AT THE CONQUEST. Ill 



that the Southern Britons, upon the retirement 

 of the Romans from the island, were the almost 

 unresisting victims of the Northerns and the 

 Saxons : but although Britain, in all probability, 

 participated in the weakness which was apparent 

 throughout the Roman empire, a living historian 

 has shewn, that its inhabitants bravely defended 

 themselves against their new enemies, as they 

 had before done against the Romans. And it 

 was to their want of union, that they once more 

 had to attribute their defeat after a century of 

 struggles; when they made a stand in Wales, 

 where they kept their assailants at bay for nearly 

 nine hundred years. But full justice has not 

 yet been rendered to them, if it had, they would 

 not be represented as they commonly are, but 

 would have a respectable place assigned them, in 

 the list of the celebrated nations of the ancient 

 world. 



