It is therefore no wonder that the Scandinavian colonists introduced their national laws, which had always proved the surest defence of their liberties, at once and completely both into countries previously uninhabited, and into those from which the ancient inhabitants were expelled by their invasions. This was the case, for instance, in Greenland, the Faroe Isles, the Shetland Isles, and the Orkneys. But with regard to freedom they even went still further than in Scandinavia, and sometimes abolished the regal power, whose caprices and dangers they had learned to appreciate and fear, and founded republics in its place. Even in countries like France and England, where a large and civilized population, possessing a complete system of national law, previously existed—and where the Scandinavian colonists, till they became strong enough to assume the authority of masters, were for a long time inferior both in numbers and power—they adhered immovably to their ancient legal customs, and caused them to be observed, in spite of Christianity, and of that foreign civilization which they themselves soon adopted. But it was at the same time a natural result of this state of things, that they were neither able to introduce into such countries _all_ the ancient legal usages of Scandinavia, nor, generally speaking, _any_ law of a comprehensive character, without adapting it to the peculiar situation which they, as conquerors and strangers, now occupied in regard to the natives and their existing institutions. A strong proof, not only of the affection of the Danes for their Scandinavian institutions, but of the complete settlement of that people in England at a very early period, is, that in the beginning of the tenth century, and consequently more than a hundred years before the time of Canute the Great, they had already established their own laws on the east coast of England, notwithstanding that Christianity, as before stated, had gained a footing amongst them. It appears, from the remarkable treaty concluded at that time between Kings Edward and Gudrum, that the Danes settled in East Anglia, and on the eastern coast of England, were not only placed on an equal footing with the English with regard to legal rights, but that it was also determined how disputes between the English and Danes should be decided, and what fine each people should pay for certain crimes. Thus the English were to pay “_wite_,” or fines, according to the English law, in pounds and shillings; whilst the Danes were to make compensation for “_lah-slit_” (i. e., _infraction of the law_, from the old Norsk, _lög_, law, and _slita_, to rend in two, break), according to the Danish law, in “marks” and “ores.”