But the scheme which was pursued, the scheme of joint emperors, holding by a common title, each governing his proper territory, but not wholly without authority in the other portions, this formed a species of government of which it is hard to conceive any just idea.  It was a government in continual fluctuation from one to many, and from many again to a single hand.  Each state did not subsist long enough independent to fall into those orders and connected classes of men that are necessary to a regular commonwealth; nor had they time to grow into those virtuous partialities from which nations derive the first principle of their stability.

The events which follow sufficiently illustrate these reflections, and will show the reason of introducing them in this place, with regard to the Empire in general, and to Britain more particularly.

In the division which Diocletian first made of the Roman territory, the western provinces, in which Britain was included, fell to Maximian.  It was during his reign that Britain, by an extraordinary revolution, was for some time entirely separated from the body of the Empire.  Carausius, a man of obscure birth, and a barbarian, (for now not only the army, but the senate, was filled with foreigners,) had obtained the government of Boulogne.  He was also intrusted with the command of a fleet stationed in that part to oppose the Saxon pirates, who then began cruelly to infest the northwest parts of Gaul and the opposite shore of Britain.  But Carausius made use of the power with which he had been intrusted, not so much to suppress the pirates as to aggrandize himself.  He even permitted their depredations, that he might intercept them on their return, and enrich himself with the retaken plunder.  By such methods he acquired immense wealth, which he distributed with so politic a bounty among the seamen of his fleet and the legions in Britain that by degrees he disposed both the one and the other to a revolt in his favor.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 286]

[Sidenote:  A.D. 290]

[Sidenote:  A.D. 293]

As there were then no settled principles either of succession or election in the Empire, and all depended on the uncertain faith of the army, Carausius made his attempt, perhaps, with the less guilt, and found the less difficulty in prevailing upon the provincial Britons to submit to a sovereignty which seemed to reflect a sort of dignity on themselves.  In this island he established the seat of his new dominion; but he kept up and augmented his fleet, by which he preserved his communication with his old government, and commanded the intermediate seas.  He entered into a close alliance with the Saxons and Frisians, by which he at once preserved his own island from their depredations and rendered his maritime power irresistible.  He humbled the Picts by several defeats; he repaired the frontier wall, and supplied it with good garrisons.  He made several roads equal to the works of the greatest emperors.