Dudley Long. John Burgoyne. George Augustus North, (late Lord Guildford). St. Andrew St. John, (now Lord St. John). Roger Wilbraham. John Courtenay. James Erskine, (now Earl of Roslyn)." The character given of Mr. Francis, by Mr. Burke and Lord Minto in their places in the House of Commons, ought to be here inserted. "Extract of Mr. Burke's speech on Mr. Fox's East India Bill, on December 1, 1789. "Uncommon patience and temper supported Mr. Francis a while longer under the baneful influence of the commendation of the Court of Directors; his health, however, gave way at length, and in utter despair he returned to Europe; at his return the doors of the India House were shut to this man, who had been the object of their constant admiration. He has indeed escaped with life, but he has forfeited all expectation of credit, consequence, party, and following. He may well say, "Me nemo ministro Fur erit, atque ideò nulli comes exeo.' "This man, whose deep reach of thought, whose large legislative conceptions, and whose grand plans of policy, make the most shining part of our reports, from whence we have learned all our lessons, if we have learned any good ones; this man, from whose materials those gentlemen, who have least acknowledged it, have yet spoken as from a brief; this man, driven from his employment, discountenanced by the Directors, has had no other reward, and no other distinction, but that inward sunshine of the soul" which a good conscience can always bestow on itself. He has not yet had so much as a good word, but from a person too insignificant to make any other return for the means, with which he has been furnished, for performing his share of a duty, which is equally urgent in us all." [To be concluded next Month.] ENGLAND DURING THE ROMAN, SAXON, DA. NISH, AND NORMAN CONQUESTS. BY THE REV. MARK NOBLE, F. A. S. OF L. AND E. [Continued from P. 254.] THE wretched Britons at length sought for protection in what ended in ruin. The northern wall no longer kept in their ene. mies. Instead of training themselves to war, and patiently suffering the miseries they could not for a time have escaped, they turned their eyes to Germany for help. The Romans when they had conquered the southern part of that country had forced the warlike nations there to retire further north, where they had increased so much, that pressed for room, they became desperate, and they had long been dreaded in all those Roman provinces which lay near them; they had been viewed with terror by Roman Britain. These nations were usually known by the general name of Saxons. It was preposterous in the Britons to ask assistance of a people who had long wished, who had often attempted to establish themselves in their country. They were valiant desperate sea-rovers, who most eagerly sought where to gain settlements for an overcharged population. The first of these allies came only in five vessels, yet with these auxiliaries the Britons were enabled to repel their rude neighbours beyond the Roman wall. Having performed the duty they were called over to perform, they had no desire to return; a country so superior to their own naturally, and by cultivation far more so, engrossed a wish to attain it. The Romans had neither taken away their flocks and herds, nor plundered their tributary subjects, any more than they had burnt and destroyed all that they had erected. The misfortunes of the Britons so rapidly followed the abdi. cation of the Romans, that it leaves us no room to form any TT-VOL, VII.* idea of the manner in which they would have acted as an inde pendent people, only that they had elected princes to whom they gave the title of kings, yet it is singular, that I believe not a single coin was ever produced, as struck by any one of them. The Romans withdrew in 412, Hengist and Horsa came hither in 449, and in eight years after they obtained the kingdom of Kent, having first made a peace with the Scots and Picts, whom they came to conquer, and then turning their arms against the power to whom they were stipendiaries, declared themselves an independent state. Other adventurers were invited from Germany, chiefly Saxons, or Angles, or Jutes; the Angles were numerous; they gave name to that part of Britain which had been a Roman province, being called England, or the country of the Angles; the people as partaking of both Saxons and Angles were denominated AngloSaxons; and their language Anglo-Saxon. As these people were only tribes of the same nation, their language varied very little from each other. These scourges of the Britons, whenever they had overrun a district, erected it into a kingdom, electing, for the sovereign, their general. This was a wise policy: it established a victorious army, prevented a rivalry in warlike chieftains, it tended more firmly to retain the vanquished in subjection, and made good the ground the Germans gained over the Britons. Thus was founded the different kingdoms of the heptarchy: Kent, in 457; Sussex, or South Saxons, about 490; Wessex, in 519; Essex, or the East-Saxon kingdom, somewhat later; East Anglia, or the kingdom of the Angles, seated in the eastern part of the country in 575; Mercia, the largest of all of the heptarchical kingdoms, in 585; but before this time the kingdom of Northumberland had been established: this was frequently divided under the names of Deira and Bernicia, It was very near a century and an half from the first arrival of the Germanic nations, to their having completely subdued the Britons; a space of time dreadful, when we think that it was rather an exterminating warfare, than a contest between two rival nations as more modern times have shewn.