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A Tour Through the Eastern Counties of England. pu
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Tour Through the Eastern Counties of England
by Daniel Defoe
July, 1997 [Etext #983]
Project Gutenberg Etext Tour Through Eastern Counties of England
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Tour through the Eastern Counties of England
Scanned and proofed by David Price
email [email protected]
Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722
I began my travels where I purpose to end them, viz., at the City
of London, and therefore my account of the city itself will come
last, that is to say, at the latter end of my southern progress;
and as in the course of this journey I shall have many occasions to
call it a circuit, if not a circle, so I chose to give it the title
of circuits in the plural, because I do not pretend to have
travelled it all in one journey, but in many, and some of them many
times over; the better to inform myself of everything I could find
worth taking notice of.
I hope it will appear that I am not the less, but the more capable
of giving a full account of things, by how much the more
deliberation I have taken in the view of them, and by how much the
oftener I have had opportunity to see them.
I set out the 3rd of April, 1722, going first eastward, and took
what I think I may very honestly call a circuit in the very letter
of it; for I went down by the coast of the Thames through the
Marshes or Hundreds on the south side of the county of Essex, till
I came to Malden, Colchester, and Harwich, thence continuing on the
coast of Suffolk to Yarmouth; thence round by the edge of the sea,
on the north and west side of Norfolk, to Lynn, Wisbech, and the
Wash; thence back again, on the north side of Suffolk and Essex, to
the west, ending it in Middlesex, near the place where I began it,
reserving the middle or centre of the several counties to some
little excursions, which I made by themselves.
Passing Bow Bridge, where the county of Essex begins, the first
observation I made was, that all the villages which may be called
the neighbourhood of the city of London on this, as well as on the
other sides thereof, which I shall speak to in their order; I say,
all those villages are increased in buildings to a strange degree,
within the compass of about twenty or thirty years past at the
most.
The village of Stratford, the first in this county from London, is
not only increased, but, I believe, more than doubled in that time;
every vacancy filled up with new houses, and two little towns or
hamlets, as they may be called, on the forest side of the town
entirely new, namely Maryland Point and the Gravel Pits, one facing
the road to Woodford and Epping, and the other facing the road to
Ilford; and as for the hither part, it is almost joined to Bow, in
spite of rivers, canals, marshy grounds, &c. Nor is this increase
of building the case only in this and all the other villages round
London; but the increase of the value and rent of the houses
formerly standing has, in that compass of years above-mentioned,
advanced to a very great degree, and I may venture to say at least
the fifth part; some think a third part, above what they were
before.
This is indeed most visible, speaking of Stratford in Essex; but it
is the same thing in proportion in other villages adjacent,
especially on the forest side; as at Low Leyton, Leytonstone,
Walthamstow, Woodford, Wanstead, and the towns of West Ham,
Plaistow, Upton, etc. In all which places, or near them (as the
inhabitants say), above a thousand new foundations have been
erected, besides old houses repaired, all since the Revolution; and
this is not to be forgotten too, that this increase is, generally
speaking, of handsome, large houses, from 20 pounds a year to 60
pounds, very few under 20 pounds a year; being chiefly for the
habitations of the richest citizens, such as either are able to
keep two houses, one in the country and one in the city; or for
such citizens as being rich, and having left off trade, live
altogether in these neighbouring villages, for the pleasure and
health of the latter part of their days.
The truth of this may at least appear, in that they tell me there
are no less than two hundred coaches kept by the inhabitants within
the circumference of these few villages named above, besides such
as are kept by accidental lodgers.
This increase of the inhabitants, and the cause of it, I shall
enlarge upon when I come to speak of the like in the counties of
Middlesex, Surrey, &c, where it is the same, only in a much greater
degree. But this I must take notice of here, that this increase
causes those villages to be much pleasanter and more sociable than
formerly, for now people go to them, not for retirement into the
country, but for good company; of which, that I may speak to the
ladies as well as other authors do, there are in these villages,
nay, in all, three or four excepted, excellent conversation, and a
great deal of it, and that without the mixture of assemblies,
gaming-houses, and public foundations of vice and debauchery; and
particularly I find none of those incentives kept up on this side
the country.
Mr. Camden, and his learned continuator, Bishop Gibson, have
ransacked this country for its antiquities, and have left little
unsearched; and as it is not my present design to say much of what
has been said already, I shall touch very lightly where two such
excellent antiquaries have gone before me; except it be to add what
may have been since discovered, which as to these parts is only
this: That there seems to be lately found out in the bottom of the
Marshes (generally called Hackney Marsh, and beginning near about
the place now called the Wick, between Old Ford and the said Wick),
the remains of a great stone causeway, which, as it is supposed,
was the highway, or great road from London into Essex, and the same
which goes now over the great bridge between Bow and Stratford.
That the great road lay this way, and that the great causeway
landed again just over the river, where now the Temple Mills stand,
and passed by Sir Thomas Hickes's house at Ruckolls, all this is
not doubted; and that it was one of those famous highways made by
the Romans there is undoubted proof, by the several marks of Roman
work, and by Roman coins and other antiquities found there, some of
which are said to be deposited in the hands of the Rev. Mr. Strype,
vicar of the parish of Low Leyton.
From hence the great road passed up to Leytonstone, a place by some
known now as much by the sign of the "Green Man," formerly a lodge
upon the edge of the forest; and crossing by Wanstead House,
formerly the dwelling of Sir Josiah Child, now of his son the Lord
Castlemain (of which hereafter), went over the same river which we
now pass at Ilford; and passing that part of the great forest which
we now call Hainault Forest, came into that which is now the great
road, a little on this side the Whalebone, a place on the road so
called because the rib-bone of a great whale, which was taken in
the River Thames the same year that Oliver Cromwell died, 1658, was
fixed there for a monument of that monstrous creature, it being at
first about eight-and-twenty feet long.
According to my first intention of effectually viewing the sea-
coast of these three counties, I went from Stratford to Barking, a
large market-town, but chiefly inhabited by fishermen, whose smacks
ride in the Thames, at the mouth of their river, from whence their
fish is sent up to London to the market at Billingsgate by small
boats, of which I shall speak by itself in my description of
London.
One thing I cannot omit in the mention of these Barking fisher-
smacks, viz., that one of those fishermen, a very substantial and
experienced man, convinced me that all the pretences to bringing
fish alive to London market from the North Seas, and other remote
places on the coast of Great Britain, by the new-built sloops
called fish-pools, have not been able to do anything but what their
fishing-smacks are able on the same occasion to perform. These
fishing-smacks are very useful vessels to the public upon many
occasions; as particularly, in time of war they are used as press-
smacks, running to all the northern and western coasts to pick up
seamen to man the navy, when any expedition is at hand that
requires a sudden equipment; at other times, being excellent
sailors, they are tenders to particular men of war; and on an
expedition they have been made use of as machines for the blowing
up of fortified ports and havens; as at Calais, St. Malo, and other
places.
This parish of Barking is very large, and by the improvement of
lands taken in out of the Thames, and out of the river which runs
by the town, the tithes, as the townsmen assured me, are worth
above 600 pounds per annum, including, small tithes. NOTE. - This
parish has two or three chapels of ease, viz., one at Ilford, and
one on the side of Hainault Forest, called New Chapel.
Sir Thomas Fanshaw, of an ancient Roman Catholic family, has a very
good estate in this parish. A little beyond the town, on the road
to Dagenham, stood a great house, ancient, and now almost fallen
down, where tradition says the Gunpowder Treason Plot was at first
contrived, and that all the first consultations about it were held
there.
This side of the county is rather rich in land than in inhabitants,
occasioned chiefly by the unhealthiness of the air; for these low
marsh grounds, which, with all the south side of the county, have
been saved out of the River Thames, and out of the sea, where the
river is wide enough to be called so, begin here, or rather begin
at West Ham, by Stratford, and continue to extend themselves, from
hence eastward, growing wider and wider till we come beyond
Tilbury, when the flat country lies six, seven, or eight miles
broad, and is justly said to be both unhealthy and unpleasant.
However, the lands are rich, and, as is observable, it is very good
farming in the marshes, because the landlords let good pennyworths,
for it being a place where everybody cannot live, those that
venture it will have encouragement and indeed it is but reasonable
they should.
Several little observations I made in this part of the county of
Essex.
1. We saw, passing from Barking to Dagenham, the famous breach,
made by an inundation of the Thames, which was so great as that it
laid near 5,000 acres of land under water, but which after near ten
years lying under water, and being several times blown up, has been
at last effectually stopped by the application of Captain Perry,
the gentleman who, for several years, had been employed in the Czar
of Muscovy's works, at Veronitza, on the River Don. This breach
appeared now effectually made up, and they assured us that the new
work, where the breach was, is by much esteemed the strongest of
all the sea walls in that level.
2. It was observable that great part of the lands in these levels,
especially those on this side East Tilbury, are held by the
farmers, cow-keepers, and grazing butchers who live in and near
London, and that they are generally stocked (all the winter half
year) with large fat sheep, viz., Lincolnshire and Leicestershire
wethers, which they buy in Smithfield in September and October,
when the Lincolnshire and Leicestershire graziers sell off their
stock, and are kept here till Christmas, or Candlemas, or
thereabouts; and though they are not made at all fatter here than
they were when bought in, yet the farmer or butcher finds very good
advantage in it, by the difference of the price of mutton between
Michaelmas, when it is cheapest, and Candlemas, when it is dearest;
this is what the butchers value themselves upon, when they tell us
at the market that it is right marsh-mutton.
3. In the bottom of these Marshes, and close to the edge of the
river, stands the strong fortress of Tilbury, called Tilbury Fort,
which may justly be looked upon as the key of the River Thames, and
consequently the key of the City of London. It is a regular
fortification. The design of it was a pentagon, but the water
bastion, as it would have been called, was never built. The plan
was laid out by Sir Martin Beckman, chief engineer to King Charles
II., who also designed the works at Sheerness. The esplanade of
the fort is very large, and the bastions the largest of any in
England, the foundation is laid so deep, and piles under that,
driven down two an end of one another, so far, till they were
assured they were below the channel of the river, and that the
piles, which were shed with iron, entered into the solid chalk rock
adjoining to, or reaching from, the chalk hills on the other side.
These bastions settled considerably at first, as did also part of
the curtain, the great quantity of earth that was brought to fill
them up, necessarily, requiring to be made solid by time; but they
are now firm as the rocks of chalk which they came from, and the
filling up one of these bastions, as I have been told by good
hands, cost the Government 6,000 pounds, being filled with chalk
rubbish fetched from the chalk pits at Northfleet, just above
Gravesend.
The work to the land side is complete; the bastions are faced with
brick. There is a double ditch, or moat, the innermost part of
which is 180 feet broad; there is a good counterscarp, and a
covered way marked out with ravelins and tenailles, but they are
not raised a second time after their first settling.
On the land side there are also two small redoubts of brick, but of
very little strength, for the chief strength of this fort on the
land side consists in this, that they are able to lay the whole
level under water, and so to make it impossible for an enemy to
make any approaches to the fort that way.
On the side next the river there is a very strong curtain, with a
noble gate called the Water Gate in the middle, and the ditch is
palisadoed. At the place where the water bastion was designed to
be built, and which by the plan should run wholly out into the
river, so to flank the two curtains of each side; I say, in the
place where it should have been, stands a high tower, which they
tell us was built in Queen Elizabeth's time, and was called the
Block House; the side next the water is vacant.
Before this curtain, above and below the said vacancy, is a
platform in the place of a counterscarp, on which are planted 106
pieces of cannon, generally all of them carrying from twenty-four
to forty-six pound ball; a battery so terrible as well imports the
consequence of that place; besides which, there are smaller pieces
planted between, and the bastions and curtain also are planted with
guns; so that they must be bold fellows who will venture in the
biggest ships the world has heard of to pass such a battery, if the
men appointed to serve the guns do their duty like stout fellows,
as becomes them.
The present government of this important place is under the prudent
administration of the Right Honourable the Lord Newbrugh.
From hence there is nothing for many miles together remarkable but
a continued level of unhealthy marshes, called the Three Hundreds,
till we come before Leigh, and to the mouth of the River Chelmer,
and Blackwater. These rivers united make a large firth, or inlet
of the sea, which by Mr. Camden is called IDUMANUM FLUVIUM; but by
our fishermen and seamen, who use it as a port, it is called Malden
Water.
In this inlet of the sea is Osey, or Osyth Island, commonly called
Oosy Island, so well known by our London men of pleasure for the
infinite number of wild fowl, that is to say, duck, mallard, teal,
and widgeon, of which there are such vast flights, that they tell
us the island, namely the creek, seems covered with them at certain
times of the year, and they go from London on purpose for the
pleasure of shooting; and, indeed, often come home very well laden
with game. But it must be remembered too that those gentlemen who
are such lovers of the sport, and go so far for it, often return
with an Essex ague on their backs, which they find a heavier load
than the fowls they have shot.
It is on this shore, and near this creek, that the greatest
quantity of fresh fish is caught which supplies not this country
only, but London markets also. On the shore, beginning a little
below Candy Island, or rather below Leigh Road, there lies a great
shoal or sand called the Black Tail, which runs out near three
leagues into the sea due east; at the end of it stands a pole or
mast, set up by the Trinity House men of London, whose business is
to lay buoys and set up sea marks for the direction of the sailors;
this is called Shoe Beacon, from the point of land where this sand
begins, which is called Shoeburyness, and that from the town of
Shoebury, which stands by it. From this sand, and on the edge of
Shoebury, before it, or south west of it, all along, to the mouth
of Colchester water, the shore is full of shoals and sands, with
some deep channels between; all which are so full of fish, that not
only the Barking fishing-smacks come hither to fish, but the whole
shore is full of small fisher-boats in very great numbers,
belonging to the villages and towns on the coast, who come in every
tide with what they take; and selling the smaller fish in the
country, send the best and largest away upon horses, which go night
and day to London market.
