Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/375

 he regulated his own household, so that in its conduct it might be an example for others to follow; his domestics, according to Tacitus, were not allowed to transact any business concerning the public; and, in promoting or rewarding the soldiers, he was induced to do so by no personal interest or partiality, nor by the recommendations of centurions, but by his own opinion and knowledge of them. By such means as these Agricola, by degrees, reconciled the Britons to the government of Rome; and, though their love of independence was never actually subdued, they were content to live, if unopposed, in peace, and in friendly intercourse with the invaders of their soil. Caledonia alone kept up an angry hostility to the yoke of Rome, and seized, on the departure of Agricola, the castles and forts he had raised in various parts of Scotland.

During the thirty-five years which elapsed after the recall of Agricola, until the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, the Roman historians, from whom alone we derive our information, hardly deign to notice the island; while, as is well known, no native records, or even what might perhaps have been a copy of a native record, have come down to us: indeed, it may be seriously doubted whether letters were at all generally known beyond the schools of the Druids. There is, however, every reason to suppose that the Britons pursued with persevering industry those commercial occupations we have already named; that the advice and example of Agricola had not been given in vain, or neglected on his departure; and, that, long ere that time, trade and commerce must