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of their ‘daily aggressions.” ‘The chronicle of Lanercost says they 
came ‘‘more solito, in their usual fashion.” In 1317, William de 
Dacre reports that the country is so utterly wasted and burned, 
that from Lochmaben to Carlisle there is neither man or beast left. 
Can we wonder at the result that followed—that the people who 
lived here became the despair of the Wardens of the Marches— 
and that the district was at length described “as the sink and 
receptacle of proscribed wretches, who acknowledged neither 
kingdom, obeyed the laws of neither country, and feared no 
punishment.” No wonder that Lord William Howard, the Belted 
Will of Border history, looking upon the condition of affairs on his 
arrival in these parts, as he puts it in a letter of 1606, with the eye 
of “a southern novice,” was astonished at what he saw, and 
endeavoured to do something to restore at least a semblance of 
order and civilisation. ‘The Grahams, of innumerable places, are 
always singled out as being the chief offenders. ‘If the Grahams 
were not,” says Sir W. Lawson, in 1605, ‘‘these parts would be as free 
from blood and theft as Yorkshire.” Unwearying and continuous 
were the efforts that were made. A trial was made of exportation, 
and the leading offenders were sent abroad. ‘‘Change of air,” it 
was said, “will make in them an exchange of manners.” But again 
and again, we are told, they returned ; and other and more natural 
methods were employed that have proved more efficacious in the 
end. 
The record of progress here has been a slow one, but it has been 
a sure one; and our house has at length been set in order to receive 
an Association for the Advancement of the twin sisters of Litera- 
ture and Science. It is a result that fills one with hope in dealing 
with similar difficulties that have to be faced elsewhere. I think 
it was Napoleon who said there were only two powers—the power 
of the sabre and the power of the mind; and he added that in the 
end the power of the sabre must yield to the power of the mind. 
That has been the issue here; and the progress that has been 
made will, we hope, be maintained. We hope that the connection 
of Longtown with this Association will continue to your mutual 
profit, and that in these days of education, increasing numbers of 
