PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 133 



Romans were perfectly well aware of the great 

 advantage of water over land transport in labour and 

 expense ; they could see the help afforded by a current 

 flowing towards their great emporium ; and the vast 

 importance they attached to the use of horses for military 

 purposes would naturally lead them to avail themselves of 

 any other means of communication for non-militarv 

 objects. (3) The Thames was then, as now, navigable 

 for a very considerable part of its course by boats which 

 could carry many times the weight that could be drawn 

 by horses. John Chamberlayne, F.R.S., whose work on 

 Great Britain was published in 1708, says that much of 

 the fuel used in London came down the Thames, and that 

 from London " boats are drawn about 200 miles to 

 Oxford, and higher many miles."* This is sufficient 

 proof that before the weirs, which now form an essential 

 feature of Thames navigation, were erected, the river was 

 navigable for boats as far as the town of Lechlade. 

 Members of the Club scarcely need to be reminded that 

 when a century ago the Thames and Severn Canal was 

 constructed, it was at Lechlade that the junction with the 

 Thames was made. 



In the plan they adopted for the conquest of Britain, 

 the Romans had two leading ideas. One, as Mr John 

 Bellows has demonstrated so admirably, was to make 

 rivers the boundaries of the subjected parts of the 

 country; the second was, as Dr Hiibner has shown, to 

 advance northward in parallel lines from east to west. 

 The first of these lines, as Dr Hiibner and Mr Bellows 

 prove, was from Gloucester to Colchester. The reason 

 for selecting Gloucester as the western end of the line is 

 obvious : it was the key to the Severn. Was Colchester 

 selected for the eastern end simply because thereby the 



* " Magnac Britannite Notitia," by John Clianiberlaync, p. 284. 



