THE RESULTS OF CAESAR’S INVASIONS OF BRITAIN
54 B.C.—A.D. 43.
Caesar’s contemporaries and the Roman writers of succeeding The importance of Caesar’s British expeditions under estimated by his contemporaries and by historians. generations did not over-estimate the results of his British campaigns. The well-known line of Lucan—
Territa quaesitis ostendit terga Britannis[1416]—
is only worth quoting as an instance of the poet’s animosity; but the impression left by the various passages which refer to Caesar’s expeditions is, that public expectation, having been wrought up to a high pitch, had suffered disappointment.[1417] Everybody knew that Caesar had not incurred the vast expense of his second expedition merely for plunder or to deter the Britons from aiding the Gauls: they gathered from his own book that he had aimed at conquest; and they could see no more than that he had failed. Tacitus came nearest to the truth when he said that ‘Julius, though by a successful engagement he struck terror into the inhabitants and gained possession of the coast, must be regarded as having indicated rather than transmitted the acquisition to posterity’.[1418] But even this judgement was based upon imperfect knowledge; and the tendency of modern historians, including the greatest scholar of them all, has been to underrate the importance of what Caesar had achieved.
For although Caesar had failed to achieve his aim, he had opened a new world to his countrymen; had proved the facility with which it could be conquered; and had done all that opportunity permitted to pave the way for the conquest. He directed the course of British history into a new channel. He forced the most civilized peoples of the island to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, and made it clear to those of them who could read the signs of the times that the enforcement of that supremacy would not be long delayed. He impressed upon them such respect for the Roman power that the avowed object with which he had invaded the country was effectually gained:—the Britons ceased to abet the resistance of their kinsmen on the other side of the Channel. He showed that the key to the conquest was to take advantage of the jealousy between the family of Cassivellaunus and their rivals. In the presence of these facts, the question whether the tribute which he imposed was ever actually paid is merely academical; but the great scholar who required us to believe that ‘it is certain that the stipulated tribute was never paid’[1419] made an assertion which is not only improbable but is opposed to such evidence as we possess. Mommsen did not fully appreciate the severity of the punishment which had been inflicted upon Cassivellaunus, or the hold over him which Caesar could exert through his hostages. It is probable indeed that Diodorus,[1420] when he said that Caesar forced the Britons to pay tribute, was only putting his own construction upon Caesar’s words: but what is certain is that the Britons, although in the reign of Augustus they were not required to pay tribute, were obliged to pay duties at the Gallic harbours upon the goods which they exported to and imported from Gaul; and it is not unreasonable to conjecture that these charges may have been imposed as an equivalent for a tribute which could no longer have been collected except by an irresistible army.[1421] But the influence which Caesar exercised upon the destinies of Britain was communicated chiefly through Gaul. In the three years which followed his departure the Britons saw the conquest of Gaul completed: while the civil war ran its course they saw that Gaul made no effort to throw off the Roman yoke; and as time passed and the provinces settled down in the grasp of Augustus, they saw that Gaul was incorporated in the Roman Empire. Meanwhile in Britain the history of Gaul was being enacted over again. In the earlier half of the first century before our era Roman traders, settled in Gallic towns, had prepared the way for the legions of Julius: in the later half Roman or Romanized traders who found it profitable to deal with Britain prepared the way for the legions of Claudius.
Development of British commerce.
In Strabo’s time the Britons still imported ornaments of various kinds from the Continent, vases of amber and glass, gold necklets, and ivory for the decoration of horse trappings. Among their exports were slaves, which shows that intertribal warfare was still rife, and, if Strabo’s statement is to be taken literally, corn, cattle, and iron.[1422] Representations of horned cattle, sheep, and pigs are found so often upon British coins[1423] that we can easily understand how the graziers should have been able to spare of their abundance; but, although ears of corn are figured on some of Cunobeline’s coins,[1424] it requires more faith to believe that the population by whose density Caesar was amazed grew enough corn to satisfy not only their own requirements, but those of their continental neighbours, and that the Gauls, whose resources were sufficient to enable them to feed Caesar’s army, were obliged to import grain. One would have supposed too that the output of the Gallic iron mines, which Caesar mentions, would not have required to be supplemented from Britain; and that the iron-workers of the Weald had enough to do in supplying the wants of their own countrymen. But, though Britain was not as opulent as Gaul, it would seem that some of the chiefs in the southern and eastern districts amassed a considerable amount of wealth. Tacitus[1425] tells us that Prasutagus, who was king of the Iceni about 60 A.D., was renowned for his riches; and, like Dumnorix the Aeduan, he may have acquired them in part from tolls. It has been maintained that the tin trade, which had once been so flourishing, and which certainly flourished during the later period of the Roman occupation, ceased about the beginning of the Christian era, and was suspended for the next two hundred years: but the mere absence of ingots of tin bearing the Roman stamp is hardly sufficient to establish a theory which, intrinsically, is so improbable; and it seems more reasonable to conclude that the mines were continuously worked, but not until the third century under Roman control.[1426]
The British inscribed coinage and its historical value.
