The invasion by Cæsar was the result of various and mixed circumstances, among which we may well believe one inducement to have been the desire on his part of making his rule in Gaul pre-eminently famous by the subjugation, under Roman rule, of an island about which so many stories were current among his countrymen. Britain, described in Virgil[419] as “beyond the limits of the known world,” was supposed to be rich in gold and silver, with an ocean fertile in pearls;[420] indeed, Suetonius speaks of it as a popular belief, that it was in quest of pearls that Cæsar crossed the Channel. But a more probable reason for his proposed attempt is that alleged by Napoleon III., viz., his having found the natives of Britain invariably aiding his enemies in his Gallic wars, and especially in his conflict with the Veneti, during the summer of the year of his first invasion, B.C. 55.[421] Moreover, intestine divisions[422] had about that time broken out in England, and hence there was then a better chance of Roman success than there would have been had the islanders stood firmly together to resist the invader. Having resolved then to make the attempt, Cæsar looked about him to procure information about the unknown island: but here he was completely foiled; for the Gauls stood too well by their friends and relations in Britain to volunteer the information they might easily have given the Roman commander. The Veneti, as might have been expected, did what they could to thwart him, while the Morini, dwelling around and to the east of Boulogne, are specially mentioned as friendly to the Britons.[423] Moreover, Cæsar himself remarks that no one but merchants ever visited Britain,[424] unless, indeed, they fled thither for their lives; Britain having been then, as now, the refuge for continental exiles of all classes. In spite, however, of these adverse circumstances, increased in some degree by the lateness of the season, Cæsar judged it best to make the attempt, hoping, probably, to strike an effective blow before the petty states in Britain had had time to weld themselves into a compact body, although, too, he had an almost certain prospect of an uprising in his rear of the only half-subdued Gauls as soon as his legions were fully employed in Britain. He therefore, as a last chance of procuring news about the island, despatched one of his lieutenants, C. Volusenus, in a “long ship” (_i.e._, light war-galley),[425] giving him orders, as soon as he had made the necessary inquiries, to return to him with all possible speed; a step which showed clearly what his intentions were, and led to an embassy from the Britons, offering terms of submission he, perhaps, disbelieved, at all events declined accepting. [Sidenote: First invasion, B.C. 55.]