310

A DISCOURSE

•'book i. I had some seeds sent me, which I have sown with tolerable succefs; andI prefer them before any. other, because . .they grow both very erect, andand fixing themselves stoutly, need little or no support. Near Loch-broom, betwixt the loch and an hill, they grow in such quantity, that.

fo that each kind of tree is always found rooted in the places where they stand in theirproper soil; and there is no doubt to be made hut that they originally grew there. Whenwe have thus found that all the fofsile trees we meet with once grew in the places wherethey are now buried, it is plain that in these places there were once noble forests, whichhave been destroyed at some time; and the question only remains how and by whom they■were destroyed. This we have reason to believe, by the Roman coins found among them,was done by the people of that empire, and that at the time when they were established•or establishing themselves here. Their own historian tells us, that.-when their armies pur-sued the wild Britons, these people always sheltered themselves in the miry woods, andlow watery forests. Cresar exprefsly says this; and observes, that Cafsibelan and hisBritons, after their defeat, pafsed the Thames, and fled into such low morafses and woods,that there was no pursuing them : and we find that the Silures secured themselves in thesame manner when attacked by Ostorius and Agricola . The same thing is recorded ofVenutius, king of the Brigantes, who fled, to secure himself, into the boggy forests of themidland part of this kingdom : and Herodian exprefsly says, that in the time of the Romanspushing their conquests in these islands, it was the custom of the Britons to secure them-selves in the thick forests which grew in their boggy and wet places, and when opportu-nity offered to ifsne out thence and fall upon the Romans. The consequence of all thiswas the destroying all these forests; the Romans finding themselves so plagued with.parties of the natives ifsuing-out upon them at times from these forests, gave ordersfor the cutting down and, destroying all the forests in Britain which grew on boggyand wet grounds. These orders were punctually executed; and to this it is owing that atthis day we can hardly be brought to believe that such forests ever grew with us as arenow found buried. The Roman histories all join in telling us, that when Suetonius-.Paulinus conquered Anglesea, he ordered all the woods to be cut down there, in the manner.of the Roman generals in England: -and Galen tells us, that the Romans, after their con-quest in Britain , kept their soldiers constantly employed in cutting downforests, draining• of marshes, and paving of bogs. Not only the Roman soldiers were employed in thismanner, but all the native Britons made captives in the wars were obliged to afsist in it :.and Dion Cafsius tells us, that the Emperor Severus lost no lefs than 50,000 men in a fewyears time in cutting down the woods and draining the bogs of this island. It is not tobe wondered at, that such numbers executed the immense destruction which we find inthese buried forests. One of the greatest subterranean treasures of wood is that nearHatfield • and it is easy to prove, that these people, to whom this havock. is thus attri-buted, were upon the spot where these trees now lie buried. The common road of the.Romans out of the fouth into the north, was formerly from Lindum (Lincoln, ) to Segelochum(Little Burrow upon Trent,) and from thence to Danum (Doncaster, ) where they kept a.standing garrison of Crispinian horse. A little off on the east and. north-east of their road,