But the notices of Britain which appear in the writings of Strabo and Diodorus are the least important sources of our knowledge. More valuable is the systematic classification of British coins which has been accomplished during the last fifty years. They show how thoroughly Roman ideas had permeated British civilization before the legions returned to the island, and enable us to trace in outline the course of British political history during the century that elapsed between the departure of Julius and the invasion of Claudius Caesar. Soon after the former event the numismatic art of Britain entered upon its second period. Coins of silver, copper, bronze, and tin were now coming into use;[1427] and the need that was beginning to be felt for small change testifies to an advance in material civilization. On the site of Verulamium have been found gold coins of two values, silver of one, and bronze of three.[1428] Perhaps we must also regard as a sign of progress increased ingenuity in fraud: at all events besides the authorized mints there were forgers, who made a living by passing coins of base metal thinly plated with gold.[1429] Uninscribed coins were still struck, especially in the remoter districts,[1430] and remained in circulation in the time of Claudius;[1431] but from about 30 B.C. the greater number of new coins bore the name either of the prince or of the tribe in whose territories they were minted, and in some cases also the name of the town in which the mint was situated. This evidence shows that Verulamium and Camulodunum were the chief political centres of Southern Britain;[1432] and it is remarkable that the name of Londinium, although it may even then have been the chief commercial town, as it certainly was from the very beginning of the Roman occupation,[1433] does not appear upon any British coin which has yet come to light.[1434] The earliest of the inscribed coins naturally belonged to the south-eastern parts of the country:[1435] the northern tribe of the Brigantes were the last to adopt them;[1436] and not a single specimen has been discovered which can be assigned to the Durotriges.[1437] Of the course of events in the northern and western regions history tells us nothing, and coins but little: indeed there is no evidence that the tribes of Scotland, Wales, Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, Westmorland, Shropshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall even now had coins at all;[1438] and it was not until some time after Caesar’s departure that the inhabitants of Gloucestershire, northern Wiltshire, and Somersetshire began to use them.[1439] Probably the iron bars which have been already described were still current[1440] in the midlands and the west; and Solinus affirmed that in his time the people of the Scilly Islands refused money and traded by barter.[1441] Coins bearing the simple inscription, CATTI, which has been assumed to be that of a tribe, have been found in Worcestershire, Monmouthshire, Somersetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall;[1442] and it has been hastily concluded that some of the remoter British tribes, like many of those of Gaul, had expelled their kings.[1443] But our most experienced numismatist thinks that the inscription represents the name of the prince by whom the coins were minted;[1444] and one would be inclined to believe that the more backward north and west were then, as they were sixteen centuries later, the strongholds of conservatism.[1445] The evidence which relates to Southern Britain is less flimsy; and it points to the conclusion that the course of events in that part of the country was leading inevitably to the Roman conquest.
The dynasties of Cassivellaunus and Commius.
