There was already a certain amount of commercial intercourse between Britain and Gaul, and Cæsar endeavoured to ascertain by questioning the merchants engaged in that trade what was the size of the island, what were its best harbours, and what the customs and warlike usages of the natives. On none of these points, however, could he obtain satisfactory information. The proconsul therefore sent a lieutenant named Volusenus with a swift ship to reconnoitre the nearer coast, but he returned in five days without having ventured to land. Meanwhile, as the object of the general’s prolonged stay in the territory of the Morini became more and more evident, messengers from certain of the British tribes began to cross the channel, charged--so Cæsar says--with a commission to promise “obedience to the rule of the Roman people,” and to give hostages as a pledge of their fidelity. The arrival of the ambassadors and their attempt to turn the proconsul from his purpose by fair speech and unmeaning promises we may well believe. How much the Regni and the Cantii knew about the rule of the Roman people, and what intention they had of loyally submitting to it, may be left uncertain. Cæsar, however, availed himself of the opportunity to send over with these returning envoys a certain Celtic chieftain named Commius, whom he had himself made king of the continental Atrebates, and on whose fidelity he thought that he could rely, to exhort the native tribes peacefully to accept the dominion of the Roman people, as the representative of whom Cæsar himself would shortly make his appearance among them. This mission of Commius proved quite fruitless. As soon as he landed--so he said--the Britons arrested him and loaded him with chains, and it was only after the defeat which will shortly be described that they sent him back to Cæsar. As we find Commius only four years later taking a leading part in the insurrection of the tribes in the north of Gaul, and professing an especial hostility to all who bore the name of Roman, we may, perhaps, doubt whether, even at this time, his pleas for subjection were as earnest, or the chains imposed upon him by the Britons as heavy, as Cæsar’s narrative would seem to imply.