Lanigan compiles the following account of this incursion from the _Eccles. History of Ireland_, vol. i. c. iv. “This prince, Coroticus, though apparently a Christian, was a tyrant, a pirate, and a persecutor. He landed, with a party of his armed followers, many of whom were Christians, at a season of solemn baptism, and set about plundering a district in which St. Patrick had just baptized and confirmed a great number of converts, and on the very day after the holy chrism was seen shining in the foreheads of the white-robed neophytes. Having murdered several persons, these marauders carried off a considerable number of people, whom they went about selling or giving up as slaves to the Scots and the apostate Picts. St. Patrick wrote a letter, which he sent by a holy priest whom he had instructed from his younger days, to those pirates, requesting of them to restore the baptized captives and some part of the booty. The priest and the other ecclesiastics that accompanied him being received by them with scorn and mockery, and the letter not attended to, the saint found himself under the necessity of issuing a circular epistle or declaration against them and their chief Coroticus, in which, announcing himself a bishop and established in Ireland, he proclaims to all those who fear God, that said murderers and robbers are excommunicated and estranged from Christ, and that it is not lawful to show them civility, nor to eat or drink with them, nor to receive their offerings, until, sincerely repenting, they make atonement to God and liberate his servants and the handmaids of Christ. He begs of the faithful, into whose hands the epistle may come, to get it read before the people everywhere, and before Coroticus himself, and to communicate it to his soldiers, in the hope that they and their master may return to God, &c. Among other very affecting expostulations, he observes that the Roman and Gallic Christians are wont to send proper persons with great sums of money to the Franks and other pagans, for the purpose of redeeming Christian captives; while, on the contrary, that monster, Coroticus, made a trade of selling the members of Christ to nations ignorant of God.” The Britons were frequently invaded by the Scots, upon the abandonment of their country by the Romans; and at the period here alluded to, it is supposed by many that the captives taken from Ireland were in several instances given by their possessors to the plundering and victorious Northmen, by the Britons, in exchange for their own captured relatives, whom they desired to release. About the year 555, Pope Pelagius held, under the protection of King Childebert, the third council of Paris, in which we find a canon, entitled, “De Servis Degeneribus,” concerning “bastard slaves,” as follows: (See Du Cange.)