CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY. The origin of small states can seldom be properly ascertained. Absorbed in the history of larger territo qualifying them for servants. This last observation applies, in an especial manner, to Jersey. The native females of the lower order are either extremely ignorant, or if, fortunately, they acquire any education, they aspire at being semstresses, from the mistaken idea, that thereby they are less under control. The consequence is, that genteel families are under the necessity of hiring English servants, who are not always such as would be engaged in England. Some have objected, that Jersey is too circumscribed for so enlarged a charity: this appears to be begging the question. It has succeeded in other places, and is well worthy of a trial. It is intended to erect school rooms for five hundred children: this can hardly be termed a very circumscribed number. "In the female orphan house at Dublin, there are 125 girls, who "have been received from five to ten years old, and are kept until they are sixteen or seventeen. They learn writing, reading, accounts, and needle work. The produce of the latter, for the last 66 year, amounted to £240." Carr's Stranger in Ireland. The Isle of Wight contained, in 1802, a population of 22,602 souls, a number something under that of the permanent population of Jersey (See POPULATION): yet, in the former island, there has been erected a house of industry, which, including children, contains from 500 to 550 persons. Various manufactures are carried on at this es tablishment ; and to so considerable an extent, that, in 1802, the poor's rate of the town of Newport had been reduced from 5s. 6d. to little more than 2s. 6d. in the pound; and the average of country parishes did not exceed 2s. About the year 1770, an act of parlia ment enabled the inhabitants to borrow £20,000. In 1802, this sum had been reduced to £12,500. On an average of some years, the manufactory had cleared, after deducting every expense, £200 annually. If the same advantages have continued, since 1802, what fruit must that island now reap from so excellent an institution! Either of the foregoing measures is within the compass of Jersey. ries, they sldom become objects of notice; and when they have engaged the attention of any early writer, the account transmitted o posterity is generally a tissue of real facts and fabulous extravagan. cies; so interwoven as to render it difficult and frequently impossible to unravel them. 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, 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. About 120 years before the Christian æra, Tran salpine Gaul was portioned out among three nations. The Celta, called by Cæsar, Galli or Gauls, occupied more than one half of the territory. Their dominion extended from the Seine to the Garonne. It was at the above period that the Romans meditated the conquest of these nations, all of whom had originally migrated from Italy. To the Celts, therefore, succeeded the Romans. We are ignorant respecting the precise time; thugh, as the greater part of Transalpine Gaul was subdued by Julius Cæsar, about forty-eight years prior to the birth of our Saviour, it is most likely that these islands were conquered by the Romans at nearly the same period. That part of Mont-orgueil castle, called Le Fort de Cesar, 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, ascertain that it was`a place of some consequence under that people: yet as no historical records, while it continued under their government, now remain, it may be presumed that Jersey was only a military station, though an important one. After the Romans, the Franks or French, by expelling them, became masters of the island. They first visited the western coast of Europe about A. D. 280, at which time they sailed from Sicily, coasting round Spain and Gaul; but it does not appear that, at this early period, they attempted to form any set. tlements on the Atlantic shore. In A. D. 586, their sovereignty in Gaul was firmly established. They issued from Germany in the fifth century, and spread themselves in every direction. Under their sove. reigns of the Merovingian and Carlovingiant races, they founded an empire which extended from the ocean to the Danube. Its more general division was into west France and east France; the first 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.‡ About the year of Christ 550, Childebert, king of France, and son of Clovis, made a gift of these islands to Samson, archbishop of Dol, in Armorica, so far as respected their ecclesiastical government. 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. Their vessels were light, which enabled them to ascend the rivers, and sack the interiour of the country. In their blind zeal for idolatry, they committed the most horrid barbarities, fire and sword marking their steps. So great was the terror excited, throughout France, by these Pagans, that, in the public service of the church, an addition * So called from Meroveus, the grandfather of Clovis. See Falle's History. was made to the Litany. After saying from plague, pestilence, and famine, they subjoined, AND FROM THE FURY OF THE NORMANS, good Lord, deliver us. These islands were not exempted from the depredatory visits; and if they did not suffer in the same degree as their continental neighbours, it was more from the poverty of their inhabitants than from their means of resistance. In one of these descents, the Normans murdered St. Helier, a venerable anchoret, whose cell still remains on a rock near Elizabeth castle. Their incursions continued nearly eighty years. At length Charles the fourth, surnamed the simple, concluded a treaty with Rollo, the chieftain of that restless band, A. D. 912. By this agreement he married the king's daughter and had Normandy, together with these islands, ceded to him, as a fief of the crown of France. Rollo was baptized; and as his example in this respect incited his followers, so his authority also controlled them, to become converts to Christianity.* * An ancient M. S. gives a different account. It is therein said, that, from about the year 751, unto the time of King John, the island of Jersey was always under the dominion and power of the dukes of Normandy. This countenances the idea that, in the time of Rollo, Normandy was in a state of civilization, and, if so,was regulated by established laws, instead of being the den of unprincipled robbers, or the occasional source of predatory warfare. It |