Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/54

52 CHAPTER II. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD. A.D. 449—1066.

Britain, as an island, and one of the largest in the world, as well as from its nearness to the continent of Europe, would seem to have been intended by nature for the residence of a navigating and commercial people, and it might be supposed that any people who had obtained the occupation of it would be speedily turned to navigation and commerce by the natural temptations and advantages of their position. The political state of a country, however, and its social circumstances generally, as well as the condition of the rest of the world and the spirit of the time, may all be so unfavourable as long eftectually to counteract these advantages of geographical position, and even the genius and the old habits of the people themselves.

Of the successive nations that obtained possession of the south of Britain within the period of authentic history, the Gallic colonists of the time of Cæsar were in too early a stage of civilization to hold any considerable intercourse with the rest of the world; and the Romans who succeeded them, although they necessarily maintained a certain connexion both with the central and other parts of the extended empire to which they belonged, were of a stock that had always shown itself anti-commercial in genius and policy. But the Saxons, although they had not been in circumstances to turn their skill in navigation to commercial purposes, had long before their conquest of our island been accustomed to roam the seas, and were famous for their naval enterprises. We read of predatory warfare carried on by the different Germanic nations in small and light vessels on rivers, and even along the adjacent parts of the seacoast, so early as before the middle of the first century. In the year 47, as we learn from Tacitus, the Chauci,