As the historians just quoted are not concerned with the history of St.
Patrick, but are simply tracing the origin and history of the Britons,
their testimony is impartial.

Even Camden admits that Dionysius places the Britons on the maritime
coast of Gaul, and renders his verses into English:--

"Near the great pillars of the farthest land,
The old Iberians, haughty souls, command
Along the continent, where northern seas
Roll their vast tides, and in cold billows rise:
Where British nations in long tracts appear
And fair-haired Germans ever famed in war."

The early existence of the Britons in Armorica did not depend on the
settlement of the veteran Britons, who, having served under Constantino
the Great, were rewarded by a gift of the vacant lands in Armorica, as
William of Malmesbury narrates in his "History of the Kings"; or on the
still larger settlement of Britons who fought for the usurper Maximus,
which Ninius mentions, in the mysterious reference which embraced the
whole country "from the Great St. Bernard in Piedmont to Cantavic in
Picardy, and from Picardy to the western coast of France." The latter
settlement took place between the years 383 and 388. The British
refugees, who fled in terror from the Picts, Scots, and Saxons, may
indeed have added to the numbers of Britons in Gaul from time
immemorial, but they certainly were not the first to give the name
Britannia to that country.