N.B. - I am the more particular in my remarks on this place,
because in the course of my travels the reader will meet with the
like in almost every place of note through the whole island, where
it will be seen how this whole kingdom, as well the people as the
land, and even the sea, in every part of it, are employed to
furnish something, and I may add, the best of everything, to supply
the City of London with provisions; I mean by provisions, corn,
flesh, fish, butter, cheese, salt, fuel, timber, etc., and clothes
also; with everything necessary for building, and furniture for
their own use or for trade; of all which in their order.
On this shore also are taken the best and nicest, though not the
largest, oysters in England; the spot from whence they have their
common appellation is a little bank called Woelfleet, scarce to be
called an island, in the mouth of the River Crouch, now called
Crooksea Water; but the chief place where the said oysters are now
had is from Wyvenhoe and the shores adjacent, whither they are
brought by the fishermen, who take them at the mouth of that they
call Colchester water and about the sand they call the Spits, and
carry them up to Wyvenhoe, where they are laid in beds or pits on
the shore to feed, as they call it; and then being barrelled up and
carried to Colchester, which is but three miles off, they are sent
to London by land, and are from thence called Colchester oysters.
The chief sort of other fish which they carry from this part of the
shore to London are soles, which they take sometimes exceeding
large, and yield a very good price at London market. Also
sometimes middling turbot, with whiting, codling and large
flounders; the small fish, as above, they sell in the country.
In the several creeks and openings, as above, on this shore there
are also other islands, but of no particular note, except Mersey,
which lies in the middle of the two openings between Malden Water
and Colchester Water; being of the most difficult access, so that
it is thought a thousand men well provided might keep possession of
it against a great force, whether by land or sea. On this account,
and because if possessed by an enemy it would shut up all the
navigation and fishery on that side, the Government formerly built
a fort on the south-east point of it; and generally in case of
Dutch war, there is a strong body of troops kept there to defend
it.
At this place may be said to end what we call the Hundreds of Essex
- that is to say, the three Hundreds or divisions which include the
marshy country, viz., Barnstable Hundred, Rochford Hundred, and
Dengy Hundred.
I have one remark more before I leave this damp part of the world,
and which I cannot omit on the women's account, namely, that I took
notice of a strange decay of the sex here; insomuch that all along
this country it was very frequent to meet with men that had had
from five or six to fourteen or fifteen wives; nay, and some more.
And I was informed that in the marshes on the other side of the
river over against Candy Island there was a farmer who was then
living with the five-and-twentieth wife, and that his son, who was
but about thirty-five years old, had already had about fourteen.
Indeed, this part of the story I only had by report, though from
good hands too; but the other is well known and easy to be inquired
into about Fobbing, Curringham, Thundersly, Benfleet, Prittlewell,
Wakering, Great Stambridge, Cricksea, Burnham, Dengy, and other
towns of the like situation. The reason, as a merry fellow told
me, who said he had had about a dozen and a half of wives (though I
found afterwards he fibbed a little) was this: That they being bred
in the marshes themselves and seasoned to the place, did pretty
well with it; but that they always went up into the hilly country,
or, to speak their own language, into the uplands for a wife. That
when they took the young lasses out of the wholesome and fresh air
they were healthy, fresh, and clear, and well; but when they came
out of their native air into the marshes among the fogs and damps,
there they presently changed their complexion, got an ague or two,
and seldom held it above half a year, or a year at most; "And
then," said he, "we go to the uplands again and fetch another;" so
that marrying of wives was reckoned a kind of good farm to them.
It is true the fellow told this in a kind of drollery and mirth;
but the fact, for all that, is certainly true; and that they have
abundance of wives by that very means. Nor is it less true that
the inhabitants in these places do not hold it out, as in other
countries, and as first you seldom meet with very ancient people
among the poor, as in other places we do, so, take it one with
another, not one-half of the inhabitants are natives of the place;
but such as from other countries or in other parts of this country
settle here for the advantage of good farms; for which I appeal to
any impartial inquiry, having myself examined into it critically in
several places.
From the marshes and low grounds being not able to travel without
many windings and indentures by reason of the creeks and waters, I
came up to the town of Malden, a noted market town situate at the
conflux or joining of two principal rivers in this county, the
Chelm or Chelmer, and the Blackwater, and where they enter into the
sea. The channel, as I have noted, is called by the sailors Malden
Water, and is navigable up to the town, where by that means is a
great trade for carrying corn by water to London; the county of
Essex being (especially on all that side) a great corn county.
When I have said this I think I have done Malden justice, and said
all of it that there is to be said, unless I should run into the
old story of its antiquity, and tell you it was a Roman colony in
the time of Vespasian, and that it was called Camolodunum. How the
Britons, under Queen Boadicea, in revenge for the Romans' ill-usage
of her - for indeed they used her majesty ill - they stripped her
naked and whipped her publicly through their streets for some
affront she had given them. I say how for this she raised the
Britons round the country, overpowered, and cut in pieces the Tenth
Legion, killed above eighty thousand Romans, and destroyed the
colony; but was afterwards overthrown in a great battle, and sixty
thousand Britons slain. I say, unless I should enter into this
story, I have nothing more to say of Malden, and, as for that
story, it is so fully related by Mr. Camden in his history of the
Romans in Britain at the beginning of his "Britannia," that I need
only refer the reader to it, and go on with my journey.
Being obliged to come thus far into the uplands, as above, I made
it my road to pass through Witham, a pleasant, well-situated market
town, in which, and in its neighbourhood, there are as many
gentlemen of good fortunes and families as I believe can be met
with in so narrow a compass in any of the three counties of which I
make this circuit.
In the town of Witham dwells the Lord Pasely, oldest son of the
Earl of Abercorn of Ireland (a branch of the noble family of
Hamilton, in Scotland). His lordship has a small, but a neat,
well-built new house, and is finishing his gardens in such a manner
as few in that part of England will exceed them.
Nearer Chelmsford, hard by Boreham, lives the Lord Viscount
Barrington, who, though not born to the title, or estate, or name
which he now possesses, had the honour to be twice made heir to the
estates of gentlemen not at all related to him, at least, one of
them, as is very much to his honour, mentioned in his patent of
creation. His name was Shute, his father a linendraper in London,
and served sheriff of the said city in very troublesome times. He
changed the name of Shute for that of Barrington by an Act of
Parliament obtained for that purpose, and had the dignity of a
baron of the kingdom conferred on him by the favour of King George.
His lordship is a Dissenter, and seems to love retirement. He was
a member of Parliament for the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
On the other side of Witham, at Fauburn, an ancient mansion house,
built by the Romans, lives Mr. Bullock, whose father married the
daughter of that eminent citizen, Sir Josiah Child, of Wanstead, by
whom she had three sons; the eldest enjoys the estate, which is
considerable.
It is observable, that in this part of the country there are
several very considerable estates, purchased and now enjoyed by
citizens of London, merchants, and tradesmen, as Mr. Western, an
iron merchant, near Kelendon; Mr. Cresnor, a wholesale grocer, who
was, a little before he died, named for sheriff at Earl's Coln; Mr.
Olemus, a merchant at Braintree; Mr. Westcomb, near Malden; Sir
Thomas Webster at Copthall, near Waltham; and several others.
I mention this to observe how the present increase of wealth in the
City of London spreads itself into the country, and plants families
and fortunes, who in another age will equal the families of the
ancient gentry, who perhaps were brought out. I shall take notice
of this in a general head, and when I have run through all the
counties, collect a list of the families of citizens and tradesmen
thus established in the several counties, especially round London.
The product of all this part of the country is corn, as that of the
marshy feeding grounds mentioned above is grass, where their chief
business is breeding of calves, which I need not say are the best
and fattest, and the largest veal in England, if not in the world;
and, as an instance, I ate part of a veal or calf, fed by the late
Sir Josiah Child at Wanstead, the loin of which weighed above
thirty pounds, and the flesh exceeding white and fat.
From hence I went on to Colchester. The story of Kill-Dane, which
is told of the town of Kelvedon, three miles from Witham, namely,
that this is the place where the massacre of the Danes was begun by
the women, and that therefore it was called Kill-Dane; I say of it,
as we generally say of improbable news, it wants confirmation. The
true name of the town is Kelvedon, and has been so for many hundred
years. Neither does Mr. Camden, or any other writer I meet with
worth naming, insist on this piece of empty tradition. The town is
commonly called Keldon.
Colchester is an ancient corporation. The town is large, very
populous, the streets fair and beautiful, and though it may not
said to be finely built, yet there are abundance of very good and
well-built houses in it. It still mourns in the ruins of a civil
war; during which, or rather after the heat of the war was over, it
suffered a severe siege, which, the garrison making a resolute
defence, was turned into a blockade, in which the garrison and
inhabitants also suffered the utmost extremity of hunger, and were
at last obliged to surrender at discretion, when their two chief
officers, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, were shot to
death under the castle wall. The inhabitants had a tradition that
no grass would grow upon the spot where the blood of those two
gallant gentlemen was spilt, and they showed the place bare of
grass for many years; but whether for this reason I will not
affirm. The story is now dropped, and the grass, I suppose, grows
there, as in other places.
However, the battered walls, the breaches in the turrets, and the
ruined churches, still remain, except that the church of St. Mary
(where they had the royal fort) is rebuilt; but the steeple, which
was two-thirds battered down, because the besieged had a large
culverin upon it that did much execution, remains still in that
condition.
There is another church which bears the marks of those times,
namely, on the south side of the town, in the way to the Hythe, of
which more hereafter.
The lines of contravallation, with the forts built by the
besiegers, and which surrounded the whole town, remain very visible
in many places; but the chief of them are demolished.
The River Colne, which passes through this town, compasses it on
the north and east sides, and served in those times for a complete
defence on those sides. They have three bridges over it, one
called North Bridge, at the north gate, by which the road leads
into Suffolk; one called East Bridge, at the foot of the High
Street, over which lies the road to Harwich, and one at the Hythe,
as above.
The river is navigable within three miles of the town for ships of
large burthen; a little lower it may receive even a royal navy; and
up to that part called the Hythe, close to the houses, it is
navigable for hoys and small barques. This Hythe is a long street,
passing from west to east, on the south side of the town. At the
west end of it, there is a small intermission of the buildings, but
not much; and towards the river it is very populous (it may be
called the Wapping of Colchester). There is one church in that
part of the town, a large quay by the river, and a good custom-
house.
The town may be said chiefly to subsist by the trade of making
bays, which is known over most of the trading parts of Europe by
the name of Colchester Bays, though indeed all the towns round
carry on the same trade - namely, Kelvedon, Witham, Coggeshall,
Braintree, Bocking, &c., and the whole county, large as it is, may
be said to be employed, and in part maintained, by the spinning of
wool for the bay trade of Colchester and its adjacent towns. The
account of the siege, A.D. 1648, with a diary of the most
remarkable passages, are as follows, which I had from so good a
hand as that I have no reason to question its being a true
relation.
A Diary: Or, An Account Of The Siege And Blockade Of Colchester,
A.D. 1648.
On the 4th of June, we were alarmed in the town of Colchester that
the Lord Goring, the Lord Capel, and a body of two thousand of the
loyal party, who had been in arms in Kent, having left a great body
of an army in possession of Rochester Bridge, where they resolved
to fight the Lord Fairfax and the Parliament army, had given the
said General Fairfax the slip, and having passed the Thames at
Greenwich, were come to Stratford, and were advancing this way;
upon which news, Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle, Colonel Cook,
and several gentlemen of the loyal army, and all that had
commissions from the king, with a gallant appearance of gentlemen
volunteers, drew together from all parts of the country to join
with them.
The 8th, we were further informed that they were advanced to
Chelmsford, to New Hall House, and to Witham; and the 9th some of
the horse arrived in the town, taking possession of the gates, and
having engineers with them, told us that General Goring had
resolved to make this town his headquarters, and would cause it to
be well fortified. They also caused the drums to beat for
volunteers; and a good number of the poor bay-weavers, and such-
like people, wanting employment, enlisted; so that they completed
Sir Charles Lucas's regiment, which was but thin, to near eight
hundred men.
On the 10th we had news that the Lord Fairfax, having beaten the
Royalists at Maidstone, and retaken Rochester, had passed the
Thames at Gravesend, though with great difficulty, and with some
loss, and was come to Horndon-on-the-Hill, in order to gain
Colchester before the Royalists; but that hearing Sir Charles Lucas
had prevented him, had ordered his rendezvous at Billerecay, and
intended to possess the pass at Malden on the 11th, where Sir
Thomas Honnywood, with the county-trained bands, was to be the same
day.
The same evening the Lord Goring, with all his forces, making about
five thousand six hundred men, horse and foot, came to Colchester,
and encamping without the suburbs, under command of the cannon of
St. Mary's fort, made disposition to fight the Parliament forces if
they came up.
The 12th, the Lord Goring came into Colchester, viewed the fort in
St. Mary's churchyard, ordered more cannon to be planted upon it,
posted two regiments in the suburbs without the head gate, let the
town know he would take them into his Majesty's protection, and
that he would fight the enemy in that situation. The same evening
the Lord Fairfax, with a strong party of one thousand horse, came
to Lexden, at two small miles' distance, expecting the rest of his
army there the same night.
The Lord Goring brought in prisoners the same day, Sir William
Masham, and several other gentlemen of the county, who were secured
under a strong guard; which the Parliament hearing, ordered twenty
prisoners of the royal party to be singled out, declaring, that
they should be used in the same manner as the Lord Goring used Sir
William Masham, and the gentlemen prisoners with him.
