As the equinox approached, he was unwilling to expose vessels ill repaired to a navigation in winter. He took advantage of favourable weather, set sail a little after midnight, and regained Gaul with all his ships without the least loss. Two transport vessels only were unable to enter the port of Boulogne with the fleet, and were carried a little lower towards the south. They had on board about 300 soldiers, who, once landed, marched to rejoin the army. In their way, the Morini, seduced by the prospect of plunder, attacked them by surprise, and soon, increasing to the number of 6,000, succeeded in surrounding them. The Romans formed in a circle; in vain their assailants offered them their lives if they would surrender. They defended themselves valiantly during more than four hours, until the arrival of all the cavalry, which Cæsar sent to their succour. Seized with terror, the Morini threw down their arms, and were nearly all massacred.[361] [Sidenote: Chastisement of the Morini and Menapii.] VI. On the day after the return of the army to the continent, Labienus received orders to reduce, with the two legions brought back from Britain, the revolted Morini, whom the marshes, dried up by the summer heats, no longer sheltered from attack, as they had done the year before. On another side, Q. Titurius Sabinus and L. Cotta rejoined Cæsar, after laying waste and burning the territory of the Menapii, who had taken refuge in the depths of their forests. The army was established in winter quarters among the Belgæ. The Senate, when it received the news of these successes, decreed twenty days of thanksgiving.[362] [Sidenote: Order for Rebuilding the Fleet. Departure for Illyria.] VII. Before he left for Italy, Cæsar ordered his lieutenants to repair the old ships, and to construct during the winter a greater number, of which he fixed the form and dimensions. That it might be easier to load them and draw them on land, he recommended them to be made a little lower than those which were in use in Italy; this disposition presented no inconvenience, for he had remarked that the waves of the channel rose to a less elevation than those of the Mediterranean, which he attributed wrongly to the frequency of the motions of the tide and ebb. He desired also to have greater breadth in the vessels on account of the baggage and beasts of burden he had to transport, and ordered them to be arranged so as to be able to employ oars, the use of which was facilitated by the small elevation of the side-planks. According to Dio Cassius, these ships held the mean between the light vessels of the Romans and the transport ships of the Gauls.[363] He procured from Spain all the rigging necessary for the equipment of these vessels.