vernment, in a manner barbarous, but destitute
of that spirit or those advantages with which sometimes a state of
barbarism is attended. They carried out of each province its proper and
natural strength, and supplied it by that of some other, which had no
connection with the country. The troops raised in Britain often served
in Egypt; and those which were employed for the protection of this
island were sometimes from Batavia or Germany, sometimes from provinces
far to the east. Whenever the strangers were withdrawn, as they were
very easily, the province was left in the hands of men wholly
unpractised in war. After a peaceable possession of more than three
hundred years, the Britons derived but very few benefits from their
subjection to the conquerors and civilizers of mankind. Neither does it
appear that the Roman people were at any time extremely numerous in this
island, or had spread themselves, their manners, or their language as
extensively in Britain as they had done in the other parts of their
Empire. The Welsh and the Anglo-Saxon languages retain much less of
Latin than the French, the Spanish, or the Italian. The Romans subdued
Britain at a later period, at a time when Italy herself was not
sufficiently populous to supply so remote a province: she was rather
supplied from her provinces. The military colonies, though in some
respects they were admirably fitted for their purposes, had, however,
one essential defect: the lands granted to the soldiers did not pass to
their posterity; so that the Roman people must have multiplied poorly in
this island, when their increase principally depended on a succession of
superannuated soldiers. From this defect the colonies were continually
falling to decay. They had also in many respects degenerated from their
primitive institution.[26] We must add, that in the decline of the
Empire a great part of the troops in Britain were barbarians, Batavians
or Germans. Thus, at the close of this period, this unhappy country,
desolated of its inhabitants, abandoned by its masters, stripped of its
artisans, and deprived of all its spirit, was in a condition the most
wretched and forlorn.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Neque conjugiis suscipiendis neque alendis liberis sueti, orbas
sine posteris domos relinquebant. Non enim, ut olim, universae legiones
deducebantur cum tribunis et centurionibus et suis cujusque ordinis
militibus, ut consensu et caritate rempublicam efficerent, sed ignoti
inter se, d