ANCIENT BRITAIN AND 1.11h INVASIONS OF JULIUS CAESAR.
ITo THE EDITOR OF THE "EPECTATOR:.1 Sia,—The note which the reviewer has appended to my letter, printed in the Spectator of January 25th, compels 'me to write once more. I shall not trouble him again.
He says that he is sorry if I think that he has "treated what is certainly, on the whole, an excellent book unfairly." I am sorry that he has repeated—doubtless quite unconsciously—the unfair- ness of which I complained. After referring to what I have written about the tidal stream, he says :—" I still think that these possibilities are a poor basis for a Johnsonian or Tom Macaulay-ish laying down of the law." Undoubtedly, if they stood alone; but the reviewer again describes as a basis what is really only a minute portion thereof. As various writers had argued that when Caesar sailed from his anchorage in 55 B.C. the tide must have been running westward, I proved from recorded observations that it might have been running eastward, and then adduced many arguments to show that all other con- siderations pointed inevitably to the conclusion that Caesar landed in East Kent. For instance, among many other reasons for rejecting Airy's theory that Caesar landed at Pevensey, I showed from his own words that he was compelled by tidal con- siderations (see p. 612) to assume that when Caesar said that he "'reached Britain" (Britanwiam attigit) in 55 B.C. he meant that he anchored five nautical miles from the shore, at which distance it would have been impossible to discern the armed men who, as he says, " were in full view on all the heights " • to assume that by snontibus angustis he meant cliffs "ten to thirty feet high," which, to say nothing of the grotesqueness of the translation, would, at a distance of five nautical miles, have been invisible as cliffs ; and to assume that by summa tranguinitate he meant "a stiff north- west wind." To call these assumptions untenable may be " Johnsonian," but is certainly legitimate. If those who take an interest in the question will read carefully the whole of the article which I have devoted to it, they will be able to judge whether my complaint is justified. The reviewer then reverts to a question which I excluded from my letter because I did not think it right to reply in the Spectator to arguments which are dealt with in my book. " I should like," be says, "to quote [from Nelson] another judgment as to the alleged superiority of Boulogne for a point of departure: ' I am sure that the French are trying to get from Boulogne ; yet the least wind from W.N.W. and they are lost. I pronounce that no embarkation can take place at Boulogne.'" The quotation is irrelevant. It would of course have been impossible for Caesar to sail with the "wind from W.N.W." either from Boulogne or from any other port of North-Eastern Gaul ; but if he had encountered "the least wind from W.N.W." on the voyage he would not have been "lost," for he had not, like Napoleon, to fear a British fleet. Napoleon had reason to dread W.N.W. winds owing to circumstances which were partly connected with the presence of this fleet, partly with the great deterioration of Boulogne Harbour, and which are fully explained by Captain Desbriere; but to the last his principal flotilla was assembled at Boulogne. Moreover, the fact remains that early in the Imperial epoch Boulogne was deliberately selected as the Roman port of embarkation for Britain, and was the permanent naval station.
Let me in conclusion thank the reviewer for his kind apprecia-
[We cannot publish any more letters on this subject. Our allowance of the final word to Dr. Rice Holmes must not be taken to indicate that we think our reviewer failed to maintain his oontentions.—En. Spectator.]
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