230

HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

boats, and ravaging the coasts, returned with the booty to their families, whomthey could net conveniently carry with them in such hazardous enterprises.But when, as their power increased, that of their armaments became also aug-mented, they made incursions into the inland countries, where, soon as theyfound it safe to remain, and they could establish themselves in the midst ofthe enfeebled enemy, they accustomed themselves to crowd their vessels withtheir wives and children. Having no longer any temptation to return to theirown country, they willingly embraced an opportunity of settling in the warmclimates, and cultivated fields of the south.

Allured by the fertility of Britain, they were tempted to try their fortunein various expeditions, which, according to the circumstances attending them,were occasionally completely successful, and at other times most fatally unfor-tunate. Their first appearance in Britain is said to have been in the year 787,when they made a descent on the Saxon kingdom of Wessex, of which Brithicwas at that time sovereign. The insignificance of their force prevented theireffecting any material injury or depredation. It is indeed most probable, thatthe whole intention and aim of it was merely that of discovering the stateof the country, and what success might be expected from a more serious at-tack. In this expectation they succeeded, and returned to their own countrynot without having given a very manifest proof of their hostile intentions ;for it being demanded of them by the prefect of the district where their dis-embarkation was effected, who or what their intentions were, they suddenlyassailed and killed him, after having put to flight the trivial escort that attendedhim, more as a display of his dignity, than as a guard to his person. With thispetty mischief, they rested satisfied for that time, or perhaps fearing the arrivalof a force sufficient to cut off their retreat, they flew, with some precipitation,to their vessels, and were fortunate enough to effect their escape.

A division of the same people addicting themselves, some years afterwards,to the same spirit of emigration, and thirsting, perhaps, to revenge the injurieswhich they considered their ancestors as having sustained, burst, with irre-sistible fury, into the provinces of France, which the degeneracy of Charle-magne’s posterity *, with the civil feuds and dissentions Jvhich prevailed there,

rendered

* The following ingenious and just account of the causes which gave birth to the dismembermentof his empire, is given by Mr. Gibbon :—“ The vast body had been inspired and united by the soul ofCharlemagne, but the division and degeneracy of his race soon annihilated the imperial power, which

would