On the 13th, early in the morning, our spies brought intelligence
that the Lord Fairfax, all his forces being come up to him, was
making dispositions for a march, resolving to attack the Royalists
in their camp; upon which, the Lord Goring drew all his forces
together, resolving to fight. The engineers had offered the night
before to entrench his camp, and to draw a line round it in one
night's time, but his lordship declined it, and now there was no
time for it; whereupon the general, Lord Goring, drew up his army
in order of battle on both sides the road, the horse in the open
fields on the wings; the foot were drawn up, one regiment in the
road, one regiment on each side, and two regiments for reserve in
the suburb, just at the entrance of the town, with a regiment of
volunteers advanced as a forlorn hope, and a regiment of horse at
the head-gate, ready to support the reserve, as occasion should
require.
About nine in the morning we heard the enemy's drums beat a march,
and in half an hour more their first troops appeared on the higher
grounds towards Lexden. Immediately the cannon from St. Mary's
fired upon them, and put some troops of horse into confusion, doing
great execution, which, they not being able to shun it, made them
quicken their pace, fall on, when our cannon were obliged to cease
firing, lest we should hurt our own troops as well as the enemy.
Soon after, their foot appeared, and our cannon saluted them in
like manner, and killed them a great many men.
Their first line of foot was led up by Colonel Barkstead, and
consisted of three regiments of foot, making about 1,700 men, and
these charged our regiment in the lane, commanded by Sir George
Lisle and Sir William Campion. They fell on with great fury, and
were received with as much gallantry, and three times repulsed; nor
could they break in here, though the Lord Fairfax sent fresh men to
support them, till the Royalists' horse, oppressed with numbers on
the left, were obliged to retire, and at last to come full gallop
into the street, and so on into the town. Nay, still the foot
stood firm, and the volunteers, being all gentlemen, kept their
ground with the greatest resolution; but the left wing being
routed, as above, Sir William Campion was obliged to make a front
to the left, and lining the hedge with his musketeers, made a stand
with a body of pikes against the enemy's horse, and prevented them
entering the lane. Here that gallant gentleman was killed with a
carabine shot; and after a very gallant resistance, the horse on
the right being also overpowered, the word was given to retreat,
which, however, was done in such good order, the regiments of
reserve standing drawn up at the end of the street, ready to
receive the enemy's horse upon the points of their pikes, that the
royal troops came on in the openings between the regiments, and
entered the town with very little loss, and in very good order.
By this, however, those regiments of reserve were brought at last
to sustain the efforts of the enemy's whole army, till being
overpowered by numbers they were put into disorder, and forced to
get into the town in the best manner they could; by which means
near two hundred men were killed or made prisoners.
Encouraged by this success the enemy pushed on, supposing they
should enter the town pell-mell with the rest; nor did the
Royalists hinder them, but let good part of Barkstead's own
regiment enter the head-gate; but then sallying from St. Mary's
with a choice body of foot on their left, and the horse rallying in
the High Street, and charging them again in the front, they were
driven back quite into the street of the suburb, and most of those
that had so rashly entered were cut in pieces.
Thus they were repulsed at the south entrance into the town; and
though they attempted to storm three times after that with great
resolution, yet they were as often beaten back, and that with great
havoc of their men; and the cannon from the fort all the while did
execution upon those who stood drawn up to support them; so that at
last, seeing no good to be done, they retreated, having small joy
of their pretended victory.
They lost in this action Colonel Needham, who commanded a regiment
called the Tower Guards, and who fought very desperately; Captain
Cox, an old experienced horse officer, and several other officers
of note, with a great many private men, though, as they had the
field, they concealed their number, giving out that they lost but a
hundred, when we were assured they lost near a thousand men besides
the wounded.
They took some of our men prisoners, occasioned by the regiment of
Colonel Farr, and two more sustaining the shock of their whole
army, to secure the retreat of the main body, as above.
The 14th, the Lord Fairfax finding he was not able to carry the
town by storm, without the formality of a siege, took his
headquarters at Lexden, and sent to London and to Suffolk for more
forces; also he ordered the trained bands to be raised and posted
on the roads to prevent succours. Notwithstanding which, divers
gentlemen, with some assistance of men and arms, found means to get
into the town.
The very same night they began to break ground, and particularly to
raise a fort between Colchester and Lexden, to cover the general's
quarter from the sallies from the town; for the Royalists having a
good body of horse, gave them no rest, but scoured the fields every
day, and falling all that were found straggling from their posts,
and by this means killed a great many.
The 17th, Sir Charles Lucas having been out with 1,200 horse, and
detaching parties toward the seaside, and towards Harwich, they
brought in a very great quantity of provisions, and abundance of
sheep and black cattle sufficient for the supply of the town for a
considerable time; and had not the Suffolk forces advanced over
Cataway Bridge to prevent it, a larger supply had been brought in
that way; for now it appeared plainly that the Lord Fairfax finding
the garrison strong and resolute, and that he was not in a
condition to reduce them by force, at least without the loss of
much blood, had resolved to turn his siege into a blockade, and
reduce them by hunger; their troops being also wanted to oppose
several other parties, who had, in several parts of the kingdom,
taken arms for the king's cause.
This same day General Fairfax sent in a trumpet to propose
exchanging prisoners, which the Lord Goring rejected, expecting a
reinforcement of troops, which were actually coming to him, and
were to be at Linton in Cambridgeshire as the next day.
The same day two ships brought in a quantity of corn and provisions
and fifty-six men from the shore of Kent with several gentlemen,
who all landed and came up to the town, and the greatest part of
the corn was with the utmost application unloaded the same night
into some hoys, which brought it up to the Hythe, being
apprehensive of the Parliament's ships which lay at Harwich, who
having intelligence of the said ships, came the next day into the
mouth of the river, and took the said two ships and what corn was
left in them. The besieged sent out a party to help the ships, but
having no boats they could not assist them.
18th. Sir Charles Lucas sent an answer about exchange of
prisoners, accepting the conditions offered, but the Parliament's
general returned that he would not treat with Sir Charles, for that
he (Sir Charles) being his prisoner upon his parole of honour, and
having appeared in arms contrary to the rules of war, had forfeited
his honour and faith, and was not capable of command or trust in
martial affairs. To this Sir Charles sent back an answer, and his
excuse for his breach of his parole, but it was not accepted, nor
would the Lord Fairfax enter upon any treaty with him.
Upon this second message Sir William Masham and the Parliament
Committee and other gentlemen, who were prisoners in the town, sent
a message in writing under their hands to the Lord Fairfax,
entreating him to enter into a treaty for peace; but the Lord
Fairfax returned, he could take no notice of their request, as
supposing it forced from them under restraint; but that if the Lord
Goring desired peace, he might write to the Parliament, and he
would cause his messenger to have a safe conduct to carry his
letter. There was a paper sent enclosed in this paper, signed
Capel, Norwich, Charles Lucas, but to that the general would return
no answer, because it was signed by Sir Charles for the reasons
above.
All this while the Lord Goring, finding the enemy strengthening
themselves, gave order for fortifying the town, and drawing lines
in several places to secure the entrance, as particularly without
the east bridge, and without the north gate and bridge, and to
plant more cannon upon the works; to which end some great guns were
brought in from some ships at Wivenhoe.
The same day, our men sallied out in three places, and attacked the
besiegers, first at their port, called Essex, then at their new
works, on the south of the town; a third party sallying at the east
bridge, brought in some booty from the Suffolk troops, having
killed several of their stragglers on the Harwich road. They also
took a lieutenant of horse prisoner, and brought him into the town.
19th. This day we had the unwelcome news that our friends at
Linton were defeated by the enemy, and Major Muschamp, a loyal
gentleman, killed.
The same night, our men gave the enemy alarm at their new Essex
fort, and thereby drew them out as if they would fight, till they
brought them within reach of the cannon of St. Mary's, and then our
men retiring, the great guns let fly among them, and made them run.
Our men shouted after them. Several of them were killed on this
occasion, one shot having killed three horsemen in our fight.
20th. We now found the enemy, in order to a perfect blockade,
resolved to draw a line of circumvallation round the town; having
received a train of forty pieces of heavy cannon from the Tower of
London.
This day the Parliament sent a messenger to their prisoners to know
how they fared, and how they were used; who returned word, that
they fared indifferent well, and were very civilly used, but that
provisions were scarce, and therefore dear.
This day a party of horse, with 300 foot, sallied out, and marched
as far as the fort on the Isle of Mersey, which they made a show of
attacking, to keep in the garrison. Meanwhile the rest took a good
number of cattle from the country, which they brought safe into the
town, with five waggons laden with corn. This was the last they
could bring in that way, the lines being soon finished on that
side.
This day the Lord Fairfax sent in a trumpet to the Earl of Norwich
and the Lord Goring, offering honourable conditions to them all,
allowing all the gentlemen their lives and arms, exemption from
plunder, and passes, if they desired to go beyond sea, and all the
private men pardon, and leave to go peaceably to their own
dwellings. But the Lord Goring and the rest of the gentlemen
rejected it, and laughed at them, upon which the Lord Fairfax made
proclamation, that his men should give the private soldiers in
Colchester free leave to pass through their camp, and go where they
pleased without molestation, only leaving their arms, but that the
gentlemen should have no quarter. This was a great loss to the
Royalists, for now the men foreseeing the great hardships they were
like to suffer, began to slip away, and the Lord Goring was obliged
to forbid any to desert on pain of present death, and to keep
parties of horse continually patrolling to prevent them;
notwithstanding which many got away.
21st. The town desired the Lord Goring to give them leave to send
a message to Lord Fairfax, to desire they might have liberty to
carry on their trade and sell their bays and says, which Lord
Goring granted; but the enemy's general returned, that they should
have considered that before they let the Royalists into the town;
that to desire a free trade from a town besieged was never heard
of, or at least, was such a motion, as was never yet granted; that,
however, he would give the bay-makers leave to bring their bays and
says, and other goods, once a week, or oftener, if they desire it,
to Lexden Heath, where they should have a free market, and might
sell them or carry them back again, if not sold, as they found
occasion.
22nd. The besieged sallied out in the night with a strong party,
and disturbed the enemy in their works, and partly ruined one of
their forts, called Ewer's Fort, where the besiegers were laying a
bridge over the River Colne. Also they sallied again at east
bridge, and faced the Suffolk troops, who were now declared
enemies. These brought in six-and-fifty good bullocks, and some
cows, and they took and killed several of the enemy.
23rd. The besiegers began to fire with their cannon from Essex
Fort, and from Barkstead's Fort, which was built upon the Malden
road; and finding that the besieged had a party in Sir Harbottle
Grimston's house, called, "The Fryery," they fired at it with their
cannon, and battered it almost down, and then the soldiers set it
on fire.
This day upon the townsmen's treaty for the freedom of the bay
trade, the Lord Fairfax sent a second offer of conditions to the
besieged, being the same as before, only excepting Lord Goring,
Lord Capel, Sir George Lisle, and Sir Charles Lucas.
This day we had news in the town that the Suffolk forces were
advanced to assist the besiegers, and that they began a fort called
Fort Suffolk, on the north side of the town, to shut up the Suffolk
road towards Stratford. This day the besieged sallied out at north
bridge, attacked the out-guards of the Suffolk men on Mile End
Heath, and drove them into their fort in the woods.
This day the Lord Fairfax sent a trumpet, complaining of chewed and
poisoned bullets being shot from the town, and threatening to give
no quarter if that practice was allowed; but Lord Goring returned
answer, with a protestation, that no such thing was done by his
order or consent.
24th. They fired hard from their cannon against St. Mary's
steeple, on which was planted a large culverin, which annoyed them
even in the general's headquarters at Lexden. One of the best
gunners the garrison had was killed with a cannon bullet. This
night the besieged sallied towards Audly, on the Suffolk road, and
brought in some cattle.
25th. Lord Capel sent a trumpet to the Parliament-General, but the
rogue ran away, and came not back, nor sent any answer; whether
they received his message or not, was not known.
26th. This day having finished their new bridge, a party of their
troops passed that bridge, and took post on the hill over against
Mile End Church, where they built a fort, called Fothergall's Fort,
and another on the east side of the road, called Rainsbro's Fort,
so that the town was entirely shut in, on that side, and the
Royalists had no place free but over east bridge, which was
afterwards cut off by the enemy's bringing their line from the
Hythe within the river to the stone causeway leading to the east
bridge.
July 1st. From the 26th to the 1st, the besiegers continued
finishing their works, and by the 2nd the whole town was shut in;
at which the besiegers gave a general salvo from their cannon at
all their forts; but the besieged gave them a return, for they
sallied out in the night, attacked Barkstead's fort, scarce
finished, with such fury, that they twice entered the work sword in
hand, killed most part of the defendants, and spoiled part of the
forts cast up; but fresh forces coming up, they retired with little
loss, bringing eight prisoners, and having slain, as they reported,
above 100.
On the second, Lord Fairfax offered exchange for Sir William Masham
in particular, and afterwards for other prisoners, but the Lord
Goring refused.
5th. The besieged sallied with two regiments, supported by some
horse, at midnight; they were commanded by Sir George Lisle. They
fell on with such fury, that the enemy were put into confusion,
their works at east bridge ruined, and two pieces of cannon taken,
Lieutenant Colonel Sambrook, and several other officers, were
killed, and our men retired into the town, bringing the captain,
two lieutenants, and about fifty men with them prisoners into the
town; but having no horse, we could not bring off the cannon, but
they spiked them, and made them unfit for service.
From this time to the 11th, the besieged sallied almost every
night, being encouraged by their successes, and they constantly cut
off some of the enemy, but not without loss also on their own side.
