508 Rev. Mr Wixu1ams on one Source of the 
Should we therefore wish to discover who were the “ Veteres 
Galli,” we must look for them in the natural fortresses of France, 
where they could defend themselves both from the foreign in- 
vaders, and the mixed bands of half-bandits, half-warriors, who 
ceased not to infest the country after the main body of invaders 
had passed away. 
Such a race were the Veneti of Western Gaul, so similar in 
their history, at an earlier period, to their kin-tribe in Italy. 
When the Roman empire was sinking under the repeated as- 
saults of the northern barbarians, the Italian Veneti sought refuge 
in their marshes and among their lagoons, where necessity soon 
compelled them to become a naval and commercial people. ‘This 
had been the fate of the Gallic Veneti, at a period antecedent 
to history. For Juzius Cmsar’ found them a highly civilized 
people, intimately connected with Britain, hardy sailors, and mas- 
ters of practical arts, unknown, or at least unrecorded, among 
Greek and Roman practices. These Veneti, with their cognate 
tribes, the Osismii, Lexovii, Nannetes, Ambialites, Morini, Diablin- 
tes, and Menapii, together with auxiliaries from the opposite coast 
of Britain, prepared to resist Cmsar. Their fleet, consisting of 
220 vessels of immense size and strength, built entirely of oak, 
and trusting to their sails alone, was destroyed by the row-galleys 
of the Romans, more owing to a chance calm than any other 
cause. The position of their cities, on tongues of land and pro- 
montories, to which there was no access except by sea, proves that a 
superior force had driven them for protection into such fortresses, 
which their naval skill and power could make good against land- 
1 Hujus civitatis est longé amplissima auctoritas omnis ora maritime, quod et 
naves habent Veneti plurimas, quibuscum in Britanniam navigare consueverunt ; et 
scientia et usu nauticarum rerum ceteros antecedunt ; et in magno impetu maris, 
atque aperto, paucis portubus interjectis, quos tenent ipsi, omnes fere, qui eodem 
mari uti consueverunt, habent vectigales—Com. Bell. Gall. lib. iii. cap. 8. 
2 Especially their chain-anchors and sails of finely tanned leather. 
