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RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS.

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ANCIENT NAVY OF ENGLAND.

(To the Editor.)

Allow me to make a few observations in addition to those in a paper signed G.K. in No. 528 of The Mirror.  Your correspondent commences with Julius Caesar, and passes over the period intervening between him and King Edgar; and from him till the time of King John.  Now, prior to Caesar’s invasion of this island, and during the wars between the Romans and Gauls, Caswallwn or Cassivelaunus, sent a numerous body of troops to assist the Armoricans, or natives of Brittany, against the Romans; Caesar himself, says, that his project of invading this country arose from the intelligence he received of the aid the Gauls derived from the Britons; therefore I consider that the mode, let it be what it would, deserved somewhat of the name of a fleet, if not in the modern sense of the word.  Caesar says they had large, open vessels, with keels and masts made of wood, and the other parts covered with hides; and about the year 384, Cynan Meiriadog, a chieftain of North Wales, sailed to Armorica with a great body of followers, to support the cause of Maximus, an aspirant to the Roman throne.

Berkeley, in his Naval History, p. 49, says, that at the time of the Saxon invasion, Gurthefyr or Vortimer, King of the Britons, with a fleet, opposed the Saxons under Hengist; and after an obstinate engagement, the Britons were victorious, notwithstanding the inferiority of their vessels to those of the Saxons, both in number and size.

The Welsh, at the time of King Alfred, must have had some knowledge of nautical architecture and affairs, (according to Berkeley’s Naval History, p. 69,) for the great Alfred discovering the necessity of establishing a naval force for the purpose of resisting the incursions of the Danes, prevailed on several natives of Wales to superintend its construction, and subsequently conferred on them some of the most distinguished posts in his fleet.  And as a proof of the nautical spirit of the Welsh, we have the fact of Prince Madog, son of Owain Gwynedd, about the year 1170, going on a voyage in search of a new country, where he would be free from the dreadful dissensions which were ravaging his native country.

Caer Ludd.

CYMMRO.

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ENGLISH PUNISHMENTS IN THE REIGN OF CHARLES II.

(For the Mirror.)

Impoysonments, so ordinarily in Italy, are so abominable amongst English, as 21 Henry VIII. it was made high treason, though since repealed; after which the punishment for it was to be put alive into a caldron of water, and then boiled to death; at present it is felony without benefit of clergy.