The history of Southern Britain in this period, if we disregard Dorsetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, is the history of two dynasties,—that of Caesar’s old antagonist, Cassivellaunus, and that of his old ally, Commius. Of the later life of Cassivellaunus nothing is known; but it would seem probable that the recollection of the punishment which the legions had inflicted upon him and the knowledge that his hostages were in Caesar’s power were sufficient to induce him to obey Caesar’s last injunction and to leave the Trinovantes Tasciovanus. and their king, Mandubracius, unmolested. About 30 B.C., or perhaps a few years earlier, he was succeeded by his son, Tasciovanus.[1446] The earlier coins of this prince were purely British in character; but those of later date are adorned with the figures of Pegasus and centaurs, while one of them is imitated from a coin of Augustus, which was first struck in 13 B.C.;[1447] and their number and variety are so great that the reign of Tasciovanus must have extended over a long period,—not improbably until about A.D. 5.[1448] His dominions, which were perhaps originally confined to the country of the Catuvellauni, in whose capital, Verulamium, most of his coins were struck, ultimately included, it should seem, not only those of the Trinovantes, but also of the Epaticcus and Cunobeline. Segontiaci and parts of Northamptonshire.[1449] He left several sons, among whom were Epaticcus and Cunobeline. The coins of the former, which bear the abbreviated Latin inscription TASC. FIL.—‘son of Tasciovanus’—have all been found either in the western part of Surrey or the east of Wiltshire; and it has been inferred that he either succeeded to the western portion of his father’s dominions or conquered territory which had never been subject to him.[1450] Epaticcus was, however, completely overshadowed by his brother, who, under the name of Cymbeline, has been immortalized by Shakespeare. There may perhaps be a kernel of truth in the statement of Geoffrey of Monmouth, that he was Cunobeline’s coins prove growth of Roman influence in Britain. educated by Augustus:[1451] at all events his silver and copper coins bear witness to the growing influence of Roman culture; and many of them must have been designed either by Romans or by artists who had received Roman training. One of his silver coins, in the opinion of the highest authority, is characterized by exquisite workmanship, ‘worthy of a Greek artist;’[1452] and some of them suggest that not long after the commencement of the Christian era the worship of Hercules had been introduced into Britain.[1453] Not one of the coins bearing his name which have so far been discovered was struck at the mint of Verulamium, from which, as we have seen, those of his father had mainly issued: the name of Camulodunum appears upon them all; and the conclusion seems warranted that he inherited the eastern part of his His conquests. father’s dominions, and extended them by subduing the Trinovantes,—the hereditary enemies of his family.[1454] It is not improbable that he had begun to reign about 5 B.C., while his father was still alive; and that he conquered the Trinovantes before his father died.[1455] The area which was under his immediate rule when he was at the height of his power included perhaps, besides their country and that of the Catuvellauni, a part of that of the Dobuni, who inhabited what is now Gloucestershire;[1456] but it would seem that he also exercised a general supremacy over the whole of the south-eastern part of the island.[1457] Suetonius was so impressed by the fame of his power that he described him as Britannorum rex,—‘King of the Britons.’[1458]
Flight of Dubnovellaunus and Tincommius(?), the son of Commius, to Rome.
Cunobeline’s conquest of the Trinovantes appears to have been one of the causes which led to the flight, briefly chronicled by Augustus on the monument of Ancyra,[1459] of two British princes who sought for Roman aid. Their names, as recorded on the stone, were DVMNOBELLAV[nus], and, if we are to accept the testimony of Chishull,[1460] an antiquary of a past generation, TIM.... The name of the former, as it is spelled on British coins, was Dubnovellaunos. Those of his coins which appear to have been circulated earliest have been found only in Kent, which he probably at one time ruled.[1461] His later coins tend to show that he afterwards annexed the territory of the Trinovantes, from which he was in his turn expelled by Cunobeline.[1462] But who was the prince who with him undertook the long journey to Rome? The letters TIM, if indeed M was really graven upon the monument, were of course only the first three of another name; and it is possible that Chishull may have mistaken one or perhaps two broken letters for M, or, since M and N were often confused, that the engraver may have been misled by his copy.[1463] Be this as it may, there is only one known name with which TIM ... can be identified,—that of Tincommius, who called himself on some of his coins TINCOM[mios] COMMI FILI[us] REX[1464]—‘King Tincommius, son of Commius.’ In order to understand the history of Tincommius, we must trace the later career of the Commius who was, beyond all reasonable doubt, his father,[1465]—the king of the Atrebates who had accompanied Caesar to Britain.
The later adventures of Commius.
