chap, xxxviii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 157 allotted for the residence of these German auxiliaries, and they were supplied, according to the treaty, with a plentiful allow- ance of clothing and provisions. This favourable reception en- couraged five thousand warriors to embark with their families in seventeen vessels, and the infant power of Hengist was for- tified by this strong and seasonable reinforcement. The crafty Barbarian suggested to Vortigern the obvious advantage of fixing, in the neighbourhood of the Picts, a colony of faithful allies ; a third fleet of forty ships, under the command of his son and nephew, sailed from Germany, ravaged the Orkneys, and disembarked a new army on the coast of Northumberland, or Lothian, at the opposite extremity of the devoted land. It was easy to foresee, but it was impossible to prevent, the im- pending evils. The two nations were soon divided and ex- asperated by mutual jealousies. The Saxons magnified all that they had done and suffered in the cause of an ungrateful people ; while the Britons regretted the liberal rewards which could not justify the avarice of those haughty mercenaries. The causes of fear and hatred were inflamed into an irrecon- cilable quarrel. The Saxons flew to arms ; and, if they per- petrated a treacherous massacre during the security of a feast, they destroyed the reciprocal confidence which sustains the in- tercourse of peace and war. 136 Hengist, who boldly aspired to the conquest of Britain, Estabiish- exhorted his countrymen to embrace the glorious opportunity : saxon hep- he painted in lively colours the fertility of the soil, the wealth of *v. 455-582 the cities, the pusillanimous temper of the natives, and the con- venient situation of a spacious, solitary island, accessible on all sides to the Saxon fleets. The successive colonies which issued, in the period of a century, from the mouths of the Elbe, the Weser, and the Khine, were principally composed of three valiant tribes or nations of Germany : the Jutes, the old Saxons, and the Angles. The Jutes, who fought under the peculiar banner of Hengist, assumed the merit of leading their country- men in the paths of glory and of erecting in Kent the first inde- pendent kingdom. The fame of the enterprise was attributed 136 Nennius imputes to the Saxons the murder of three hundred British chiefs : a crime not unsuitable to their savage manners. But we are not obliged to believe (see Jeffrey of Monmouth, 1. viii. e. 9-12) that Stonehenge is their monument, which the giants had formerly transported from Africa to Ireland, and which was removed to Britain by the order of Ambrosius and the art of Merlin.
