he beat them twice; though not so decisively,
but that he was very glad to accept their
proposals of peace, and go away.

But, in the spring of the next year, he
came back; this time with eight hundred
vessels and thirty thousand men. The
British tribes chose as their general-in-chief,
a Briton, whom the Romans in their Latin
language called CASSIVELLAUNUS, but whose
British name is supposed to have been
CASWALLON. A brave general he was, and well
he and his soldiers fought the Roman army!
So well, that whenever in that war the
Roman soldiers saw a great cloud of dust,
and heard the rattle of the rapid British
chariots, they trembled in their hearts.
Besides a number of smaller battles, there was
a battle fought near Canterbury, in Kent;
there was a battle fought near Chertsey in
Surrey; there was a battle fought near a
marshy little town in a wood, the capital
of that part of Britain which belonged to
CASSIVELLAUNUS, and which was probably
near what is now Saint Albans in Hertfordshire.
However, brave CASSIVELLAUNUS had
the worst of it, on the whole, though he and
his men always fought like lions. As the
other British chiefs were jealous of him, and
were constantly quarrelling with him, and
with one another, he gave up and proposed
peace. Julius Caesar was very glad to grant
peace easily, and to go away again with all
his remaining ships and men. He had
expected to find pearls in Britain, and he may
have found a few, for anything I know! but,
at all events, he found delicious oysters, and
I am sure he found tough Britons, of whom, I
dare say he made the same complaint as
Napoleon Buonaparte the great French General
did, eighteen hundred years afterwards, when
he said they were such unreasonable fellows
that they never knew when they were beaten.
They never did know, I believe, and never
will.

Nearly a hundred years passed on, and, all
that time, there was peace in Britain. The
Britons improved their towns and mode of
life, became more civilised, travelled, and
learnt a great deal from the Gauls and
Romans. At last, the Roman Emperor,
Claudius, sent AULUS PLAUTIUS, a skilful
general, with a mighty force, to subdue the
Island, and shortly afterwards arrived
himself. They did little; and OSTORIUS SCAPULA,
another general, came. Some of the British
Chiefs of Tribes submitted. Others, resolved
to fight to the death. Of these brave men,
the bravest was CARACTACUS, or CARADOC,
who gave battle to the Romans, with his
army, among the mountains of North Wales.
"This day," said he to his soldiers, "decides
the fate of Britain! Your liberty, or your
eternal slavery, dates from this hour.
Remember your brave ancestors, who drove the
great Cæsar himself across the sea!" On
hearing these words, his men, with a great
shout, rushed upon the Romans. But, the
strong Roman swords and armour were too
much for the weaker British weapons in close
conflict. The Britons lost the day. The wife
and daughter of the brave CARACTACUS were
taken prisoners; his brothers delivered
themselves up; he himself was betrayed into the
hands of the Romans by his false and base
stepmother; and they carried him, and all
his family, in triumph to Rome.

But, a great man will be great in
misfortune, great in prison, great in chains.
His noble air, and dignified endurance of
distress, so touched the Roman people, who
thronged the streets to see him, that he and
his family were restored to freedom. No one
knows whether his great heart broke, and he
died in Rome, or whether he ever returned to
his own dear country. English oaks have
grown up from acorns, and withered away,
when they were hundreds of years old; and
other oaks have sprung up in their places,
and died too, very aged; since the rest of the
history of the brave CARACTACUS was
forgotten.

Still, the Britons would not yield. They
rose again and again, and died by thousands,
sword in hand. They rose, on every possible
occasion. SUETONIUS, another Roman general,
came, and stormed the Island of Anglesey
(then called MONA), which was supposed to
be sacred, and burnt the Druids in their own
wicker cages, by their own fires. But, even
while he was in Britain, with his victorious
troops, the BRITONS rose. Because BOADICEA,
a British queen, the widow of the King of the
Norfolk and Suffolk people, resisted the
plundering of her property by the Romans who
were settled in England, she was scourged, by
order of CATUS a Roman officer; and her two
daughters were shamefully insulted in her
presence, and her husband's relations were
made slaves. To avenge this injury, the
Britons rose, with all their might and
rage. They drove CATUS into Gaul; they
laid the Roman possessions waste; they
forced the Romans out of London, then a
poor little town, but already a trading place;
they hanged, burnt, crucified, and slew by
the sword, seventy thousand Romans in a few
days. SUETONIUS strengthened his army, and
advanced to give them battle. They strengthened
their army, and desperately attacked his,
on the field where it was strongly posted.
Before the first charge of the Britons was
made, BOADICEA, in a war-chariot, with her
fair hair streaming in the wind, and her
injured daughters lying at her feet, drove
among the troops, and cried to them for
vengeance on their oppressors, the licentious
Romans. The Britons fought to the last; but,
they were vanquished with great slaughter,
and the unhappy queen took poison.

Still, the spirit of the Britons was not
broken. When SUETONIUS left the country,
they fell upon his troops, and retook the
Island of Anglesey. The Emperor AGRICOLA
came, fifteen or twenty years afterwards, and