d be
gracious to His people, we shall yet be delivered from their hand. Now
these Romans are a strong nation, passing rich and of great power. It
becomes us therefore to consider prudently what we shall say and do in
answer to their message, looking always to the end. He who is assured
of his mark gets there by the shortest road. When the arrows start to
fly, the sergeant takes shelter behind his shield. Let us be cautious
and careful like these. This Lucius seeks to do us a mischief. He is
in his right, and it is ours to take such counsel, that his mischief
falls on his own head. To-day he demands tribute from Britain and
other islands of the sea. To-morrow he purposes in his thought to
receive truage of France. Consider first the case of Britain, and how
to answer wisely therein. Britain was conquered by Caesar of force.
The Britons knew not how to keep them against his host, and perforce
paid him their tribute. But force is no right. It is but pride puffed
up and swollen beyond measure. They cannot hold of law what they have
seized by violence and wrong. The land is ours by right, even if the
Roman took it to himself by force. The Romans really reproach us for
the shame and the damage, the loss and the sorrow Caesar visited upon
our fathers. They boast that they will avenge such losses as these, by
taking the land with the rent, and making their little finger thicker
than their father's loins. Let them beware. Hatred breeds hatred
again, and things despiteful are done to those who despitefully use
you. They come with threats, demanding truage, and reproving us for
the evil we have done them. Tribute they claim by the right of the
strong, leaving sorrow and shame as our portion. But if the Romans
claim to receive tribute of Britain because tribute was aforetime paid
them from Britain, by the same reasoning we may establish that Rome
should rather pay tribute to us. In olden days there lived two
brothers, British born, namely, Belinus, King of the Britons, and
Brennus, Duke of Burgundy, both wise and doughty lords. These stout
champions arrived with their men before Rome, and shutting the city
close, at the end gained it by storm. They took hostages of the
citizens to pay them tribute, but since the burgesses did not observe
their covenant, the brethren hanged the hostages, to the number of
four and-twenty, in the eyes of all their kinsfolk. When Belinus went
to his own place, he commended Rome to the charge of Brennus,