This fleet sailed quite round Britain, which had not been before, by any certain proof, known to be an island: a circumnavigation, in that immature state of naval skill, of little less fame than a voyage round the globe in the present age.
In the interval between his campaigns Agricola was employed in the great labors of peace.

He knew that the general must be perfected by the legislator, and that the conquest is neither permanent nor honorable which is only an introduction to tyranny.

His first care was the regulation of his household, which under former legates had been always full of faction and intrigue, lay heavy on the province, and was as difficult to govern.

He never suffered his private partialities to intrude into the conduct of public business, nor in appointing to employments did he permit solicitation to supply the place of merit, wisely sensible that a proper choice of officers is almost the whole of government.

He eased the tribute of the province, not so much by reducing it in quantity as by cutting off all those vexatious practices which attended the levying of it, far more grievous than the imposition itself.