About this time we received by a spy the bad news of defeating the
king's friends almost in all parts of England, and particularly
several parties which had good wishes to our gentlemen, and
intended to relieve them.
Our batteries from St. Mary's Fort and steeple, and from the north
bridge, greatly annoyed them, and killed most of their gunners and
firemen. One of the messengers who brought news to Lord Fairfax of
the defeat of one of the parties, in Kent, and the taking of Weymer
Castle, slipped into the town, and brought a letter to the Lord
Goring, and listed in the regiment of the Lord Capel's horse.
14th. The besiegers attacked and took the Hythe Church, with a
small work the besieged had there, but the defenders retired in
time; some were taken prisoners in the church, but not in the fort;
Sir Charles Lucas's horse was attacked by a great body of the
besiegers; the besieged defended themselves with good resolution
for some time, but a hand-grenade thrown in by the assailants,
having fired the magazine, the house was blown up, and most of the
gallant defenders buried in the ruins. This was a great blow to
the Royalists, for it was a very strong pass, and always well
guarded.
15th. The Lord Fairfax sent offers of honourable conditions to the
soldiers of the garrison if they would surrender, or quit the
service; upon which the Lords Goring and Capel, and Sir Charles
Lucas, returned an answer signed by their hands, that it was not
honourable or agreeable to the usage of war to offer conditions
separately to the soldiers, exclusive of their officers, and
therefore civilly desired his lordship to send no more such
messages or proposals, or if he did, that he would not take it ill
if they hanged up the messenger.
This evening all the gentlemen volunteers, with all the horse of
the garrison, with Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle, and Sir
Bernard Gascoigne at the head of them, resolved to break through
the enemy, and forcing a pass to advance into Suffolk by Nayland
Bridge. To this purpose they passed the river near Middle Mill;
but their guides having misled them the enemy took the alarm; upon
which their guides, and some pioneers which they had with them to
open the hedges and level the banks, for their passing to Boxted,
all ran away, so the horse were obliged to retreat, the enemy
pretending to pursue, but thinking they had retreated by the north
bridge, they missed them; upon which being enraged, they fired the
suburbs without the bridge, and burned them quite down.
18th. Some of the horse attempted to escape the same way, and had
the whole body been there as before, they had effected it; but
there being but two troops, they were obliged to retire. Now the
town began to be greatly distressed, provisions failing, and the
townspeople, which were numerous, being very uneasy, and no way of
breaking through being found practicable, the gentlemen would have
joined in any attempt wherein they might die gallantly with their
swords in their hands, but nothing presented; they often sallied
and cut off many of the enemy, but their numbers were continually
supplied, and the besieged diminished; their horse also sunk and
became unfit for service, having very little hay, and no corn, and
at length they were forced to kill them for food; so that they
began to be in a very miserable condition, and the soldiers
deserted every day in great numbers, not being able to bear the
want of food, as being almost starved with hunger.
22nd. The Lord Fairfax offered again an exchange of prisoners, but
the Lord Goring rejected it, because they refused conditions to the
chief gentlemen of the garrison.
During this time, two troops of the Royal Horse sallied out in the
night, resolving to break out or die: the first rode up full gallop
to the enemy's horse guards on the side of Malden road, and
exchanged their pistols with the advanced troops, and wheeling made
as if they would retire to the town; but finding they were not
immediately pursued, they wheeled about to the right, and passing
another guard at a distance, without being perfectly discovered,
they went clean off, and passing towards Tiptree Heath, and having
good guides, they made their escape towards Cambridgeshire, in
which length of way they found means to disperse without being
attacked, and went every man his own way as fate directed; nor did
we hear that many of them were taken: they were led, as we are
informed, by Sir Bernard Gascoigne.
Upon these attempts of the horse to break out, the enemy built a
small fort in the meadow right against the ford in the river at the
Middle Mill, and once set that mill on fire, but it was
extinguished without much damage; however, the fort prevented any
more attempts that way.
22nd. The Parliament-General sent in a trumpet, to propose again
the exchange of prisoners, offering the Lord Capel's son for one,
and Mr. Ashburnham for Sir William Masham; but the Lord Capel, Lord
Goring, and the rest of the loyal gentlemen rejected it; and Lord
Capel, in particular, sent the Lord Fairfax word it was inhuman to
surprise his son, who was not in arms, and offer him to insult a
father's affection, but that he might murder his son if he pleased,
he would leave his blood to be revenged as Heaven should give
opportunity; and the Lord Goring sent word, that as they had
reduced the king's servants to eat horseflesh, the prisoners should
feed as they fed.
The enemy sent again to complain of the Royalists shooting poisoned
bullets, and sent two affidavits of it made by two deserters,
swearing it was done by the Lord Norwich's direction; the generals
in the town returned under all their hands that they never gave any
such command or direction; that they disowned the practice; and
that the fellows who swore it were perjured before in running from
their colours and the service of their king, and ought not to be
credited again; but they added, that for shooting rough-cast slugs
they must excuse them, as things stood with them at that time.
About this time, a porter in a soldier's habit got through the
enemy's leaguer, and passing their out-guards in the dark, got into
the town, and brought letters from London, assuring the Royalists
that there were so many strong parties up in arms for the king, and
in so many places, that they would be very suddenly relieved. This
they caused to be read to the soldiers to encourage them; and
particularly it related to the rising of the Earl of Holland, and
the Duke of Buckingham, who with 500 horse were gotten together in
arms about Kingston in Surrey; but we had notice in a few days
after that they were defeated, and the Earl of Holland taken, who
was afterwards beheaded.
26th. The enemy now began to batter the walls, and especially on
the west side, from St. Mary's towards the north gate; and we were
assured they intended a storm; on which the engineers were directed
to make trenches behind the walls where the breaches should be
made, that in case of a storm they might meet with a warm
reception. Upon this, they gave over the design of storming. The
Lord Goring finding that the enemy had set the suburbs on fire
right against the Hythe, ordered the remaining houses, which were
empty of inhabitants, from whence their musketeer fired against the
town, to be burned also.
31st. A body of foot sallied out at midnight, to discover what the
enemy were doing at a place where they thought a new fort raising;
they fell in among the workmen, and put them to flight, cut in
pieces several of the guard, and brought in the officer who
commanded them prisoner.
August 2nd. The town was now in a miserable condition: the
soldiers searched and rifled the houses of the inhabitants for
victuals; they had lived on horseflesh several weeks, and most of
that also was as lean as carrion, which not being well salted bred
wens; and this want of diet made the soldiers sickly, and many died
of fluxes, yet they boldly rejected all offers of surrender, unless
with safety to their offices. However, several hundreds got out,
and either passed the enemy's guards, or surrendered to them and
took passes.
7th. The townspeople became very uneasy to the soldiers, and the
mayor of the town, with the aldermen, waited upon the general,
desiring leave to send to the Lord Fairfax for leave to all the
inhabitants to come out of the town, that they might not perish, to
which the Lord Goring consented, but the Lord Fairfax refused them.
12th. The rabble got together in a vast crowd about the Lord
Goring's quarters, clamouring for a surrender, and they did this
every evening, bringing women and children, who lay howling and
crying on the ground for bread; the soldiers beat off the men, but
the women and children would not stir, bidding the soldiers kill
them, saying they had rather be shot than be starved.
16th. The general, moved by the cries and distress of the poor
inhabitants, sent out a trumpet to the Parliament-General,
demanding leave to send to the Prince, who was with a fleet of
nineteen men of war in the mouth of the Thames, offering to
surrender, if they were not relieved in twenty days. The Lord
Fairfax refused it, and sent them word he would be in the town in
person, and visit them in less than twenty days, intimating that
they were preparing for a storm. Some tart messages and answers
were exchanged on this occasion. The Lord Goring sent word they
were willing, in compassion to the poor townspeople, and to save
that effusion of blood, to surrender upon honourable terms, but
that as for the storming them, which was threatened, they might
come on when they thought fit, for that they (the Royalists) were
ready for them. This held to the 19th.
20th. The Lord Fairfax returned what he said was his last answer,
and should be the last offer of mercy. The conditions offered
were, that upon a peaceable surrender, all soldiers and officers
under the degree of a captain in commission should have their
lives, be exempted from plunder, and have passes to go to their
respective dwellings. All the captains and superior officers, with
all the lords and gentlemen, as well in commission as volunteers,
to surrender prisoners at discretion, only that they should not be
plundered by the soldiers.
21st. The generals rejected those offers; and when the people came
about them again for bread, set open one of the gates, and bid them
go out to the enemy, which a great many did willingly; upon which
the Lord Goring ordered all the rest that came about his door to be
turned out after them. But when the people came to the Lord
Fairfax's camp the out-guards were ordered to fire at them and
drive them all back again to the gate, which the Lord Goring
seeing, he ordered them to be received in again. And now, although
the generals and soldiers also were resolute to die with their
swords in their hands rather than yield, and had maturely resolved
to abide a storm, yet the Mayor and Aldermen having petitioned them
as well as the inhabitants, being wearied with the importunities of
the distressed people, and pitying the deplorable condition they
were reduced to, they agreed to enter upon a treaty, and
accordingly sent out some officers to the Lord Fairfax, the
Parliament-General, to treat, and with them was sent two gentlemen
of the prisoners upon their parole to return.
Upon the return of the said messengers with the Lord Fairfax's
terms, the Lord Goring, &c., sent out a letter declaring they would
die with their swords in their hands rather than yield without
quarter for life, and sent a paper of articles on which they were
willing to surrender. But in the very interim of this treaty news
came that the Scots army, under Duke Hamilton, which was entered
into Lancashire, and was joined by the Royalists in that country,
making 21,000 men, were entirely defeated. After this the Lord
Fairfax would not grant any abatement of articles - viz., to have
all above lieutenants surrender at mercy.
Upon this the Lord Goring and the General refused to submit again,
and proposed a general sally, and to break through or die, but
found upon preparing for it that the soldiers, who had their lives
offered them, declined it, fearing the gentlemen would escape, and
they should be left to the mercy of the Parliament soldiers; and
that upon this they began to mutiny and talk of surrendering the
town and their officers too. Things being brought to this pass,
the Lords and General laid aside that design, and found themselves
obliged to submit; and so the town was surrendered the 28th of
August, 1648, upon conditions as follows:-
The Lords and gentlemen all prisoners at mercy.
The common soldiers had passes to go home to their several
dwellings, but without arms, and an oath not to serve against the
Parliament.
The town to be preserved from pillage, paying 14,000 pounds ready
money.
The same day a council of war being called about the prisoners of
war, it was resolved that the Lords should be left to the disposal
of the Parliament. That Sir Charles Lucas, Sir George Lisle, and
Sir Marmaduke Gascoigne should be shot to death, and the other
officers prisoners to remain in custody till further order.
The two first of the three gentlemen were shot to death, and the
third respited. Thus ended the siege of Colchester.
N.B. - Notwithstanding the number killed in the siege, and dead of
the flux, and other distempers occasioned by bad diet, which were
very many, and notwithstanding the number which deserted and
escaped in the time of their hardships, yet there remained at the
time of the surrender:
Earl of Norwich (Goring).
Lord Capell.
Lord Loughbro'.
11 Knights.
9 Colonels.
8 Lieut.-Colonels.
9 Majors.
30 Captains.
72 Lieutenants.
69 Ensigns.
183 Serjeants and Corporals.
3,067 Private Soldiers.
65 Servants to the Lords and General Officers and Gentlemen.
3,526 in all.
The town of Colchester has been supposed to contain about 40,000
people, including the out-villages which are within its liberty, of
which there are a great many - the liberty of the town being of a
great extent. One sad testimony of the town being so populous is
that they buried upwards of 5,259 people in the plague year, 1665.
But the town was severely visited indeed, even more in proportion
than any of its neighbours, or than the City of London.
The government of the town is by a mayor, high steward, a recorder
or his deputy, eleven aldermen, a chamberlain, a town clerk,
assistants, and eighteen common councilmen. Their high steward
(this year, 1722) is Sir Isaac Rebow, a gentleman of a good family
and known character, who has generally for above thirty years been
one of their representatives in Parliament. He has a very good
house at the entrance in at the south, or head gate of the town,
where he has had the honour several times to lodge and entertain
the late King William of glorious memory in his returning from
Holland by way of Harwich to London. Their recorder is Earl
Cowper, who has been twice Lord High Chancellor of England. But
his lordship not residing in those parts has put in for his deputy,
- Price, Esq., barrister-at-law, and who dwells in the town. There
are in Colchester eight churches besides those which are damaged,
and five meeting-houses, whereof two for Quakers, besides a Dutch
church and a French church.
Public Edifices are -
1. Bay Hall, an ancient society kept up for ascertaining the
manufacture of bays, which are, or ought to be, all brought to this
hall to be viewed and sealed according to their goodness by the
masters; and to this practice has been owing the great reputation
of the Colchester bays in foreign markets, where to open the side
of a bale and show the seal has been enough to give the buyer a
character of the value of the goods without any further search; and
so far as they abate the integrity and exactness of their method,
which I am told of late is much omitted; I say, so far, that
reputation will certainly abate in the markets they go to, which
are principally in Portugal and Italy. This corporation is
governed by a particular set of men who are called governors of the
Dutch Bay Hall. And in the same building is the Dutch church.
2. The guildhall of the town, called by them the moot hall, to
which is annexed the town gaol.
3. The workhouse, being lately enlarged, and to which belongs a
corporation or a body of the inhabitants, consisting of sixty
persons incorporated by Act of Parliament Anno 1698 for taking care
of the poor. They are incorporated by the name and title of the
governor, deputy governor, assistants, and guardians of the poor of
the town of Colchester. They are in number eight-and-forty, to
whom are added the mayor and aldermen for the time being, who are
always guardians by the same charter. These make the number of
sixty, as above. There is also a grammar free-school, with a good
allowance to the master, who is chosen by the town.
