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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
Having lately had occasion to trouble you with remarks concerning the antiquity of most of the Welsh castles, some of which have been supposed to be the works of the Romans, it naturally occasioned my looking into such ancient writers as have given any account of what passed in this country, from the first invasion by Julius Caesar, to the time it was totally abandoned by the Roman legions.
page 134 note [a] Printed in vol. I. p. 278 & seq.
page 135 note [b] Jul. Caes. c. 47. The same writer charges Caesar with every kind of rapine and extortion, both in Gaul and Lusitania.
page 136 note [c] Caesar's Geography hath been charged with inaccuracies in what relates to his conquests in Germany. See Goldastus's Philological Letters, printed at Leipsic, 1674, Epist. 53.
page 137 note [d] Thus Dr. Cay supposes that the Usk, in the ninth century, was called the Severn; because it empties itself into that river, “Anno enim Domini 896 (ut Roffensis Historia refert) Pagani, noctu recedentes per provinciam Merciorum non cessabant, donec ad villam super Sabrinam quae Cantabrigge vocatur pervenerunt; per Sabrinam, Uscam intelligens, quod notior fluvius ille, in quem se Usca recipit.” De Antiq. Cantab. p. 215. London 1568, 12°.
page 137 note [e] See Bullet, in the article Tam, Vol. III. Besancon, 1760, Folio, and Vol. I. p. 342.
page 137 note [f] De Bello Gallico, lib. iv. c. 17.
page 138 note [g] It is a very extraordinary translation which Mr. Carte hath made of this passage, “So the Britains call a thick grove with a lawn in the middle of it, surrounded “with a ditch and rampart to secure it from the sudden incursions of an “enemy.” Carte, Vol. I. p. 94. I cannot but think this antiquary inserted the lawn in the middle, to favour some conjectures he had made about Roman and British camps.
page 138 note [h] I must here beg leave also to mention a passage in Dio Cassius, which shews many of the smaller barrows to have been raised by the Britons for the purpose of Generals haranguing their armies.
“
(the famous British queen) 
.” L. 62. sub principio.
page 143 note [a] De Bello Gallico, lib. v. c. 18.
page 143 note [b] Ponticus Virunnius hath not only covered these stakes with lead, but made them to consist of iron and not wood; so apt are writers to add circumstance to circumstance, when once they get beyond the original and only authority. He also describes Caesar's advancing towards Cassibelan with his fleet, without any attempt to ford the Thames. See Pont. Brit. Hist. lib. iv. sub princip.
The Saxon Chronicle likewise (in the first chapter) takes notice of the Britons driving large and sharp stakes into the Thames, to prevent Caesar's passing that river, and that they actually prevented it by this obstruction. This is another proof how much all writers deviate from the truth of facts, when they do not speak from authentic materials. 
.
page 145 note [c] Mr. S. Gale, in a dissertation on Caesar's passage of the Thames, printed in vol. I. p. 183, supports the opinion of Camden, as to his crossing at Otelands, but scarcely makes use of any arguments which had not been before insisted upon.
page 146 note [d] See Tacitus's account of this passage.
page 146 note [e] See the Britannia, in Surry.
page 148 note [f] See the maps to Cluver's and Ptolemy's Ancient Geography.
page 149 note [g] See lib. iv. de Bello Gallico, c. 21.
page 149 note [h] ibid. lib. ix. c. 12.
page 149 note [i] ibid. lib. v. c. 4.
page 149 note [k] ibid. lib. iv. c. 20
page 150 note [l] De Bello Gallico, lib. v. c. 88.
page 152 note [m] See Dr. Davis's Welsh Dictionary, in the articles Esord, and Rhyd.
page 152 note [n] It may not be improper also to observe, that the French term of Carfour, or the point where four roads meet, is probably derived from the Celtic, or British word ffordd.
page 153 note [o] The expression is maritimae civitates; and in other parts Caesar says, “ex his longè humanissimi sunt qui Cantium incolunt, quae regio est maritima “omnis.” Lib. v. cap. 19.
“Neque enim praeter navigatores adit illos (sc. Britannos) quisquam; “neque iis ipsis quidquam praeter maritimam oram atque eas regiones quae sunt “contra Galliam nostram notum est.” Lib. iv. cap. 20.
page 154 note [p] Thus also the measure of a foot seems to have been originally deduced from the common length of the human foot.
page 154 note [q] Nat. Hist. lib. II. c. 23.
page 154 note [r] See vol. XIX. p. 53, of the Memoires of the Academy of Inscriptions & Belles Lettres, which society of Antiquaries testify the highest approbation of this treatise of Mons. La Barre's.
page 154 note [s] See the same volume, p. 648.
page 154 note [t] See vol. XXVIII. p. 212.
page 155 note [u] Suetonius, in Vita Julii Caesaris, c. 55.
page 158 note [x] Annal. lib. xiv. c. 33.
page 158 note [y] Amm. Marcel. lib. xxvii. c. 10.