We are not informed that Denmark and Norway were emptied of their population in consequence of these great emigrations, or even that there was any sensible want of inhabitants to supply agricultural labourers and soldiers. In the immediately following centuries Denmark was powerful enough to make the Baltic a Danish lake. We can hardly, therefore, assume, like the monkish chronicles of antiquity, which naturally breathe both fear and hatred of the Scandinavian heathens, that the Norwegians and Danes were merely barbarous Vikings, who procured themselves a footing in the western countries only through brute force. On such grounds we should be perfectly unable to explain satisfactorily how Denmark and Norway, with a proportionately small population, should have been able (without becoming too depopulated) to send out at once such a host of people as were evidently required to take possession, by force of arms, of those rich western lands, and also, it must be observed, to maintain their conquests for centuries. If, instead of blindly following these partial and prejudiced chroniclers, we adhere to what the traces of the nature and importance of the Scandinavian emigrations clearly prove, namely, that from the eighth to the twelfth century, and contemporary with the destructive Viking expeditions, peaceful emigrations from the North constantly took place—which, in reality, were just as effective, perhaps even more so, than the purely warlike expeditions of conquest—this matter will be placed in a far more probable and intelligible point of view. As we have seen, sagacity and the arts of peace, together with navigation and trade, in no slight degree assisted the Danes and Norwegians to procure a footing in the British Islands, and especially in England and Ireland. By perseverance and ability in the occupations of peace as well as war, they were soon enabled to gain the ascendancy in the most important seaport towns; whence, by means of various connections of trade, friendship, and family alliances, they extended their influence and dominion over the adjacent towns and districts. They gradually multiplied themselves, and were joined by fresh immigrants; and thus the foundations were almost imperceptibly laid of Scandinavian colonies, which awaited only the coming of some bold military adventurer to appear as independent, nay, even as dominant states. The great warriors to whom history assigns the honour of the conquests in England and Ireland—and, we may also add, Normandy—would scarcely have been able to obtain them with the generally inferior numbers under their command, had not the Scandinavian merchants, and other peaceful colonists, both opened the way for them, and afterwards supported the conquests they had achieved. It is, on the whole, obvious that the ancient Northmen possessed a very great talent for colonization, which their kinsmen, the English of modern times, seem to have inherited from them.