Violent storm and great loss of ships. obstruction; and the vessels, after having discharged their freights, were anchored in Dungeness Bay. Finding that the British forces had retreated in the direction of Canterbury, then, as now, the capital of Kent, Cæsar determined on a rapid advance, most probably crossing the river Stour at Wye, about twelve miles from Lymne, near to which, as before, he had disembarked. Challock Wood, a considerable military post in the wars between the kings of Kent and Sussex, is, with reasonable probability, believed to have been the scene of the first encounter between the British and Roman forces. In this battle, though on the whole successful, it is clear that Cæsar had not much to plume himself upon; moreover, it was followed by a great disaster, in a gale which wrecked forty, and more or less disabled the whole of the vessels in which he had crossed the Channel. But the Roman general was not dismayed; having collected those least injured, he hauled them up on the shore, threw a rampart around them to preserve them from the attacks of the Britons, and leaving Labienus to collect fresh ships in Gaul, at once placed himself at the head of his legions.[1]
The British force having, however, gathered strength in the interval, now assumed a more threatening aspect; as Cassivelaunus, king of Hertfordshire and Middlesex, having triumphed in the wars in which he had been engaged at the time of Cæsar's first invasion, now claimed dominion over the whole of the south-east of England, and was, therefore, able to oppose the new assault on Britain
- ↑ The "Invasion of Britain by Julius Cæsar," by Thomas Lewin, Esq., M.A., 1859.