* Augus tus told the Romans he found a city of stone; he left one of marble. The German adventurers might say, they found cities, and all their wonderful acccompaniments of stone, and having reduced them to ruinous heaps, had exchanged them for miserable wooden cabins; all things else were equally debased; arts and sciences retired, plenty and every abundance totally disappeared. Peace was not known when slaughter had gained conquest, "for the victors turned their arms each against the other; so that the blood of the German race flowed in as copious streams as those of the Britons had done, in defending themselves against their foreign invaders. So that at the end of the heptarchy, it is probable, that there were no more inhabitants in the several petty kingdoms that had composed it, than there were at the time when the Romans had come hither with their hostile legions: but what a difference was there between the two nations, their ancient, and their present conquerors? The Romans had formed their province into a rich paradise; the Saxons had converted it into a desolate wilderness. Rome had taught the Britons in the end, the mild and divine tenets of the Gospel. The Heathen Saxons had exterminated them wherever their ferocious arms were triumphant. They did, indeed, at length listen to the religion of Christ, but it was when it had become debased by many of the puerilities of the ambitious pontiffs of Rome. Let us consider the Anglo-Saxons as a people. It may well be supposed that Germany for more than a century put part of her northern hive into Britain, yet these could not be suffi So *I do not mean exterminating in the fullest sense, as Hume does: I wish to be understood that little quarter was given in battle on either side. The Britons who were land slaves to their masters, the superior ranks, remained so to their Anglo-Saxon new masters. Dean Tucker understood. He remarks that only gentlemen fled to Wales, and pleasantly tells Lord Kaimes, "Ergo, the Welch are all gentlemen.' The Britons, or Welch, as he observes, never accused their enemies of so atrocious a deed. ́ ́ A deed which would have in jured themselves. The conquerors bred slaves, and sold the supernumeraries. 2 cient to make the mass of the people of the heptarchical kingdoms. The mass of the warlike emigrants were young, and able-bodied adventurers; these were chiefly unmarried men. Those who are settled and prosperous, seldom love to leave their own native soil. It may be asked, how, if there were so few women brought hither in the proportion, could the great end of population be answered? By the victors seizing the females of the vanquished; besides too, I sincerely believe, that the slaves of the Britons never were esteemed high enough to have arms put into their hands; these families, by an easy transition, passed into the possession of the Heathen conquerors, as probably did many of the domestic slaves. Military nations despise agriculture and trade; war is their pride, their glory, and their sole occupation; the invaders besides had ample employment to gain, to retain, and defend their new dwellings. If we allow the force of these statements we shall see that the great bulk of the people were still British blood, though in debasement, for the higher classes had retreated fighting, to the western part of the island, occupying Wales, Cornwall, and some parts adjoining to those districts. I will allow that all the landholders, all the distinguished men in each of the heptarchical kingdoms, were native Germans, or descendants of such as were so, paternally. The language, the manners, in every respect were Saxon, in all above the borderers, the villains, and the slaves, and these soon adopting those of their masters, in a few descents also were in nothing distinguished from the same persons in their situation of life, of the Saxon blood.' The wretched poverty of the enslaved and the enslavers was great, until the dawn of improvement broke out, by the introduction of Christianity, and by it a communication with Italy, where some glimmeringsof civilization were still retained, though she had been obliged to submit to nations equally ferocious, sanguinary, and ignorant with the Saxons themselves; but, having been converted from Paganism, they also had adopted milder manners, and a greater degree of civilized life. The Christianized Anglo-Saxons, with other advantages, |