Commius had of course been liberally rewarded for his services: but in the great Gallic insurrection of 52 B.C. he had thrown in his lot with Vercingetorix; and he was one of the four generals to whose joint direction was entrusted the command of the Pan-Gallic host which marched to relieve the latter when he was beleaguered in Alesia. ‘Caesar,’ we read in the seventh Commentary, ‘had found Commius a loyal and serviceable agent in former years in Britain; and, in acknowledgement of these services, he had granted his tribe immunity from forced contributions, restored to it its rights and laws, and placed the Morini under his authority. Yet so intense was the unanimous determination of the entire Gallic people to vindicate their liberty and recover their ancient military renown, that no favours, no recollection of former friendship, had any influence with them, but all devoted their energies and resources to the prosecution of the war.’[1466] Patriotism, however, was not the only motive of Commius: he had a reason for the bitterness of his hostility, which Caesar does not mention, but which we learn from Caesar’s friend, Aulus Hirtius, who wrote the last of the Commentaries on the Gallic War. In the winter of 53-52 B.C., while Caesar was absent in Cisalpine Gaul, Commius took an active part in forming the nucleus of the coalition of which Vercingetorix was destined to be the leader; and Labienus, who found out his designs, commissioned the tribune Volusenus to assassinate him. Commius escaped with a severe wound; and in the year which followed the overthrow of Vercingetorix he formed, in conjunction with a chief of the Bellovaci, a fresh coalition against Caesar, who was obliged to exert all his strength in order to subdue it. For some time Commius led the life of a brigand chief, and succeeded in capturing several convoys which were on their way to Caesar’s winter camp in the country of the Atrebates. He made himself so formidable that Mark Antony sent Volusenus to make a second attempt to kill him; and although he again escaped, he ultimately surrendered on the express condition that he should never again be brought face to face with any Roman.
His conquests in Britain.
When and why Commius took up his abode in Britain is not known; but some probability may be claimed for the conjecture that his motive was to check the encroachments of the Catuvellauni.[1467] No coins have been found which can with absolute certainty be ascribed to him:[1468] but it is admitted that he issued coins before Tasciovanus, who, as we have seen, began to reign at least as early as 30 B.C.;[1469] and before his death he became overlord of the maritime tribes of South-Eastern Britain on the right bank of the Thames.[1470] He Tincommius, Verica, and Eppillus. left three sons, Tincommius, Verica, and Eppillus; and almost all their coins have been found in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire.[1471] Each of these sons described himself on his coins as REX, and each of them appears to have had a kingdom of his own, Tincommius ruling the Regni, who inhabited Sussex, Eppillus the Cantii, and Verica the Atrebates.[1472] The dominions of Verica cannot, however, be certainly defined. There is some reason to suppose that he held sway over the Atrebates of Belgium as well as over those of Britain; for certain coins found in the north of France, and closely resembling others that are common in the south-eastern counties of England, are inscribed with a monogram which appears to denote the abbreviation VE.[1473] It should seem that Eppillus, at some time, was king of the Atrebates, for some of his coins have the legend CALLEV,—an abbreviated form of Calleva, the chief town of that tribe.[1474] Certain coins, however, exist which apparently bear the names of all the three brothers, a fact which can only be explained on the theory that at one time they exercised a joint sovereignty over the dominions which had belonged to their father;[1475] while others are inscribed with the names of Verica and Eppillus only.[1476] It has been assumed that these coins were not struck until after the death of Tincommius;[1477] but another explanation seems possible. Why did Tincommius, alone of the three brothers, solicit the protection of Augustus, and why did he undertake the journey to Rome in conjunction with Dubnovellaunus? Numismatic evidence has led to the belief that Dubnovellaunus had once ruled over the Cantii;[1478] and if so, Eppillus, who afterwards acquired dominion over the same tribe, probably dispossessed him. Dubnovellaunus, as we have already seen, appears to have once ruled over the Trinovantes as well, and to have been expelled from their country by Cunobeline. These successive reverses may have been the motive for the journey which he undertook to Rome; and when we consider that certain coins bear the names of Eppillus and Verica, without that of Tincommius, which on others appears side by side with theirs, it seems possible that Tincommius, finding that his brothers were leagued together against him, threw in his lot with another prince who had been as unfortunate as himself. This conjecture is perhaps somewhat strengthened by the fact that one of the coins of Tincommius bears, along with TIN—the abbreviated form of his name—the inscription DV,[1479] which has baffled the acumen of numismatists, but which, on the analogy of TC—one of the abbreviations of TINCOMMIOS[1480]—may possibly stand for DUBNOVELLAUNOS.[1481]
How the fugitives were received we are not told; but it is certain that Augustus did not grant them armed assistance; nor is there any evidence that they ever recovered power. Augustus contemplates an invasion of Britain. As early as 34 B.C. Augustus had marched into Gaul with the intention, as was generally believed, of invading Britain; but, owing to an insurrection in Dalmatia, he was compelled to abandon his resolve.[1482] For several years, however, it was expected that he would sooner or later complete the work which his adoptive father had begun; and this expectation was voiced in the poetry of the time. About the year 30 B.C. Vergil[1483] prayed that ‘far off Thule’ might obey Augustus; and Horace, in odes which seem to have been officially inspired, called upon Fortune to preserve him in his expedition against the Britons, ‘remotest inhabitants of the world,’[1484] and foretold that when they and the Parthians were brought under the imperial sway he would be hailed a god upon earth.[1485] In 27 and again in 26 B.C. Augustus marched into Gaul with the ostensible purpose of invading Britain, but again without result.[1486] But the latest of these dates was earlier than the flight of Tincommius and Dubnovellaunus; and thenceforward Augustus abandoned all thought of Why he abandoned his intention. invading Britain.[1487] The cause of his inaction is discernible in two passages of Strabo’s Geography,[1488] which give the official explanation of the imperial policy. The conquest of Britain would be very costly; and it was unlikely that the revenue would be more than sufficient to defray the expense of the garrison and the administration: the duties levied at the Gallic harbours on goods imported from and exported to Britain were more productive than any tribute; besides, Britain was too weak to be dangerous, and its conquest was therefore unnecessary. Possibly we may gather from the prominence which is given in the monument of Ancyra to the petition of Tincommius and Dubnovellaunus that it was officially interpreted as a sign of the virtual submission of the Britons.
