It is not the province of this work to follow in detail the course of Roman conquest. It is sufficient to state that the Romans only gained their footing in Britain by slow degrees, and that the legions which had conquered other countries almost as soon as they marched into them, had to encounter many a sturdy foe, and to achieve many a hard-earned victory, ere they obtained full control over a people, who, though fully alive to the advantages of a commercial intercourse with Rome, cherished a love of independence unsurpassed by any other nation of antiquity. Indeed, it was not until the governorship of Agricola that Britain could in any sense be called a Roman province; and that Agricola succeeded where other generals, such as Plautius and Ostorius Scapula, had failed, is mainly attributable to the care and gentleness of his administration, and to his obvious desire to make the chains he had forged for the British as agreeable as possible to them. Agricola was the first Roman general who had penetrated into Scotland; he was also the first to sail round the whole country, an undertaking then of no ordinary danger, especially at the advanced season of the year when it was performed. It is a striking remark of Tacitus that the harbours of Ireland, which one or two centuries before had been visited by the Gauls, and perhaps at a still earlier period by the Carthaginians, were then better known to continental merchants by means of their commerce than to those of Britain. [Sidenote: His fleet sails round Britain.] [Sidenote: The influence of the rule of Agricola on the Britons.]