that power be changeable in its extent even in enlightened societies, how dependent must it have been on the personal character of the individual potentate among a people so rude ! We have an instance of a father excluding a son who had offended him, from a share in his dominions ; we have instances also of the public respect for hereditary right, and of its extending to female succession. From their similarity to the Gauls in other points, Dr Henry has conjectured, that the popular power was considerable ; hut this is merely conjecture. Whatever the royal or popular power might have been, the priestly influence must have been paramount to both, wherever Druidism existed. No public affair could be transacted without the sanction of the Druids : they could forgive malefactors, as well as sentence victims to the sacrifice : they could excom municate individuals from attending the holy rites ; a sentence as terrible in those times as under the Pomish church. Their ceremonies were equally mysterious and inhuman. Misleto, a plant produced on the branches of the oak, was gathered by them with every circum stance of awful solemnity. The priestly spoils and property were left in the centre of their consecrated woods, defended from the approach of the people by no guard, but their superstition. In the midst of these groves, they also sacrificed their prisoners and victims ; and, from the course of the blood around the altars, foretold the course of future events. They were the law-makers, the physicians, the poets, and philosophers, of their country. They taught their disciples the doc trine of transmigration, and inculcated the duty ol des pising death in defence of their native country. Britain was regarded by the Gauls themselves as the great sanctuary of Druidism.
Though the insular situation of Britain had early made its shores the resort of foreigners, yet the natives, as they were found by the Romans, had derived but lit tle civilization from foreigners. Their clothing was harsh, untanned skins; the naked parts of their body were coloured, for the sake of ornament, with the smear ings of an azure herb. Agriculture had, indeed, been introduced by the Belgic Gauls; but the general food was milk, and the flesh of their herds ; for, even to those poor savages, superstition had forbid the use of fish, and several kinds of animal food. Their towns were a confused parcel of huts, covered with turf, boughs, or skins; and were placed without order or dis tinction of streets, in the midst of some wood or mo rass, the avenues to which were defended with ram parts of earth and felled trees. They were large, and tall in their persons. "The Britons," says Strabo, "excel the Gauls in stature, of which 1 had occular de monstration ; for I saw some young Britons at Rome, who were half a foot taller than the tallest men." The same author, however, who speaks of the size of those Britons whom he had seen, describes their shapes and features as clumsy, and says, that they did not stand firm on their legs. Though savages in point of art and industry, the ancient Britons are respectfully spoken of by several Roman historians, with regard to intellectual and moral character. Tacitus says, they possessed a quicker apprehension than the Gauls; and Diodorus Si culus prefers their honesty to that of the Romans. A custom very abhorrent to natural morality is indeed re corded of them, that they possessed wives in common to societies of 10 or 12 persons; but the supposition of such a custom might be easily assumed by a Roman stranger, from the very innocence of barbarians sleeping promis cuously in huts ; although the chastity of the sexes might be as purely kept up as in states of society, where they are divided by greater ceremony.
Though the Phoenician and other merchants were probably early acquainted with the mainland' of Bri tain, yet their exports must have been inconsiderable before the Roman conquest, compared with the articles which were exported after that era. The exports, in the flourishing times of Roman trade, seem to have been copper, tin, lime, chalk, pearls, for the beauty of which our island was celebrated, corn, cattle, hides, horses, cheeses. dogs,and slaves, with the solitary manu facture of baskets.t Some of the most useful baser metals seem not to have been found in Britain before Cxsar's time, as he informs us that their brass was im ported; and their skill in manufacturing those metals which they had, must have been, at the same period, very rude, since we find that their ornamental trinkets were supplied by strangers. Their martial habits, how ever, were not fikely to leave them ignorant of the coarser craft of the armourer. Besides small targets and swords, which, as well as their spears, were sup plied with a noisy rattle, intended to strike terror, they used in battle, chariots, with iron scythes projecting from the axle. But though they managed these cha riots with expertness, and could sometimes break even the Roman line with them, they were of little use, upon the whole, against disciplined troops, and were heard of no more alter the Ronians had gained a footing in the island. The Britons shaved all their beard ex cept the upper lip, which, like the Gauls, they suffered to grow to great length, The fulness and beauty of the hair of the head was displayed as a mark of digni fied birth.
Such were the inhabitants of this island, when Rome, in the plenitude of her republican glory, determined to add it to her empire, about 55 years before the Christian era. With no better pretext for hostility, than a ru mour, that these islanders had lent some assistance to the Gauls, Cxsar dispatched Caius Volusenus with a galley, to gain intelligence about the shores, and the natives, whilst he collected a fleet upon the sea coasts about Calais and Boulogne. The Britons, learning his design, sent ambassadors, offering submission. Cxsar dismissed them, after a kind reception, with Comius, whom he constituted king of the Atrebatians; and whom he instructed to gain as strong a party as possible among the British states; and announced to the Britons, that he would soon visit their island in person. The Britons, seeing no hope in negotiation, imprisoned Co mius, and raised an army for their defence. On the re turn of Volusenus, Cxsar embarked the infantry of two legions at a port, supposed to have been Calais, on board eighty transports, and ordered the cavalry of those le gions to embark at another, eight miles distant, on board 18 transports. He sailed in person with the in fantry transports, about one in the morning of the 26th August 55, A. C. and anchored off the coast ol Britain, near Dover, about ten the same day. Perceiving, how ever, that the lofty cliffs were covered with a British army, he weighed anchor again at three in the afternoon, and, sailing eight miles farther, stopped at a plain and open shore, probably at or near Deal. At first the playing of the engines on board the gallies, which Cxsar sent to flank the opposing Britons, disconcerted their barbarous troops; but still the Romans were back ward to encounter both the waves and the enemy, till the standard bearer of the 10th legion jumped into the sea, and called aloud upon his countrymen to follow their eagle, and support the glory of the commonwealth. After a bloody struggle, the Britons were repulsed. They sued for peace, and obtained it at the expense of submissions which they could easily retract, and a pro mise of hostages, who never arrived.