Continued growth of Roman influence in Britain.
This confidence indeed is not difficult to understand. The conjecture that at the courts of Commius, of Tasciovanus, and of Cunobeline Latin was the official speech[1489] may perhaps be somewhat rash: but at all events Latin was the language of the mint; and perhaps it is not unreasonable to suppose that, as some Pannonian Celts were versed in Latin literature,[1490] a Briton here and there was equally accomplished. Roman silver coins were already eagerly accepted, on account of their purity, in Southern Britain.[1491] And if Rufina, the young British wife of a Roman, whose praises Martial sang,[1492] could hold her own in Italian society, we may realize that before the Roman conquest Britain had begun to be Romanized.
Cessation of British coinage in certain districts which had belonged to the sons of Commius.
With the sons of Commius the British coinage in the districts which they had ruled, with the sole exception of Kent, came to an end.[1493] It may be that the inhabitants had begun, like the Gauls with whom they traded, to use only Roman money; but, as the coinage of Kent continued, the more probable explanation would seem to be that they were no longer able to make head against the King of the Catuvellauni.[1494]
Tincommius and Dubnovellaunus were not the only British Relations of Cunobeline with Rome. princes who paid their respects to the emperor. ‘In our time,’ says Strabo, ‘various British chieftains gained the friendship of Augustus Caesar by sending embassies and performing services; placed votive offerings in the Capitol; and made almost the whole island familiar to the Romans.’[1495] Among them, we can hardly doubt, was Cunobeline, whose coins, like those of his father, testify that Roman mythology had already taken root on British soil,[1496] and who, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth,[1497] voluntarily paid tribute to Rome. If there is any truth in Geoffrey’s statement, the tribute must have been the price paid for moral support. During the reign of Tiberius, who adhered to the conservative and moderate policy of his stepfather, the relations of Cunobeline and of Britain with Rome apparently remained unchanged: history only relates that some soldiers of Germanicus, who had been shipwrecked on the British coast, were sent back by British princes.[1498] It can hardly be doubted, however, that the conquest of Britain was contemplated by Roman statesmen as inevitable: to leave independent the Celtic island which was so near the conquered Celtic mainland His exiled son, Adminius, takes refuge with Caligula. was unnatural, and could not be permanently safe.[1499] The latter part of Cunobeline’s reign was clouded by domestic quarrels; and in A.D. 40, when he was an old man, his son Adminius,[1500] whom he had driven into exile, threw himself on the mercy of Caligula, who was at the time in Gaul, and offered to surrender his father’s kingdom. The feather-pated emperor sent messengers to Rome, who were charged to announce to the Senate in the temple of Mars the submission of the whole island;[1501] but the magniloquent and mendacious message testifies not only to his vanity but to the fame of Cunobeline.
Death of Cunobeline.
