Dr. John Lempriere, Drs. John and Edward Dupré, Sir Page View of the Town, and Elizabeth Castle, Frontispiece. Near View of Elizabeth Castle... 155 180 Cave at Plemont Noirmont Tower, and St. Aubin's Bay (Vignette) 182 ERRATA. Page 12, line 8, add the word at before Feschamp. 3127, for educed read reduced. Correct date in page 72; Dr. Heylin visited Jersey in 1629, his work was not published till 1656. JERSEY, AND THE NEIGHBOURING ISLANDS. CHAPTER I. SECT. I.—General and Military History. THE origin of small states can seldom be properly ascertained. Absorbed in the history of larger territories, they seldom become objects of notice; and when they have engaged the attention of any early writer, the account transmitted to posterity is generally a tissue of facts and fabulous extravagancies, so interwoven as to render it difficult and frequently impossible to distinguish the truth from the fable. Jersey has, in this respect, shared the fate of other minor countries; it is, therefore, quite uncertain at what time it became peopled, or who were its aborigines. It was, unquestionably, inhabited at an early period: the various monuments of Celtic worship that formerly existed, and some of which still remain, sufficiently attest this; and the Punic, the early Roman, and the Gaulish coins, discovered at different times and places in the Island, corroborate it.* * Some years since, a considerable quantity of Celtic coins were discovered in a bank, the falling of which disclosed them. All have a head on one side, and generally a horse on the reverse. Some of them are composed of an impure silver amalgam, but the greater part of copper blended with some other metal. B The earliest mention of the Channel Islands is in the 6th book of Cæsar's Commentaries, where it is stated that one Ambiorix, having rebelled against the authority of Cæsar, in Gaul, was quickly overcome, and his followers put to the sword, the chief fled to the shore and passed over to some islands; these islands are supposed to be Jersey and Guernsey, from the description that is given of their ap-pearance from the land, which corresponds with their general appearance at the present time. That part of Mont-orgueil Castle, in Jersey, called Le Fort de César, the immense earthen rampart near Rosel, and the remaining traces of a camp at Dielament, together with the many Roman coins found in different parts of the Island, prove that it was a place of some consequence under that people: it may however be presumed that Jersey was only a military station, though an important one. 66 Mezeray, in his History of France, mentions a division of Gaul into provinces, under Octavius Cæsar, and a subdivision of Normandy into presidencies. "These ten nations," says another French historian, together with the inhabitants of the islands lying near them, were known in Celtic Gaul by the name of The League of the eleven Cities." Thus we have historic proof that these Islands were inhabited by the Romans. In the fifth century, the Franks, issuing from Germany, spread themselves in every direction. Under their sovereigns of the Merovingian and Carlovingian races, they founded an empire which extended from the ocean to the Danube. Its more general division was into East and West France; the latter called Westria, and afterwards Neustria, which now is Normandy, though far more circumscribed than the ancient Neustria. The islands in its vicinity very naturally constituted a part of the district. During this period, Sampson, an Englishman and archbishop of St. Davids, on some disgust, retired to Brittany, where the Duke of that province gave him the bishopric of Dol, to which Childebert, King of France, added the islands of Jersey and Guernsey, with the other Islands contiguous to them. Sampson landed in Guernsey, in that part which is now called St. Sampson's harbour, and where he built a chapel : his object in visiting the Islands, seems to have been the conversion of the heathen inhabitants to Christianity. He was succeeded by Maglorius : the result of their labours will be given, with more detail, in the ecclesiastical history of the Islands. The inhabitants of the Islands, but principally those of Guernsey, in the time of Sampson and Maglorius, subsisted chiefly on fish: this Island was reckoned, though the most distant from France, the most considerable of all, on account of the safety and convenience of its harbours, and the quantity of fish on its coast. In the course of time, when the fishery was well established, many families of note, convents and other religious houses in Normandy and Brittany, were constantly supplied with fish from Guernsey; the few necessaries that the inhabitants required were supplied from the ports of Bretagne and Normandy, in exchange for that commodity. As their occupation was fishing, their land was not cultivated; all their houses and even the churches were built near the shore, to be near the scene of their occupations. About A. D. 837, during the reign of Ludovicus Pius, son of Charlemagne, the Normans began to carry on a piratical war, on the western coast of France. By degrees, their ravages became frequent and more extensive, and these Islands were not exempt from their predatory visits; if they did not suffer in the same degree as their conti |