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NAVAL HISTORY

CHAPTER I.

CIVIL HISTORY OF NAVAL AFFAIRS TO 1066.

The primitive Briton and the sea—Early British vessels—Commercial relations with the continent—Ships of the Veneti—Maritime impotence of Britain at Cæsar’s invasion—Pictæ—Cæsar’s ships—Britain under the Romans—Roman harbours in Britain—The Scots and Picts—The Saxon invaders—Their origin and character—Anglo-Saxon ships—Rise of Mercia—Offa's fleet—Rise of Wessex—Alfred's maritime policy—Edgar—Danegeld—The Danish invaders—Greatness of Canute—Danish ships—Port dues—Tenures of the maritime towns—Smallness of the permanent navy—The Gokstad ship and its construction.

MONG the inhabitants of Britain, a large number have in all ages followed the sea. In the days of extreme antiquity, when the greater part of the island was covered with forests in which wild beasts, and possibly wilder human beings, roamed, knowing no law save that of the strongest; when marshes and lakes were more common, and watercourses broader, than they are now, and when there was little tillage, the seas and rivers yielded a readier harvest than the land.

So long as society remained unorganised, the man who planted a field gave to precarious fortune most valuable hostages in the shape of his labour and his seed. Any man more powerful than he might, without much trouble, deprive him of the fruit of both by driving him from his hard-won patch, and occupying it. Yet, even while society was in its earliest infancy, there was a certain kind of safety afloat for him who knew how to manage paddle and sail. He could not easily be ousted from his chosen fishing-grounds. To oust him—nay, seriously to interfere with him afloat—required not merely brute