4. The castle of Colchester is now become only a monument showing
the antiquity of the place, it being built as the walls of the town
also are, with Roman bricks, and the Roman coins dug up here, and
ploughed up in the fields adjoining, confirm it. The inhabitants
boast much that Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, first
Christian Emperor of the Romans, was born there, and it may be so
for aught we know. I only observe what Mr. Camden says of the
Castle of Colchester, viz.: In the middle of this city stands a
castle ready to fall with age.
Though this castle has stood one hundred and twenty years from the
time Mr. Camden wrote that account, and it is not fallen yet, nor
will another hundred and twenty years, I believe, make it look one
jot the older. And it was observable that in the late siege of
this town, a common shot, which the besiegers made at this old
castle, were so far from making it fall, that they made little or
no impression upon it; for which reason, it seems, and because the
garrison made no great use of it against the besiegers, they fired
no more at it.
There are two charity schools set up here, and carried on by a
generous subscription, with very good success.
The title of Colchester is in the family of Earl Rivers, and the
eldest son of that family is called Lord Colchester, though as I
understand, the title is not settled by the creation to the eldest
son till he enjoys the title of earl with it, but that the other is
by the courtesy of England; however, this I take AD REFERENDUM.
From Colchester I took another step down to the coast; the land
running out a great way into the sea, south and south-east makes
that promontory of land called the Naze, and well known to seamen
using the northern trade. Here one sees a sea open as an ocean
without any opposite shore, though it be no more than the mouth of
the Thames. This point called the Naze, and the north-east point
of Kent, near Margate, called the North Foreland, making what they
call the mouth of the river and the port of London, though it be
here above sixty miles over.
At Walton-under-the-Naze they find on the shore copperas-stone in
great quantities; and there are several large works called copperas
houses, where they make it with great expense.
On this promontory is a new mark erected by the Trinity House men,
and at the public expense, being a round brick tower, near eighty
feet high. The sea gains so much upon the land here by the
continual winds at south-west, that within the memory of some of
the inhabitants there they have lost above thirty acres of land in
one place.
From hence we go back into the county about four miles, because of
the creeks which lie between; and then turning east again come to
Harwich, on the utmost eastern point of this large country.
Harwich is a town so well known and so perfectly described by many
writers, I need say little of it. It is strong by situation, and
may be made more so by art. But it is many years since the
Government of England have had any occasion to fortify towns to the
landward; it is enough that the harbour or road, which is one of
the best and securest in England, is covered at the entrance by a
strong fort and a battery of guns to the seaward, just as at
Tilbury, and which sufficiently defend the mouth of the river. And
there is a particular felicity in this fortification, viz., that
though the entrance or opening of the river into the sea is very
wide, especially at high-water, at least two miles, if not three
over; yet the Channel, which is deep, and in which the ships must
keep and come to the harbour, is narrow, and lies only on the side
of the fort, so that all the ships which come in or go out must
come close under the guns of the fort - that is to say, under the
command of their shot.
The fort is on the Suffolk side of the bay or entrance, but stands
so far into the sea upon the point of a sand or shoal, which runs
out toward the Essex side, as it were, laps over the mouth of that
haven like a blind to it; and our surveyors of the country affirm
it to be in the county of Essex. The making this place, which was
formerly no other than a sand in the sea, solid enough for the
foundation of so good a fortification, has not been done but by
many years' labour, often repairs, and an infinite expense of
money, but it is now so firm that nothing of storms and high tides,
or such things as make the sea dangerous to these kind of works,
can affect it.
The harbour is of a vast extent; for, as two rivers empty
themselves here, viz., Stour from Manningtree and the Orwell from
Ipswich, the channels of both are large and deep; and safe for all
weathers; so where they join they make a large bay or road able to
receive the biggest ships, and the greatest number that ever the
world saw together; I mean ships of war. In the old Dutch war
great use has been made of this harbour; and I have known that
there has been one hundred sail of men-of-war and their attendants
and between three and four hundred sail of collier ships all in
this harbour at a time, and yet none of them crowding or riding in
danger of one another.
Harwich is known for being the port where the packet boats, between
England and Holland, go out and come in. The inhabitants are far
from being famed for good usage to strangers, but, on the contrary,
are blamed for being extravagant in their reckonings in the public-
houses, which has not a little encouraged the setting up of sloops,
which they now call passage boats, to Holland, to go directly from
the River Thames; this, though it may be something the longer
passage, yet as they are said to be more obliging to passengers and
more reasonable in the expense, and, as some say, also, the vessels
are better sea boats, has been the reason why so many passengers do
not go or come by the way of Harwich as formerly were wont to do;
insomuch that the stage coaches between this place and London,
which ordinarily went twice or three times a week, are now entirely
laid down, and the passengers are left to hire coaches on purpose,
take post-horses, or hire horses to Colchester, as they find most
convenient.
The account of a petrifying quality in the earth here, though some
will have it to be in the water of a spring hard by, is very
strange. They boast that their town is walled and their streets
paved with clay, and yet that one is as strong and the other as
clean as those that are built or paved with stone. The fact is
indeed true, for there is a sort of clay in the cliff, between the
town and the Beacon Hill adjoining, which, when it falls down into
the sea, where it is beaten with the waves and the weather, turns
gradually into stone. But the chief reason assigned is from the
water of a certain spring or well, which, rising in the said cliff,
runs down into the sea among those pieces of clay, and petrifies
them as it runs; and the force of the sea often stirring, and
perhaps turning, the lumps of clay, when storms of wind may give
force enough to the water, causes them to harden everywhere alike;
otherwise those which were not quite sunk in the water of the
spring would be petrified but in part. These stones are gathered
up to pave the streets and build the houses, and are indeed very
hard. It is also remarkable that some of them taken up before they
are thoroughly petrified will, upon breaking them, appear to be
hard as a stone without and soft as clay in the middle; whereas
others that have lain a due time shall be thorough stone to the
centre, and as exceeding hard within as without. The same spring
is said to turn wood into iron. But this I take to be no more or
less than the quality, which, as I mentioned of the shore at the
Naze, is found to be in much of the stone all along this shore,
viz., of the copperas kind; and it is certain that the copperas
stone (so called) is found in all that cliff, and even where the
water of this spring has run; and I presume that those who call the
hardened pieces of wood, which they take out of this well by the
name of iron, never tried the quality of it with the fire or
hammer; if they had, perhaps they would have given some other
account of it.
On the promontory of land which they call Beacon Hill and which
lies beyond or behind the town towards the sea, there is a
lighthouse to give the ships directions in their sailing by as well
as their coming into the harbour in the night. I shall take notice
of these again all together when I come to speak of the Society of
Trinity House, as they are called, by whom they are all directed
upon this coast.
This town was erected into a marquisate in honour of the truly
glorious family of Schomberg, the eldest son of Duke Schomberg, who
landed with King William, being styled Marquis of Harwich; but that
family (in England, at least) being extinct the title dies also.
Harwich is a town of hurry and business, not much of gaiety and
pleasure; yet the inhabitants seem warm in their nests, and some of
them are very wealthy. There are not many (if any) gentlemen or
families of note either in the town or very near it. They send two
members to Parliament; the present are Sir Peter Parker and
Humphrey Parsons, Esq.
And now being at the extremity of the county of Essex, of which I
have given you some view as to that side next the sea only, I shall
break off this part of my letter by telling you that I will take
the towns which lie more towards the centre of the county, in my
return by the north and west part only, that I may give you a few
hints of some towns which were near me in my route this way, and of
which being so well known there is but little to say.
On the road from London to Colchester, before I came into it at
Witham, lie four good market towns at equal distance from one
another, namely, Romford, noted for two markets, viz., one for
calves and hogs, the other for corn and other provisions, most, if
not all, bought up for London market. At the farther end of the
town, in the middle of a stately park, stood Guldy Hall, vulgarly
Giddy Hall, an ancient seat of one Coke, sometime Lord Mayor of
London, but forfeited on some occasion to the Crown. It is since
pulled down to the ground, and there now stands a noble stately
fabric or mansion house, built upon the spot by Sir John Eyles, a
wealthy merchant of London, and chosen Sub-Governor of the South
Sea Company immediately after the ruin of the former Sub-Governor
and Directors, whose overthrow makes the history of these times
famous.
Brentwood and Ingatestone, and even Chelmsford itself, have very
little to be said of them, but that they are large thoroughfare
towns, full of good inns, and chiefly maintained by the excessive
multitude of carriers and passengers which are constantly passing
this way to London with droves of cattle, provisions, and
manufactures for London.
The last of these towns is indeed the county town, where the county
gaol is kept, and where the assizes are very often held; it stands
on the conflux of two rivers - the Chelmer, whence the town is
called, and the Cann.
At Lees, or Lee's Priory, as some call it, is to be seen an ancient
house in the middle of a beautiful park, formerly the seat of the
late Duke of Manchester, but since the death of the duke it is sold
to the Duchess Dowager of Buckinghamshire, the present Duke of
Manchester retiring to his ancient family seat at Kimbolton in
Huntingdonshire, it being a much finer residence. His grace is
lately married to a daughter of the Duke of Montagu by a branch of
the house of Marlborough.
Four market towns fill up the rest of this part of the country -
Dunmow, Braintree, Thaxted, and Coggeshall - all noted for the
manufacture of bays, as above, and for very little else, except I
shall make the ladies laugh at the famous old story of the Flitch
of Bacon at Dunmow, which is this:
One Robert Fitzwalter, a powerful baron in this county in the time
of Henry III., on some merry occasion, which is not preserved in
the rest of the story, instituted a custom in the priory here: That
whatever married man did not repent of his being married, or
quarrel or differ and dispute with his wife within a year and a day
after his marriage, and would swear to the truth of it, kneeling
upon two hard pointed stones in the churchyard, which stones he
caused to be set up in the Priory churchyard for that purpose, the
prior and convent, and as many of the town as would, to be present,
such person should have a flitch of bacon.
I do not remember to have read that any one ever came to demand it;
nor do the people of the place pretend to say, of their own
knowledge, that they remember any that did so. A long time ago
several did demand it, as they say, but they know not who; neither
is there any record of it, nor do they tell us, if it were now to
be demanded, who is obliged to deliver the flitch of bacon, the
priory being dissolved and gone.
The forest of Epping and Hainault spreads a great part of this
country still. I shall speak again of the former in my return from
this circuit. Formerly, it is thought, these two forests took up
all the west and south part of the county; but particularly we are
assured, that it reached to the River Chelmer, and into Dengy
Hundred, and from thence again west to Epping and Waltham, where it
continues to be a forest still.
Probably this forest of Epping has been a wild or forest ever since
this island was inhabited, and may show us, in some parts of it,
where enclosures and tillage has not broken in upon it, what the
face of this island was before the Romans' time; that is to say,
before their landing in Britain.
The constitution of this forest is best seen, I mean as to the
antiquity of it, by the merry grant of it from Edward the Confessor
before the Norman Conquest to Randolph Peperking, one of his
favourites, who was after called Peverell, and whose name remains
still in several villages in this county; as particularly that of
Hatfield Peverell, in the road from Chelmsford to Witham, which is
supposed to be originally a park, which they called a field in
those days; and Hartfield may be as much as to say a park for doer;
for the stags were in those days called harts, so that this was
neither more nor less than Randolph Peperking's Hartfield - that is
to say, Ralph Peverell's deer-park.
N.B. - This Ralph Randolph, or Ralph Peverell (call him as you
please), had, it seems, a most beautiful lady to his wife, who was
daughter of Ingelrick, one of Edward the Confessor's noblemen. He
had two sons by her - William Peverell, a famed soldier, and lord
or governor of Dover Castle, which he surrendered to William the
Conqueror, after the battle in Sussex, and Pain Peverell, his
youngest, who was lord of Cambridge. When the eldest son delivered
up the castle, the lady, his mother, above named, who was the
celebrated beauty of the age, was it seems there, and the Conqueror
fell in love with her, and whether by force or by consent, took her
away, and she became his mistress, or what else you please to call
it. By her he had a son, who was called William, after the
Conqueror's Christian name, but retained the name of Peverell, and
was afterwards created by the Conqueror lord of Nottingham.
This lady afterwards, as is supposed, by way of penance for her
yielding to the Conqueror, founded a nunnery at the village of
Hatfield Peverell, mentioned above, and there she lies buried in
the chapel of it, which is now the parish church, where her memory
is preserved by a tombstone under one of the windows.
Thus we have several towns, where any ancient parks have been
placed, called by the name of Hatfield on that very account. As
Hatfield Broad Oak in this county, Bishop's Hatfield in
Hertfordshire, and several others.
But I return to King Edward's merry way, as I call it, of granting
this forest to this Ralph Peperking, which I find in the ancient
records, in the very words it was passed in, as follows. Take my
explanations with it for the sake of those that are not used to the
ancient English:
The Grant in Old English.
IChe EDWARD Koning,
Have given of my Forrest the kepen of the Hundred of CHELMER and
DANCING.
To RANDOLPH PEPERKING,
And to his kindling.
With Heorte and Hind, Doe and Bocke,
Hare and Fox, Cat and Brock,
Wild Fowle with his Flock;
Patrich, Pheasant Hen, and Pheasant Cock,
With green and wild Stub and Stock,
To kepen and to yemen with all her might.
Both by Day, and eke by Night;
And Hounds for to hold,
Good and Swift and Bold:
Four Greyhound and six Raches,
For Hare and Fox, and Wild Cattes,
And therefore Iche made him my Book.
