228

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

country, and to draw from them, by casting lots, such a number as by theirprinces was thought necessary to reduce the population of their respective pro-vinces, to a due and safe proportion. These were furnished with ships, arms,and provisions, sent abroad to shift for themselves, and forgotten at home ;by the operation of this law or custom, were those Saxons, who first landed inBritain, driven from their native land, as Hengist himself expressly declared inthe speech with which he introduced himself to Vortigern. This short digres-sion seems necessary to avoid the charge of incorrectness or inconsistency.

Hengist was not long absent from Britain. The death of Vortimer, andthe weakness of Vortigern, encouraged him to return, numerously attended,under the pretence of settling all differences by a personal treaty, and theSaxons met Vortigern and his chiefs apparently for that purpose. This con-gress ended in the slaughter of the latter, to the number of three hundred, andin the captivity of Vortigern, who afterwards obtained his liberty as an act ofclemency from the Saxons.

History, as might be expected, is nearly silent on the subject of naval affairsfor several years after that great event. The invaders, too busily engaged athome to think of warlike excursions against their neighbours, who, on theirparts, felt no temptation to attack a warlike enemy, strongly seated in a countryalready ravaged, employed that time in cultivating the affections, or enforcingthe obedience of the Britons. In the mean time, as human attention can scarcelyever be duly directed at once to two great objects, historians observe, thatthey neglected their navy, but of this no instances are given. Offa, a king ofthe Mercians, to whom, after the custom of Germany, the sovereignty ofEngland had been committed by his brother princes, first distinguished himselfat sea. Provoked by his tyranny, or incited by their own restlessness, theseprovincial kings joined in a league against him with those Britons, who stillmaintained a sort of independency in Wales, and were defeated. They ap-plied for succour to Charlemagne, king of France, who wrote to Offa in theirbehalf, but with an haughtiness which the proud Saxon could not brook, andwhich produced an answer in similar terms. Conscious, however, of thepower of Charlemagne, who was then on the point of succeeding to the em-pire, Offa made vigorous preparations for defending his coast, and established anaval force so respectable, that the emperor was induced not only to revoke ai>edict which he had issued for the prohibition of commerce, but to form a treatyof alliance with him.

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