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(probably near Walmer), 54 B.C., had advanced as far as Canterbury, when he received intelligence that his fleet, which consisted of 800 ships, had been damaged by a storm. He left his army and hastened back to the coast; where he stayed till he had taken measures to repair the injured vessels, and had secured them from further mischief by drawing them ashore. On his return to his army, he found that the natives had assembled in great numbers, from the various territories, in order to oppose his farther advance into the country, and had intrusted the chief command and direction of the war to Cassivellaunus, a bold and skilful warrior. Some sharp encounters ensued, in which the Britons fought desperately; but their bravery was insufficient to check the Roman valour and discipline guided by the highest military genius; and the several auxiliary forces soon dispersed. Cassivellaunus, with the main body, consisting of about four thousand charioteers, withdrew towards his own territory, which was divided from the maritime states by the river Thames (Tamesis), about eighty Roman (seventy-four English) miles from the sea.

"Cæsar, having ascertained the intention of the enemy, led his army to the river Thames on the confines of Cassivellaunus, where the river is only fordable on foot in one place. When he reached that place, he observed great bodies of the enemy drawn up on the other bank of the river. The bank, too, was fortified with pointed stakes fixed in front, and stakes of the same description, driven into the bed of the river, were concealed by the water. Having been informed of these things by the prisoners and deserters, Cæsar ordered the

cavalry to advance, and the legions to follow immediately after them. But the soldiers, though their heads alone appeared above the water, advanced with so much swiftness and impetuosity, that the enemy, unable to withstand the charge of the legions and the cavalry, gave up the bank, and committed themselves to flight." (Cæs. 'De Bell. Gall.' lib. v., c. 18.)

Early in the eighth century, Bede, writing of Cæsar's invasion, says that the "remains of these stakes are to be seen to this day; they appear to be about the thickness of a man's thigh, and, being cased with lead, remain immovably fixed in the bottom of the river." (Hist. Ecc.' c. 11.) Camden was the first in recent times to point out Coway Stakes as the ford which the Britons defended. "It is impossible," he says, "I should be mistaken in the place, because here the river is scarce six feet deep; and the place at this day, from those stakes, is called Coway Stakes; to which we may add, that Cæsar makes the bounds of Cassivelan, where he fixes this his passage, to be about eighty miles distant from that sea which washes the east part of Kent, where he landed; now this ford we speak of is at the same distance from the sea; and I am the first, that I know of, who has mentioned and settled it in its proper place." (Camden's 'Britannia,' Gibson's ed. 1772, vol. i. p. 236.)

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The first edition of Camden's Britannia' was published in 1586. In 1735 a paper by Mr. Gale appeared in the first volume of the Archæologia,' in which the subject was elaborately discussed, and the opinion of Camden maintained by a comparison of the statements of the authorities, with the appearance of the place and the neighbourhood

(where are two or three encampments), and an examination of the route traversed. Of the stakes themselves, Gale says, "The wood of these stakes proves its own antiquity, being, by its long duration under the water, so consolidated as to resemble ebony, and will admit of a polish, and is not in the least rotted. It is evident, from the exterior grain of the wood, that the stakes were the entire bodies of young oak-trees, there not being the least appearance of any mark of any tool to be seen upon the whole circumference; and if we allow in our calculation for the gradual increase of growth towards its end, where fixed in the bed of the river, the stakes, I think, will exactly answer the thickness of a man's thigh, as described by Bede; but whether they were covered with lead at the ends fixed in the bottom of the river, is a particular I could not learn." None of the stakes remain now; the last was removed about ten years ago. They are said to have been capped with metal for convenience of driving, but whether brass or iron, accounts vary.

Since Gale wrote, the greater number of antiquaries have acquiesced in his opinion; but there have been many dissentients. Petersham, Kingston, and several other places have been fixed on as more probable, chiefly on account of the river being easier to ford, and military weapons having been found in the bed of the river at those places. But none of the weapons found are, I believe, Roman, and though the Romans used auxiliaries taken from friendly tribes belonging to the country they were traversing, yet it must not be forgotten that those tribes were constantly at war among themselves, and that fords would, in the rude system of fighting

then in practice, be always desperately defended. It is said, on the authority of the water-bailiff, that the river at Coway Stakes is not now fordable at all, except in very dry summers. But that is far

from being decisive that this was not the place which Cæsar's legions forded. The waters then no doubt flowed untrammelled over the adjoining marshes, whereas now they are confined within artificial banks wherever the natural banks are low; weirs and locks have been constructed for modern wants; and to improve the navigation, the river has often been dredged-changes fully sufficient to account for a place being no longer fordable. except in dry summers, which nineteen centuries ago was only fordable" with great difficulty," and only allowed the "heads of the soldiers to be seen above water."

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Some writers, as Daines Barrington and others, doubt whether Cæsar ever crossed the Thames at all; and Mr. Lysons treats Coway Stakes as unceremoniously as Edie Ochiltree did another Roman memorial,* pronouncing them to be "neither more nor less than the remains of a fishing-weir.' The former need no answer; and the latter certainly seems rather a bold guess, when what Gale said of the stakes is recollected, and it is also remembered that they were in existence when Camden wrote, and are probably those which in Bede's day were regarded as those planted in order to oppose Cæsar's passage. It is at best merely conjectural, but the various probabilities appear to converge so much more towards this, than any other place which has been suggested, that I think we may be fairly

* "Prætorian here, prætorian there, I mind the bigging o' it."-Antiquary.

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