Witness the Bishop of WOLSTON.
And Booke ylrede many on,
And SWEYNE of ESSEX, our Brother,
And taken him many other
And our steward HOWLEIN,
That BY SOUGHT me for him.
The Explanation in Modern English
I Edward the king,
Have made ranger of my forest of Chelmsford hundred and Deering
hundred,
Ralph Peverell, for him and his heirs for ever;
With both the red and fallow deer.
Hare and fox, otter and badger;
Wild fowl of all sorts,
Partridges and pheasants,
Timber and underwood roots and tops;
With power to preserve the forest,
And watch it against deer-stealers and others:
With a right to keep hounds of all sorts,
Four greyhounds and six terriers,
Harriers and foxhounds, and other hounds.
And to this end I have registered this my grant in the crown rolls
or books;
To which the bishop has set his hand as a witness for any one to
read.
Also signed by the king's brother (or, as some think, the
Chancellor Sweyn, then Earl or Count of Essex).
He might call such other witnesses to sign as he thought fit.
Also the king's high steward was a witness, at whose request this
grant was obtained of the king.
There are many gentlemen's seats on this side the country, and a
great assembly set up at New Hall, near this town, much resorted to
by the neighbouring gentry. I shall next proceed to the county of
Suffolk, as my first design directed me to do.
From Harwich, therefore, having a mind to view the harbour, I sent
my horses round by Manningtree, where there is a timber bridge over
the Stour, called Cataway Bridge, and took a boat up the River
Orwell for Ipswich. A traveller will hardly understand me,
especially a seaman, when I speak of the River Stour and the River
Orwell at Harwich, for they know them by no other names than those
of Manningtree water and Ipswich water; so while I am on salt
water, I must speak as those who use the sea may understand me, and
when I am up in the country among the inland towns again, I shall
call them out of their names no more.
It is twelve miles from Harwich up the water to Ipswich. Before I
come to the town, I must say something of it, because speaking of
the river requires it. In former times, that is to say, since the
writer of this remembers the place very well, and particularly just
before the late Dutch wars, Ipswich was a town of very good
business; particularly it was the greatest town in England for
large colliers or coal-ships employed between Newcastle and London.
Also they built the biggest ships and the best, for the said
fetching of coals of any that were employed in that trade. They
built, also, there so prodigious strong, that it was an ordinary
thing for an Ipswich collier, if no disaster happened to him, to
reign (as seamen call it) forty or fifty years, and more.
In the town of Ipswich the masters of these ships generally dwelt,
and there were, as they then told me, above a hundred sail of them,
belonging to the town at one time, the least of which carried
fifteen score, as they compute it, that is, 300 chaldron of coals;
this was about the year 1668 (when I first knew the place). This
made the town be at that time so populous, for those masters, as
they had good ships at sea, so they had large families who lived
plentifully, and in very good houses in the town, and several
streets were chiefly inhabited by such.
The loss or decay of this trade accounts for the present pretended
decay of the town of Ipswich, of which I shall speak more
presently. The ships wore out, the masters died off, the trade
took a new turn; Dutch flyboats taken in the war, and made free
ships by Act of Parliament, thrust themselves into the coal-trade
for the interest of the captors, such as the Yarmouth and London
merchants, and others; and the Ipswich men dropped gradually out of
it, being discouraged by those Dutch flyboats. These Dutch
vessels, which cost nothing but the caption, were bought cheap,
carried great burthens, and the Ipswich building fell off for want
of price, and so the trade decayed, and the town with it. I
believe this will be owned for the true beginning of their decay,
if I must allow it to be called a decay.
But to return to my passage up the river. In the winter-time those
great collier ships, above-mentioned, are always laid up, as they
call it; that is to say, the coal trade abates at London, the
citizens are generally furnished, their stores taken in, and the
demand is over; so that the great ships, the northern seas and
coast being also dangerous, the nights long, and the voyage
hazardous, go to sea no more, but lie by, the ships are unrigged,
the sails, etc., carried ashore, the top-masts struck, and they
ride moored in the river, under the advantages and security of
sound ground, and a high woody shore, where they lie as safe as in
a wet dock; and it was a very agreeable sight to see, perhaps two
hundred sail of ships, of all sizes, lie in that posture every
winter. All this while, which was usually from Michaelmas to Lady
Day, the masters lived calm and secure with their families in
Ipswich; and enjoying plentifully, what in the summer they got
laboriously at sea, and this made the town of Ipswich very populous
in the winter; for as the masters, so most of the men, especially
their mates, boatswains, carpenters, etc., were of the same place,
and lived in their proportions, just as the masters did; so that in
the winter there might be perhaps a thousand men in the town more
than in the summer, and perhaps a greater number.
To justify what I advance here, that this town was formerly very
full of people, I ask leave to refer to the account of Mr. Camden,
and what it was in his time. His words are these:- "Ipswich has a
commodious harbour, has been fortified with a ditch and rampart,
has a great trade, and is very populous, being adorned with
fourteen churches, and large private buildings." This confirms
what I have mentioned of the former state of this town; but the
present state is my proper work; I therefore return to my voyage up
the river.
The sight of these ships thus laid up in the river, as I have said,
was very agreeable to me in my passage from Harwich, about five and
thirty years before the present journey; and it was in its
proportion equally melancholy to hear that there were now scarce
forty sail of good colliers that belonged to the whole town.
In a creek in this river, called Lavington Creek, we saw at low
water such shoals, or hills rather, of mussels, that great boats
might have loaded with them, and no miss have been made of them.
Near this creek, Sir Samuel Barnadiston had a very fine seat, as,
also, a decoy for wild ducks, and a very noble estate; but it is
divided into many branches since the death of the ancient
possessor. But I proceed to the town, which is the first in the
county of Suffolk of any note this way.
Ipswich is seated, at the distance of twelve miles from Harwich,
upon the edge of the river, which, taking a short turn to the west,
the town forms, there, a kind of semicircle, or half moon, upon the
bank of the river. It is very remarkable, that though ships of 500
ton may, upon a spring tide, come up very near this town, and many
ships of that burthen have been built there, yet the river is not
navigable any farther than the town itself, or but very little; no,
not for the smallest beats; nor does the tide, which rises
sometimes thirteen or fourteen feet, and gives them twenty-four
feet water very near the town, flow much farther up the river than
the town, or not so much as to make it worth speaking of.
He took little notice of the town, or at least of that part of
Ipswich, who published in his wild observations on it that ships of
200 ton are built there. I affirm, that I have seen a ship of 400
ton launched at the building-yard, close to the town; and I appeal
to the Ipswich colliers (those few that remain) belonging to this
town, if several of them carrying seventeen score of coals, which
must be upward of 400 ton, have not formerly been built here; but
superficial observers must be superficial writers, if they write at
all; and to this day, at John's Ness, within a mile and a half of
the town itself, ships of any burthen may be built and launched
even at neap tides.
I am much mistaken, too, if since the Revolution some very good
ships have not been built at this town, and particularly the
MELFORD or MILFORD galley, a ship of forty guns; as the GREYHOUND
frigate, a man-of-war of thirty-six to forty guns, was at John's
Ness. But what is this towards lessening the town of Ipswich, any
more than it would be to say, they do not build men-of-war, or East
India ships, or ships of five hundred ton burden at St. Catherines,
or at Battle Bridge in the Thames? when we know that a mile or two
lower, viz., at Radcliffe, Limehouse, or Deptford, they build ships
of a thousand ton, and might build first-rate men-of-war too, if
there was occasion; and the like might be done in this river of
Ipswich, within about two or three miles of the town; so that it
would not be at all an out-of-the-way speaking to say, such a ship
was built at Ipswich, any more than it is to say, as they do, that
the ROYAL PRINCE, the great ship lately built for the South Sea
Company, was London built, because she was built at Limehouse.
And why then is not Ipswich capable of building and receiving the
greatest ships in the navy, seeing they may be built and brought up
again laden, within a mile and half of the town?
But the neighbourhood of London, which sucks the vitals of trade in
this island to itself, is the chief reason of any decay of business
in this place; and I shall, in the course of these observations,
hint at it, where many good seaports and large towns, though
farther off than Ipswich, and as well fitted for commerce, are yet
swallowed up by the immense indraft of trade to the City of London;
and more decayed beyond all comparison than Ipswich is supposed to
be: as Southampton, Weymouth, Dartmouth, and several others which I
shall speak to in their order; and if it be otherwise at this time,
with some other towns, which are lately increased in trade and
navigation, wealth, and people, while their neighbours decay, it is
because they have some particular trade, or accident to trade,
which is a kind of nostrum to them, inseparable to the place, and
which fixes there by the nature of the thing; as the herring-
fishery to Yarmouth; the coal trade to Newcastle; the Leeds
clothing trade; the export of butter and lead, and the great corn
trade for Holland, is to Hull; the Virginia and West India trade at
Liverpool; the Irish trade at Bristol, and the like. Thus the war
has brought a flux of business and people, and consequently of
wealth, to several places, as well as to Portsmouth, Chatham,
Plymouth, Falmouth, and others; and were any wars like those, to
continue twenty years with the Dutch, or any nation whose fleets
lay that way, as the Dutch do, it would be the like perhaps at
Ipswich in a few years, and at other places on the same coast.
But at this present time an occasion offers to speak in favour of
this port; namely, the Greenland fishery, lately proposed to be
carried on by the South Sea Company. On which account I may freely
advance this, without any compliment to the town of Ipswich, no
place in Britain is equally qualified like Ipswich; whether we
respect the cheapness of building and fitting out their ships and
shallops; also furnishing, victualling, and providing them with all
kinds of stores; convenience for laying up the ships after the
voyage, room for erecting their magazines, warehouses, rope walks,
cooperages, etc., on the easiest terms; and especially for the
noisome cookery, which attends the boiling their blubber, which may
be on this river (as it ought to be) remote from any places of
resort. Then their nearness to the market for the oil when it is
made, and which, above all, ought to be the chief thing considered
in that trade, the easiness of their putting out to sea when they
begin their voyage, in which the same wind that carries them from
the mouth of the haven, is fair to the very seas of Greenland.
I could say much more to this point if it were needful, and in few
words could easily prove, that Ipswich must have the preference of
all the port towns of Britain, for being the best centre of the
Greenland trade, if ever that trade fall into the management of
such a people as perfectly understand, and have a due honest regard
to its being managed with the best husbandry, and to the prosperity
of the undertaking in general. But whether we shall ever arrive at
so happy a time as to recover so useful a trade to our country,
which our ancestors had the honour to be the first undertakers of,
and which has been lost only through the indolence of others, and
the increasing vigilance of our neighbours, that is not my business
here to dispute.
What I have said is only to let the world see what improvement this
town and port is capable of; I cannot think but that Providence,
which made nothing in vain, cannot have reserved so useful, so
convenient a port to lie vacant in the world, but that the time
will some time or other come (especially considering the improving
temper of the present age) when some peculiar beneficial business
may be found out, to make the port of Ipswich as useful to the
world, and the town as flourishing, as Nature has made it proper
and capable to be.
As for the town, it is true, it is but thinly inhabited, in
comparison of the extent of it; but to say there are hardly any
people to be seen there, is far from being true in fact; and
whoever thinks fit to look into the churches and meeting-houses on
a Sunday, or other public days, will find there are very great
numbers of people there. Or if he thinks fit to view the market,
and see how the large shambles, called Cardinal Wolsey's Butchery,
are furnished with meat, and the rest of the market stocked with
other provisions, must acknowledge that it is not for a few people
that all those things are provided. A person very curious, and on
whose veracity I think I may depend, going through the market in
this town, told me, that he reckoned upwards of six hundred country
people on horseback and on foot, with baskets and other carriage,
who had all of them brought something or other to town to sell,
besides the butchers, and what came in carts and waggons.
It happened to be my lot to be once at this town at the time when a
very fine new ship, which was built there for some merchants of
London, was to be launched; and if I may give my guess at the
numbers of people which appeared on the shore, in the houses, and
on the river, I believe I am much within compass if I say there
were 20,000 people to see it; but this is only a guess, or they
might come a great way to see the sight, or the town may be
declined farther since that. But a view of the town is one of the
surest rules for a gross estimate.
It is true here is no settled manufacture. The French refugees
when they first came over to England began a little to take to this
place, and some merchants attempted to set up a linen manufacture
in their favour; but it has not met with so much success as was
expected, and at present I find very little of it. The poor people
are, however, employed, as they are all over these counties, in
spinning wool for other towns where manufactures are settled.
The country round Ipswich, as are all the counties so near the
coast, is applied chiefly to corn, of which a very great quantity
is continually shipped off for London; and sometimes they load corn
here for Holland, especially if the market abroad is encouraging.
They have twelve parish churches in this town, with three or four
meetings; but there are not so many Quakers here as at Colchester,
and no Anabaptists or Antipoedo Baptists, that I could hear of - at
least, there is no meeting-house of that denomination. There is
one meeting-house for the Presbyterians, one for the Independents
and one for the Quakers; the first is as large and as fine a
building of that kind as most on this side of England, and the
inside the best finished of any I have seen, London not excepted;
that for the Independents is a handsome new-built building, but not
so gay or so large as the other.
There is a great deal of very good company in this town, and though
there are not so many of the gentry here as at Bury, yet there are
more here than in any other town in the county; and I observed
particularly that the company you meet with here are generally
persons well informed of the world, and who have something very
solid and entertaining in their society. This may happen, perhaps,
by their frequent conversing with those who have been abroad, and
by their having a remnant of gentlemen and masters of ships among
them who have seen more of the world than the people of an inland
town are likely to have seen. I take this town to be one of the
most agreeable places in England for families who have lived well,
but may have suffered in our late calamities of stocks and bubbles,
to retreat to, where they may live within their own compass; and
several things indeed recommend it to such:-
1. Good houses at very easy rents.
2. An airy, clean, and well-governed town.
3. Very agreeable and improving company almost of every kind.
4. A wonderful plenty of all manner of provisions, whether flesh
or fish, and very good of the kind.
