VOL. XVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. iSg^ 



55th before the usual era of Christ: and as to the time of the year, Caesar 

 says that Exigu4 parte aestatis reliqu^, he came over only with two legions, viz. 

 the 7th and 10th, and all foot, in about 80 sail of merchant ships, 18 sail that 

 were ordered to carry over the horse, not being able to get out at the same 

 time from another port, where they lay wind-bound. He says that he arrived 

 about the 4th hour of the day, viz. between Q and 10 in the morning, on the 

 coast of Britain, where he found the enemy drawn up on the cliffs ready to 

 repel him, which place he thus describes : Loci haec erat natura, adeo montibus 

 angustis mare continebatur ut ex locis superioribus in littus telum adjici possit, 

 by which the cliffs of Dover and the South Foreland, are justly described, and 

 could be no other land, being, he says, in the 5th book of his Commentaries, 

 in Britanniam trajectum esse cognoverat circiter millium passuum triginta a con- 

 tinent!, the cliffs of the North Foreland being at a much greater distance. 

 Here he says he came to an anchor, and staid till the Qth hour, or till 

 between 3 and 4 in the afternoon, waiting till his whole fleet was come up ; 

 and in the mean time called a council of war, and advertised his officers, after 

 what manner they were to make their descent, particularly, in relation to the 

 surf of the sea, whose motion he calls celerem atque instabilem, quick and un- 

 even. Then, viz. about 3 in the afternoon, he weighed anchor, and having 

 gotten the wind and tide with him, he sailed about 8 miles from the first place, 

 and anchored against an open and plain shore. 



Here he made his descent ; and having told us the opposition that was made, 

 and the means he used to get on shore, he comes to say, that after he had been 

 4 days in Britain, the 18 ships with his horse put to sea, and were come in 

 sight of his camp, when a sudden tempest arose, with contrary winds, so that 

 some of the ships put back again, others were driven to the westward, not 

 without great danger, and coming to anchor, they found they could not ride it 

 out: so when night came on, they put off to sea, and returned from whence 

 they came. That same night it was full-moon, which makes the greatest tides 

 in the ocean, and they being ignorant thereof, their galleys, which were drawn 

 on shore, were filled by the tide, &c. 



Then he says that the day of the autumnal equinox being at hand, after some 

 days stay, wherein there passed no action, because he kept close in his camp by 

 the shore ; and not thinking it proper to stay till the winter came on, he re- 

 turned into Gallia. The next year he made a further expedition, with 5 legions 

 and a good body of horse ; but there is but little in the history thereof serving 

 to our purpose, excepting that he says he set sail from the Portus Icius about 

 sun-set, with a gentle S.W. wind, leni Africo profectus; that about midnight 

 it fell calm, and being carried away with the tide, by the time it was day, he 



