But the maritime population, when once possessed of the whole coast, did not seek to make the slightest progress toward the interior.  The element of their enterprise and the object of their ambition was the ocean; and when this hardy and intrepid race became too numerous for their narrow limits, expeditions and colonies beyond the sea carried off their redundant population.  The Saxon warriors established themselves near the mouths of the Loire; others, conducted by Hengist and Horsa, settled in Great Britain.  It will always remain problematical from what point of the coast these adventurers departed; but many circumstances tend to give weight to the opinion which pronounces those old Saxons to have started from the Netherlands.

Paganism not being yet banished from these countries, the obscurity which would have enveloped them is in some degree dispelled by the recitals of the monks who went among them to preach Christianity.  We see in those records, and by the text of some of their early laws, that this maritime people were more industrious, prosperous, and happy, than those of France.  The men were handsome and richly clothed; and the land well cultivated, and abounding in fruits, milk, and honey.  The Saxon merchants carried their trade far into the southern countries.  In the meantime, the parts of the Netherlands which belonged to France resembled a desert.  The monasteries which were there founded were established, according to the words of their charters, amid immense solitudes; and the French nobles only came into Brabant for the sport of bear-hunting in its interminable forests.  Thus, while the inhabitants of the low lands, as far back as the light of history penetrates, appear in a continual state of improvement, those of the high grounds, after frequent vicissitudes, seem to sink into utter degeneracy and subjugation.  The latter wished to denaturalize themselves, and become as though they were foreigners even on their native soil; the former remained firm and faithful to their country and to each other.

But the growth of French power menaced utter ruin to this interesting race.  Clovis had succeeded about the year 485 of our era, in destroying the last remnants of Roman domination in Gaul.  The successors of these conquerors soon extended their empire from the Pyrenees to the Rhine.  They had continual contests with the free population of the Low Countries, and their nearest neighbors.  In the commencement of the seventh century, the French king, Clotaire II., exterminated the chief part of the Saxons of Hanover and Westphalia; and the historians of those barbarous times unanimously relate that he caused to be beheaded every inhabitant of the vanquished tribes who exceeded the height of his sword.  The Saxon name was thus nearly extinguished in those countries; and the remnant of these various peoples adopted that of Frisons (Friesen), either because they became really incorporated with that nation, or merely that they recognized it for