Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/356

 an island about which so many stories were current among his countrymen. Britain, described in Virgil as "beyond the limits of the known world," was supposed to be rich in gold and silver, with an ocean fertile in pearls; indeed, Suetonius speaks of it as a popular belief, that it was in quest of pearls that Cæsar crossed the Channel. But a more probable reason for his proposed attempt is that alleged by Napoleon III., viz., his having found the natives of Britain invariably aiding his enemies in his Gallic wars, and especially in his conflict with the Veneti, during the summer of the year of his first invasion, 55. Moreover, intestine divisions had about that time broken out in England, and hence there was then a better chance of Roman success than there would have been had the islanders stood firmly together to resist the invader.

Having resolved then to make the attempt, Cæsar looked about him to procure information about the unknown island: but here he was completely foiled; for the Gauls stood too well by their friends and relations in Britain to volunteer the information they might easily have given the Roman commander. The Veneti, as might have been expected, did what they could to thwart him, while the Morini, dwelling around and to the east of Boulogne, are specially mentioned as friendly to the Britons. Moreover, Cæsar himself remarks that no one but merchants ever visited Britain, unless, indeed, they fled thither for their lives; Britain having been then, as now, the