induced them to leave his part of the kingdom in the following year. But he secured this humiliating respite only to derive the greatest possible advantage from it. He at once devoted himself to naval matters, and in 875[1] he met seven Danish ships at sea, and scattered them, capturing one. Thereafter, for several years, he busied himself with the recovery of Wessex. In 882,[2] he was again afloat with a squadron, capturing four Danish ships after a very obstinate action. In 885, his vessels took sixteen Danish pirates[3] at the mouth of the Stour, but were afterwards themselves defeated by another Danish force. Until 893, however, Danish activity was less than it had been for many years previously, and Alfred had a considerable amount of leisure for attending to the improvement of the arts of peace.
Many of the Danes who had been driven from England by the energy of Alfred were, in the meanwhile, ravaging parts of the Low Countries and the north of France, under a leader of great ability named Hasting. Their continental successes tempted them to think again of England, and assembling at Boulogne, they built or procured a fleet of two hundred and fifty ships, embarked with their horses, and crossed the Channel to "Lemenemouth,"[4] where part of them landed. Some are of opinion that Lemenemouth was the mouth of the Rother. Be this as it may, the landed party stormed a fort and took up a position at Appledore, while Hasting, retaining with him eighty ships, proceeded to the mouth of the Thames, and landed at Milton,[5] where he formed a camp.
There is no record of what Alfred's fleet was doing at this period, but it does not appear to have met the enemy, and Hasting, in the next year, crossed the Thames into Essex, and fortified himself at South Benfleet, while two bodies of his friends co-operated with him, one, consisting of forty ships, going round by the north into the Bristol Channel and landing a force on the north coast of Devonshire, and the other, of one hundred ships, going down Channel, and landing a force for the siege of Exeter. Alfred divided his army into two parts, sending one against Hasting at Benfleet, and himself leading the other against his enemies in the west. Hasting was driven from Benfleet, and his fleet was part taken and part destroyed, but he fell back on South Shoebury, and was there
