Britain was a most valuable northern outpost of the Roman Empire, and was occupied by large garrisons, which employed the people in hard labors, and used them for Roman aggrandizement, but despised them too much to attempt to elevate their condition.

Elsewhere the Romans depopulated, where they met with barbarian resistance; they made a solitude and called it peace--for which they gave a triumph and a cognomen to the conqueror; but in Britain, although harassed and endangered by the insurrections of the natives, they bore with them; they built fine cities like London and York, originally military outposts, and transformed much of the country between the Channel and the Tweed from pathless forest into a civilized residence.
III.

COMING OF THE SAXONS .-- Compelled by the increasing dangers and troubles immediately around the city of Rome to abandon their distant dependencies, the Roman legions evacuated Britain, and left the people, who had become enervated, spiritless, and unaccustomed to the use of arms, a prey to their fierce neighbors, both from Scotland and from the continent.
The Saxons had already made frequent incursions into Britain, while rival Roman chieftains were contesting for pre-eminence, and, as early as the third century, had become so troublesome that the Roman emperors were obliged to appoint a general to defend the eastern coast, known as _comes litoris Saxonici_, or count of the Saxon shore.[1] These Saxons, who had already tested the goodliness of the land, came when the Romans departed, under the specious guise of protectors of the Britons against the inroads of the Picts and Scots; but in reality to possess themselves of the country.

This was a true conquest of race--Teutons overrunning Celts.

They came first in reconnoitring bands; then in large numbers, not simply to garrison, as the Romans had done, but to occupy permanently.