The third of the Barbarian tribes who had assailed the Roman province, and afterwards effected a settlement in the island, and the second of those who were foreign settlers, were the Saxons. The traditionary account of their settlement is thus given. Gildas tells us that when the Picts and Scots crossed the southern wall in their last invasion of the province, and drove the Britons before them, the provincial Britons applied to Aetius, a powerful Roman citizen, for protection. He states that this letter bore the address ‘To Aetius, now consul for the third time, the groans of the Britons,’ and contained the expression, ‘The Barbarians drive us to the sea; the sea throws us back on the Barbarians; thus two modes of death await us, we are either slain or drowned;’[148] that no assistance being given from Rome, the more warlike part of the Britons overthrew their enemies, who had been for so many years living in their country; that the Picts then settled for the first time in the northern part of the island, and the Scots returned to Ireland; that this was followed by a great plenty in Ireland; that a rumour suddenly arose that their inveterate foes were rapidly approaching to destroy the whole country, and to take possession of it, as of old, from one end to the other; that a council was called to settle what was best and most expedient to be done to repel the irruptions and plunderings of these nations; and that the councillors, along with that proud tyrant, the leader of the Britons,[149] sealed the doom of their country by inviting in among them the fierce and impious Saxons, ‘a race,’ says the Christian and patriotic Gildas, ‘hateful alike to God and men,’ to repel the invasions of the northern nations. They arrive in three “cyuls” or long ships, and land on the eastern side of the island, where they settle. They are followed by a larger body of their countrymen, who join them. The Barbarians, being thus introduced as soldiers and supplied with provisions, become dissatisfied with their monthly provisions, break the treaty, and proceed to destroy the towns and lands till they reach the Western Sea. Then follows a lamentable description of the ruin caused by them; and of the Britons, some were enslaved, some fled over the sea, and others took arms under a leader of the Roman nation—Ambrosius Aurelianus, attack their cruel conqueror and obtain a victory. A war then follows, in which sometimes the citizens and sometimes the enemy have the advantage, till the year of the siege of the Badon Mount,[150] which was also the year of his birth. Such is a _résumé_ of Gildas’s narrative of the settlement of the Saxons in Britain, and to it only two dates can be attached. There is no question that the letter which was sent to Aetius belongs to the year 446, when he was for the third time consul; and the siege of Badon Hill took place, according to the _Annales Cambriæ_, in the year 516.