5. Those provisions very cheap, so that a family may live cheaper
here than in any town in England of its bigness within such a small
distance from London.
6. Easy passage to London, either by land or water, the coach
going through to London in a day.
The Lord Viscount Hereford has a very fine seat and park in this
town; the house indeed is old built, but very commodious; it is
called Christ Church, having been, as it is said, a priory or
religious house in former times. The green and park is a great
addition to the pleasantness of this town, the inhabitants being
allowed to divert themselves there with walking, bowling, etc.
The large spire steeple, which formerly stood upon that they call
the tower church, was blown down by a great storm of wind many
years ago, and in its a fall did much damage to the church.
The government of this town is by two bailiffs, as at Yarmouth.
Mr. Camden says they are chosen out of twelve burgesses called
portmen, and two justices out of twenty-four more. There has been
lately a very great struggle between the two parties for the choice
of these two magistrates, which had this amicable conclusion -
namely, that they chose one of either side; so that neither party
having the victory, it is to be hoped it may be a means to allay
the heats and unneighbourly feuds which such things breed in towns
so large as this is. They send two members to Parliament, whereof
those at this time are Sir William Thompson, Recorder of London,
and Colonel Negus, Deputy Master of the Horse to the king.
There are some things very curious to be seen here, however some
superficial writers have been ignorant of them. Dr. Beeston, an
eminent physician, began a few years ago a physic garden adjoining
to his house in this town; and as he is particularly curious, and,
as I was told, exquisitely skilled in botanic knowledge, so he has
been not only very diligent, but successful too, in making a
collection of rare and exotic plants, such as are scarce to be
equalled in England.
One Mr. White, a surgeon, resides also in this town. But before I
speak of this gentleman, I must observe that I say nothing from
personal knowledge; though if I did, I have too good an opinion of
his sense to believe he would be pleased with being flattered or
complimented in print. But I must be true to matter of fact. This
gentleman has begun a collection or chamber of rarities, and with
good success too. I acknowledge I had not the opportunity of
seeing them; but I was told there are some things very curious in
it, as particularly a sea-horse carefully preserved, and perfect in
all its parts; two Roman urns full of ashes of human bodies, and
supposed to be above 1,700 years old; besides a great many valuable
medals and ancient coins. My friend who gave me this account, and
of whom I think I may say he speaks without bias, mentions this
gentleman, Mr. White, with some warmth as a very valuable person in
his particular employ of a surgeon. I only repeat his words. "Mr.
White," says he, "to whom the whole town and country are greatly
indebted and obliged to pray for his life, is our most skilful
surgeon." These, I say, are his own words, and I add nothing to
them but this, that it is happy for a town to have such a surgeon,
as it is for a surgeon to have such a character.
The country round Ipswich, as if qualified on purpose to
accommodate the town for building of ships, is an inexhaustible
store-house of timber, of which, now their trade of building ships
is abated, they send very great quantities to the king's building-
yards at Chatham, which by water is so little a way that they often
run to it from the mouth of the river at Harwich in one tide.
From Ipswich I took a turn into the country to Hadleigh,
principally to satisfy my curiosity and see the place where that
famous martyr and pattern of charity and religious zeal in Queen
Mary's time, Dr. Rowland Taylor, was put to death. The
inhabitants, who have a wonderful veneration for his memory, show
the very place where the stake which he was bound to was set up,
and they have put a stone upon it which nobody will remove; but it
is a more lasting monument to him that he lives in the hearts of
the people - I say more lasting than a tomb of marble would be, for
the memory of that good man will certainly never be out of the poor
people's minds as long as this island shall retain the Protestant
religion among them. How long that may be, as things are going,
and if the detestable conspiracy of the Papists now on foot should
succeed, I will not pretend to say.
A little to the left is Sudbury, which stands upon the River Stour,
mentioned above - a river which parts the counties of Suffolk and
Essex, and which is within these few years made navigable to this
town, though the navigation does not, it seems, answer the charge,
at least not to advantage.
I know nothing for which this town is remarkable, except for being
very populous and very poor. They have a great manufacture of says
and perpetuanas, and multitudes of poor people are employed in
working them; but the number of the poor is almost ready to eat up
the rich. However, this town sends two members to Parliament,
though it is under no form of government particularly to itself
other than as a village, the head magistrate whereof is a
constable.
Near adjoining to it is a village called Long Melfort, and a very
long one it is, from which I suppose it had that addition to its
name; it is full of very good houses, and, as they told me, is
richer, and has more wealthy masters of the manufacture in it, than
in Sudbury itself.
Here and in the neighbourhood are some ancient families of good
note; particularly here is a fine dwelling, the ancient seat of the
Cordells, whereof Sir William Cordell was Master of the Rolls in
the time of Queen Elizabeth; but the family is now extinct, the
last heir, Sir John Cordell, being killed by a fall from his horse,
died unmarried, leaving three sisters co-heiresses to a very noble
estate, most of which, if not all, is now centred on the only
surviving sister, and with her in marriage is given to Mr.
Firebrass, eldest son of Sir Basil Firebrass, formerly a
flourishing merchant in London, but reduced by many disasters. His
family now rises by the good fortune of his son, who proves to be a
gentleman of very agreeable parts, and well esteemed in the
country.
From this part of the country, I returned north-west by Lenham, to
visit St. Edmund's Bury, a town of which other writers have talked
very largely, and perhaps a little too much. It is a town famed
for its pleasant situation and wholesome air, the Montpelier of
Suffolk, and perhaps of England. This must be attributed to the
skill of the monks of those times, who chose so beautiful a
situation for the seat of their retirement; and who built here the
greatest and, in its time, the most flourishing monastery in all
these parts of England, I mean the monastery of St. Edmund the
Martyr. It was, if we believe antiquity, a house of pleasure in
more ancient times, or to speak more properly, a court of some of
the Saxon or East Angle kings; and, as Mr. Camden says, was even
then called a royal village, though it much better merits that name
now; it being the town of all this part of England, in proportion
to its bigness, most thronged with gentry, people of the best
fashion, and the most polite conversation. This beauty and
healthiness of its situation was no doubt the occasion which drew
the clergy to settle here, for they always chose the best places in
the country to build in, either for richness of soil, or for health
and pleasure in the situation of their religious houses.
For the like reason, I doubt not, they translated the bones of the
martyred king St. Edmund to this place; for it is a vulgar error to
say he was murdered here. His martyrdom, it is plain, was at Hoxon
or Henilsdon, near Harlston, on the Waveney, in the farthest
northern verge of the county; but Segebert, king of the East
Angles, had built a religions house in this pleasant rich part of
the county; and as the monks began to taste the pleasure of the
place, they procured the body of this saint to be removed hither,
which soon increased the wealth and revenues of their house, by the
zeal of that day, in going on pilgrimage to the shrine of the
blessed St. Edmund.
We read, however, that after this the Danes, under King Sweno,
over-running this part of the country, destroyed this monastery and
burnt it to the ground, with the church and town. But see the turn
religion gives to things in the world; his son, King Canutus, at
first a Pagan and a tyrant, and the most cruel ravager of all that
crew, coming to turn Christian, and being touched in conscience for
the soul of his father, in having robbed God and his holy martyr
St. Edmund, sacrilegiously destroying the church, and plundering
the monastery; I say, touched with remorse, and, as the monks
pretend, terrified with a vision of St. Edmund appearing to him, he
rebuilt the house, the church, and the town also, and very much
added to the wealth of the abbot and his fraternity, offering his
crown at the feet of St. Edmund, giving the house to the monks,
town and all; so that they were absolute lords of the town, and
governed it by their steward for many ages. He also gave them a
great many good lordships, which they enjoyed till the general
suppression of abbeys, in the time of Henry VIII.
But I am neither writing the history or searching the antiquity of
the abbey, or town; my business is the present state of the place.
The abbey is demolished; its ruins are all that is to be seen of
its glory: out of the old building, two very beautiful churches are
built, and serve the two parishes, into which the town is divided,
and they stand both in one churchyard. Here it was, in the path-
way between these two churches, that a tragical and almost unheard-
of act of barbarity was committed, which made the place less
pleasant for some time than it used to be, when Arundel Coke, Esq.,
a barrister-at-law, of a very ancient family, attempted, with the
assistance of a barbarous assassin, to murder in cold blood, and in
the arms of hospitality, Edward Crisp, Esq., his brother-in-law,
leading him out from his own house, where he had invited him, his
wife and children, to supper; I say, leading him out in the night,
on pretence of going to see some friend that was known to them
both; but in this churchyard, giving a signal to the assassin he
had hired, he attacked him with a hedge-bill, and cut him, as one
might say, almost in pieces; and when they did not doubt of his
being dead, they left him. His head and face was so mangled, that
it may be said to be next to a miracle that he was not quite
killed: yet so Providence directed for the exemplary punishment of
the assassins, that the gentleman recovered to detect them, who
(though he outlived the assault) were both executed as they
deserved, and Mr. Crisp is yet alive. They were condemned on the
statute for defacing and dismembering, called the Coventry Act.
But this accident does not at all lessen the pleasure and agreeable
delightful show of the town of Bury; it is crowded with nobility
and gentry, and all sorts of the most agreeable company; and as the
company invites, so there is the appearance of pleasure upon the
very situation; and they that live at Bury are supposed to live
there for the sake of it.
The Lord Jermin, afterwards Lord Dover, and, since his lordship's
decease, Sir Robert Davers, enjoyed the most delicious seat of
Rushbrook, near this town.
The present members of Parliament for this place are Jermyn Davers
and James Reynolds, Esquires.
Mr. Harvey, afterwards created Lord Harvey, by King William, and
since that made Earl of Bristol by King George, lived many years in
this town, leaving a noble and pleasantly situated house in
Lincolnshire, for the more agreeable living on a spot so completely
qualified for a life of delight as this of Bury.
The Duke of Grafton, now Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, has also a
stately house at Euston, near this town, which he enjoys in right
of his mother, daughter to the Earl of Arlington, one of the chief
ministers of State in the reign of King Charles II., and who made
the second letter in the word "cabal," a word formed by that famous
satirist Andrew Marvell, to represent the five heads of the
politics of that time, as the word "smectymnus" was on a former
occasion.
I shall believe nothing so scandalous of the ladies of this town
and the country round it as a late writer insinuates. That the
ladies round the country appear mighty gay and agreeable at the
time of the fair in this town I acknowledge; one hardly sees such a
show in any part of the world; but to suggest they come hither, as
to a market, is so coarse a jest, that the gentlemen that wait on
them hither (for they rarely come but in good company) ought to
resent and correct him for it.
It is true, Bury Fair, like Bartholomew Fair, is a fair for
diversion, more than for trade; and it may be a fair for toys and
for trinkets, which the ladies may think fit to lay out some of
their money in, as they see occasion. But to judge from thence
that the knights' daughters of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Suffolk
- that is to say, for it cannot be understood any otherwise, the
daughters of all the gentry of the three counties - come hither to
be picked up, is a way of speaking I never before heard any author
have the assurance to make use of in print.
The assembly he justly commends for the bright appearance of the
beauties; but with a sting in the tail of this compliment, where he
says they seldom end without some considerable match or intrigue;
and yet he owns that during the fair these assemblies are held
every night. Now that these fine ladies go intriguing every night,
and that too after the comedy is done, which is after the fair and
raffling is over for the day, so that it must be very late. This
is a terrible character for the ladies of Bury, and intimates, in
short, that most of them are loose women, which is a horrid abuse
upon the whole country.
Now, though I like not the assemblies at all, and shall in another
place give them something of their due, yet having the opportunity
to see the fair at Bury, and to see that there were, indeed,
abundance of the finest ladies, or as fine as any in Britain, yet I
must own the number of the ladies at the comedy, or at the
assembly, is no way equal to the number that are seen in the town,
much less are they equal to the whole body of the ladies in the
three counties; and I must also add, that though it is far from
true that all that appear at the assembly are there for matches or
intrigues, yet I will venture to say that they are not the worst of
the ladies who stay away, neither are they the fewest in number or
the meanest in beauty, but just the contrary; and I do not at all
doubt, but that the scandalous liberty some take at those
assemblies will in time bring them out of credit with the virtuous
part of the sex here, as it has done already in Kent and other
places, and that those ladies who most value their reputation will
be seen less there than they have been; for though the institution
of them has been innocent and virtuous, the ill use of them, and
the scandalous behaviour of some people at them, will in time arm
virtue against them, and they will be laid down as they have been
set up without much satisfaction.
But the beauty of this town consists in the number of gentry who
dwell in and near it, the polite conversation among them, the
affluence and plenty they live in, the sweet air they breathe in,
and the pleasant country they have to go abroad in.
Here is no manufacturing in this town, or but very little, except
spinning, the chief trade of the place depending upon the gentry
who live there, or near it, and who cannot fail to cause trade
enough by the expense of their families and equipages among the
people of a county town. They have but a very small river, or
rather but a very small branch of a small river, at this town,
which runs from hence to Milden Hall, on the edge of the fens.
However, the town and gentlemen about have been at the charge, or
have so encouraged the engineer who was at the charge, that they
have made this river navigable to the said Milden Hall, from whence
there is a navigable dyke, called Milden Hall Drain, which goes
into the River Ouse, and so to Lynn; so that all their coal and
wine, iron, lead, and other heavy goods, are brought by water from
Lynn, or from London, by the way of Lynn, to the great ease of the
tradesmen.
