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56 make their descents upon the island at the most advantageous points, chiefly contributed to gain for the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes, the possession of Britain.

These new settlers, therefore, the fathers of the future population of the country, and the founders of its political institutions and its social state, were by long use a thoroughly navigating race, and, having obtained their island stronghold, they would naturally, it might be thought, proceed both to fortify it by securing the dominion of the surrounding seas, and to make it the centre of a great commercial empire. But, although all this was to come to pass in process of time, nothing of the kind happened in the first instance; and the Saxons, after their settlement in Britain, completely neglected the sea, now more truly their proper element than ever, for so long a period, that, when they did at last apply themselves again to maritime affairs, their ancient skill and renown in that field of enterprise must have been a mere tradition, if it was so much as remembered among them at all, and could have lent no aid in directing or even in exciting their new efforts. It was not till the reign of Alfred, towards the end of the ninth century, that the Saxons of England appear ever to have thought of building a ship, at least for war; and it may be doubted if before that time they had even any trading vessels of their own. Ever since their settlement in Britain they seem to have wholly abandoned the sea to their kindred who remained in their native seats in the north of Germany and around the Baltic,—the Northmen or Danes, by whom they were destined to be succeeded in their career of rapine and conquest.

This latter race of sea-rovers had adopted a policy different from that which had been followed both by the Franks and the Saxons. These two nations, or rather great confederacies of various nations, although they had both first made themselves formidable at sea, had, as we have seen, successively abandoned that field of adventure as soon as they had entered upon the course of land conquest, or at least as soon as they had secured the possession the first of Gaul, the second of Britain, and