Within the next three years the great king died, leaving, besides Adminius, three other sons who still remained in Britain,—Caratacus, Togodumnus, and, as we may conjecture, one Bericus, who fled over sea. Caratacus, whose name is more familiar under the erroneous form Caractacus, was the prince who in later years opposed a desperate resistance to the Roman conquest of Western Britain. After Cunobeline’s death he and Togodumnus assumed royal power, and perhaps combined to exclude Bericus from any share in the Unpopularity of his dynasty intensified on the accession of his sons, Caratacus and Togodumnus. inheritance of their father’s dominions.[1502] It is possible that Bericus had some influence with the Iceni, who were bitterly hostile to the dynasty of Cassivellaunus and his successors, and were prepared to join the Romans if they should invade the island. But another explanation has been proposed. There are late coins of the Iceni which bear the name of a prince named Antedrigus, who later still issued coins which have been found in the territory of the Dobuni. It has been suggested that, like the Treveran Indutiomarus and his enemy Cingetorix,[1503] Antedrigus and Bericus were the leaders of rival factions of the Iceni; that Antedrigus prevailed; that Bericus thereupon determined to seek Roman aid; and that Antedrigus, when the Iceni joined the Romans, sought an asylum among the Dobuni.[1504] Anyhow Bericus d to Rome.[1505] It would seem that Caratacus and Togodumnus took offence when he and Adminius were not sent back, and even committed, or threatened to commit, some act of violence against the Roman power;[1506] and it may be that their attitude, combined with the information which Bericus gave about the internal politics of his country, was Invasion of Britain by Aulus Plautius. among the motives that induced Claudius to dispatch the force which, under Aulus Plautius, was to begin the Roman conquest of Britain.[1507]
Review of British history from 54 B.C. to A.D. 43.
Amid many uncertainties the facts of British history which stand out prominently are these. The invasions of Caesar, supported by his conquest of Gaul, stimulated trade between the Britons and the Romanized Gauls, and thereby brought Britain within the sphere of Roman influence; encouraged those British princes who needed protection or support to turn to Rome, and made them all look up to the Emperor as a patron, who might eventually be their sovereign lord. In the island itself Commius and his sons made themselves supreme in the eastern districts south of the Thames; 54 B.C.—A.D. 43. their power was overmatched and perhaps finally absorbed by that of the family of Cassivellaunus, who steadily augmented their dominion by conquest until under Cunobeline it extended from the coast of Essex to the estuary of the Severn, and from the Midlands to the English Channel. The Roman conquest and its results. the jealousy and the fear which this ambitious dynasty aroused led directly to the Roman invasion, by which the influences that had already begun were so developed that the upper classes and the townspeople of Britain learned to speak Latin[1508] and to adopt Roman customs, and in the end came, like their Gallic neighbours, to regard themselves as Romans; that the Late Celtic art which had flourished for centuries gave way to that of Rome, and even in cottages and remote hamlets Samian pottery and rude hypocausts were to be found;[1509] that by the fourth century a British church had been fully developed, which continued to flourish after the Roman administration had ceased, while even in the sixth century the forsaken Britons gloried in the name of Romani;[1510] and that, in a word, Britain, becoming completely Romanized, received an impress which has not yet wholly faded away.[1511]
Permanence in English history of prehistoric and Celtic elements.
But when the Roman had gone, when the Saxon, the Dane, and the Norman had come, the descendants of neolithic aboriginals, of bronze-using immigrants, and of Celts still lived on; and their composite influence has ever since been helping to form the British character and to determine the course of British history. The roads on which we travel, the flocks and herds that feed us, the corn that grows in our fields, the implements which we use,—all our industrial arts are inseparably connected with theirs. Not only do their beliefs still survive, tinging the faith which their successors have been taught, but their spirit has lived again in the men who have done the deeds of which our nation may be proud.
And perhaps the story which this book has told may 54 B.C.—A.D. 43.d a few to become less self-complacent and to think more of those primitive ancestors. In some things we have sunk below their level: in what have we risen? Riches, luxury, the security that tends to make self-reliance weak, the softening of manners, rapidity of communication, the development of engines of destruction, medicine, and surgery—all that appertains to material civilization—herein we have made giant strides. But such improvements hardly enable men to bear up under burdens which are ever increasing. The tourist in a Pulman car is not happier than those who travelled in stage-coach or wagon, and speed deprives him of as much as it bestows; machinery has but substituted fresh evils for those which it destroyed. New superstitions, less gross but not less false, have been engrafted upon the old; but ‘pure religion and undefiled,’—how far has it strengthened its hold upon the hearts of men? We have professed indeed to teach inferior races the gospel of love; but in Australasia our mission has been not so much to evangelize as to exterminate. Apart from the extirpation of the coarser forms of inhumanity and from those other civilizing influences which may operate even in a decadent society, the progress of which we may not unreasonably boast has been in knowledge, which to the vast majority is unattainable, and, in this island, unheeded or contemptuously rejected by most of the few who have it within reach.