This town is famous for two great events. One was that in the year
1447, in the 25th year of Henry VI., a Parliament was held here.
The other was, that at the meeting of this Parliament, the great
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, regent of the kingdom during the
absence of King Henry V. and the minority of Henry VI., and to his
last hour the safeguard of the whole nation, and darling of the
people, was basely murdered here; by whose death the gate was
opened to that dreadful war between the houses of Lancaster and
York, which ended in the confusion of that very race who are
supposed to have contrived that murder.
From St. Edmund's Bury I returned by Stowmarket and Needham to
Ipswich, that I might keep as near the coast as was proper to my
designed circuit or journey; and from Ipswich, to visit the sea
again, I went to Woodbridge, and from thence to Orford, on the sea
side.
Woodbridge has nothing remarkable, but that it is a considerable
market for butter and corn to be exported to London; for now begins
that part which is ordinarily called High Suffolk, which, being a
rich soil, is for a long tract of ground wholly employed in
dairies, and they again famous for the best butter, and perhaps the
worst cheese, in England. The butter is barrelled, or often
pickled up in small casks, and sold, not in London only, but I have
known a firkin of Suffolk butter sent to the West Indies, and
brought back to England again, and has been perfectly good and
sweet, as at first.
The port for the shipping off their Suffolk butter is chiefly
Woodbridge, which for that reason is full of corn factors and
butter factors, some of whom are very considerable merchants.
From hence, turning down to the shore, we see Orfordness, a noted
point of land for the guide of the colliers and coasters, and a
good shelter for them to ride under when a strong north-east wind
blows and makes a foul shore on the coast.
South of the Ness is Orford Haven, being the mouth of two little
rivers meeting together. It is a very good harbour for small
vessels, but not capable of receiving a ship of burden.
Orford was once a good town, but is decayed, and as it stands on
the land side of the river the sea daily throws up more land to it,
and falls off itself from it, as if it was resolved to disown the
place, and that it should be a seaport no longer.
A little farther lies Aldborough, as thriving, though without a
port, as the other is decaying, with a good river in the front of
it.
There are some gentlemen's seats up farther from the sea, but very
few upon the coast.
From Aldborough to Dunwich there are no towns of note; even this
town seems to be in danger of being swallowed up, for fame reports
that once they had fifty churches in the town; I saw but one left,
and that not half full of people.
This town is a testimony of the decay of public things, things of
the most durable nature; and as the old poet expresses it,
"By numerous examples we may see,
That towns and cities die as well as we."
The ruins of Carthage, of the great city of Jerusalem, or of
ancient Rome, are not at all wonderful to me. The ruins of
Nineveh, which are so entirety sunk as that it is doubtful where
the city stood; the ruins of Babylon, or the great Persepolis, and
many capital cities, which time and the change of monarchies have
overthrown, these, I say, are not at all wonderful, because being
the capitals of great and flourishing kingdoms, where those
kingdoms were overthrown, the capital cities necessarily fell with
them; but for a private town, a seaport, and a town of commerce, to
decay, as it were, of itself (for we never read of Dunwich being
plundered or ruined by any disaster, at least, not of late years);
this, I must confess, seems owing to nothing but to the fate of
things, by which we see that towns, kings, countries, families, and
persons, have all their elevation, their medium, their declination,
and even their destruction in the womb of time, and the course of
nature. It is true, this town is manifestly decayed by the
invasion of the waters, and as other towns seem sufferers by the
sea, or the tide withdrawing from their ports, such as Orford, just
now named, Winchelsea in Kent, and the like, so this town is, as it
were, eaten up by the sea, as above; and the still encroaching
ocean seems to threaten it with a fatal immersion in a few years
more.
Yet Dunwich, however ruined, retains some share of trade, as
particularly for the shipping of butter, cheese, and corn, which is
so great a business in this county, that it employs a great many
people and ships also; and this port lies right against the
particular part of the county for butter, as Framlingham, Halstead,
etc. Also a very great quantity of corn is bought up hereabout for
the London market; for I shall still touch that point how all the
counties in England contribute something towards the subsistence of
the great city of London, of which the butter here is a very
considerable article; as also coarse cheese, which I mentioned
before, used chiefly for the king's ships.
Hereabouts they begin to talk of herrings and the fishery; and we
find in the ancient records that this town, which was then equal to
a large city, paid, among other tribute to the government, fifty
thousand of herrings. Here also, and at Swole, or Southole, the
next seaport, they cure sprats in the same manner as they do
herrings at Yarmouth; that is to say, speaking in their own
language, they make red sprats; or to speak good English, they make
sprats red.
It is remarkable that this town is now so much washed away by the
sea, that what little trade they have is carried on by Walderswick,
a little town near Swole, the vessels coming in there, because the
ruins of Dunwich make the shore there unsafe and uneasy to the
boats; from whence the northern coasting seamen a rude verse of
their own using, and I suppose of their own making, as follows,
"Swoul and Dunwich, and Walderswick,
All go in at one lousie creek."
This "lousie creek," in short, is a little river at Swoul, which
our late famous atlas-maker calls a good harbour for ships, and
rendezvous of the royal navy; but that by-the-bye; the author, it
seems, knew no better.
From Dunwich we came to Southwold, the town above-named: this is a
small port town upon the coast, at the mouth of a little river
called the Blith. I found no business the people here were
employed in but the fishery, as above, for herrings and sprats,
which they cure by the help of smoke, as they do at Yarmouth.
There is but one church in this town, but it is a very large one
and well built, as most of the churches in this county are, and of
impenetrable flint; indeed, there is no occasion for its being so
large, for staying there one Sabbath day, I was surprised to see an
extraordinary large church, capable of receiving five or six
thousand people, and but twenty-seven in it besides the parson and
the clerk; but at the same time the meeting-house of the Dissenters
was full to the very doors, having, as I guessed, from six to eight
hundred people in it.
This town is made famous for a very great engagement at sea, in the
year 1672, between the English and Dutch fleets, in the bay
opposite to the town, in which, not to be partial to ourselves, the
English fleet was worsted; and the brave Montague, Earl of
Sandwich, Admiral under the Duke of York, lost his life. The ship
ROYAL PRINCE, carrying one hundred guns, in which he was, and which
was under him, commanded by Sir Edward Spragg, was burnt, and
several other ships lost, and about six hundred seamen; part of
those killed in the fight were, as I was told, brought on shore
here and buried in the churchyard of this town, as others also were
at Ipswich.
At this town in particular, and so at all the towns on this coast,
from Orfordness to Yarmouth, is the ordinary place where our summer
friends the swallows first land when they come to visit us; and
here they may be said to embark for their return, when they go back
into warmer climates; and as I think the following remark, though
of so trifling a circumstance, may be both instructing as well as
diverting, it may be very proper in this place. The case is this;
I was some years before at this place, at the latter end of the
year, viz., about the beginning of October, and lodging in a house
that looked into the churchyard, I observed in the evening, an
unusual multitude of birds sitting on the leads of the church.
Curiosity led me to go nearer to see what they were, and I found
they were all swallows; that there was such an infinite number that
they covered the whole roof of the church, and of several houses
near, and perhaps might of more houses which I did not see. This
led me to inquire of a grave gentleman whom I saw near me, what the
meaning was of such a prodigious multitude of swallows sitting
there. "Oh, sir," says he, turning towards the sea, "you may see
the reason; the wind is off sea." I did not seem fully informed by
that expression, so he goes on, "I perceive, sir," says he, "you
are a stranger to it; you must then understand first, that this is
the season of the year when the swallows, their food here failing,
begin to leave us, and return to the country, wherever it be, from
whence I suppose they came; and this being the nearest to the coast
of Holland, they come here to embark" (this he said smiling a
little); "and now, sir," says he, "the weather being too calm or
the wind contrary, they are waiting for a gale, for they are all
wind-bound."
This was more evident to me, when in the morning I found the wind
had come about to the north-west in the night, and there was not
one swallow to be seen of near a million, which I believe was there
the night before.
How those creatures know that this part of the Island of Great
Britain is the way to their home, or the way that they are to go;
that this very point is the nearest cut over, or even that the
nearest cut is best for them, that we must leave to the naturalists
to determine, who insist upon it that brutes cannot think.
Certain it is that the swallows neither come hither for warm
weather nor retire from cold; the thing is of quite another nature.
They, like the shoals of fish in the sea, pursue their prey; they
are a voracious creature, they feed flying; their food is found in
the air, viz., the insects, of which in our summer evenings, in
damp and moist places, the air is full. They come hither in the
summer because our air is fuller of fogs and damps than in other
countries, and for that reason feeds great quantities of insects.
If the air be hot and dry the gnats die of themselves, and even the
swallows will be found famished for want, and fall down dead out of
the air, their food being taken from them. In like manner, when
cold weather comes in the insects all die, and then of necessity
the swallows quit us, and follow their food wherever they go. This
they do in the manner I have mentioned above, for sometimes they
are seen to go off in vast flights like a cloud. And sometimes
again, when the wind grows fair, they go away a few and a few as
they come, not staying at all upon the coast.
Note. - This passing and re-passing of the swallows is observed
nowhere so much, that I have heard of, or in but few other places,
except on this eastern coast, namely, from above Harwich to the
east point of Norfolk, called Winterton Ness, North, which is all
right against Holland. We know nothing of them any farther north,
the passage of the sea being, as I suppose, too broad from
Flamborough Head and the shore of Holderness in Yorkshire, etc.
I find very little remarkable on this side of Suffolk, but what is
on the sea-shore as above. The inland country is that which they
properly call High Suffolk, and is full of rich feeding grounds and
large farms, mostly employed in dairies for making the Suffolk
butter and cheese, of which I have spoken already. Among these
rich grounds stand some market towns, though not of very
considerable note; such as Framlingham, where was once a royal
castle, to which Queen Mary retired when the Northumberland
faction, in behalf of the Lady Jane, endeavoured to supplant her.
And it was this part of Suffolk where the Gospellers, as they were
then called, preferred their loyalty to their religion, and
complimented the Popish line at expense of their share of the
Reformation. But they paid dear for it, and their successors have
learned better politics since.
In these parts are also several good market towns, some in this
county and some in the other, as Beccles, Bungay, Harlston, etc.,
all on the edge of the River Waveney, which parts here the counties
of Suffolk and Norfolk. And here in a bye-place, and out of common
remark, lies the ancient town of Hoxon, famous for being the place
where St. Edmund was martyred, for whom so many cells and shrines
have been set up and monasteries built, and in honour of whom the
famous monastery of St. Edmundsbury, above mentioned, was founded,
which most people erroneously think was the place where the said
murder was committed.
Besides the towns mentioned above, there are Halesworth,
Saxmundham, Debenham, Aye, or Eye, all standing in this eastern
side of Suffolk, in which, as I have said, the whole country is
employed in dairies or in feeding of cattle.
This part of England is also remarkable for being the first where
the feeding and fattening of cattle, both sheep as well as black
cattle, with turnips, was first practised in England, which is made
a very great part of the improvement of their lands to this day,
and from whence the practice is spread over most of the east and
south parts of England to the great enriching of the farmers and
increase of fat cattle. And though some have objected against the
goodness of the flesh thus fed with turnips, and have fancied it
would taste of the root, yet upon experience it is found that at
market there is no difference, nor can they that buy single out one
joint of mutton from another by the taste. So that the complaint
which our nice palates at first made begins to cease of itself, and
a very great quantity of beef and mutton also is brought every year
and every week to London from this side of England, and much more
than was formerly known to be fed there.
I cannot omit, however little it may seem, that this county of
Suffolk is particularly famous for furnishing the City of London
and all the counties round with turkeys, and that it is thought
there are more turkeys bred in this county and the part of Norfolk
that adjoins to it than in all the rest of England, especially for
sale, though this may be reckoned, as I say above, but a trifling
thing to take notice of in these remarks; yet, as I have hinted,
that I shall observe how London is in general supplied with all its
provisions from the whole body of the nation, and how every part of
the island is engaged in some degree or other of that supply. On
this account I could not omit it, nor will it be found so
inconsiderable an article as some may imagine, if this be true,
which I received an account of from a person living on the place,
viz., that they have counted three hundred droves of turkeys (for
they drive them all in droves on foot) pass in one season over
Stratford Bridge on the River Stour, which parts Suffolk from
Essex, about six miles from Colchester, on the road from Ipswich to
London. These droves, as they say, generally contain from three
hundred to a thousand each drove; so that one may suppose them to
contain five hundred one with another, which is one hundred and
fifty thousand in all; and yet this is one of the least passages,
the numbers which travel by Newmarket Heath and the open country
and the forest, and also the numbers that come by Sudbury and Clare
being many more.
For the further supplies of the markets of London with poultry, of
which these countries particularly abound, they have within these
few years found it practicable to make the geese travel on foot
too, as well as the turkeys, and a prodigious number are brought up
to London in droves from the farthest parts of Norfolk; even from
the fen country about Lynn, Downham, Wisbech, and the Washes; as
also from all the east side of Norfolk and Suffolk, of whom it is
very frequent now to meet droves with a thousand, sometimes two
thousand in a drove. They begin to drive them generally in August,
by which time the harvest is almost over, and the geese may feed in
the stubbles as they go. Thus they hold on to the end of October,
when the roads begin to be too stiff and deep for their broad feet
and short legs to march in.
Besides these methods of driving these creatures on foot, they have
of late also invented a new method of carriage, being carts formed
on purpose, with four stories or stages to put the creatures in one
above another, by which invention one cart will carry a very great
number; and for the smoother going they drive with two horses
abreast, like a coach, so quartering the road for the ease of the
gentry that thus ride. Changing horses, they travel night and day,
so that they bring the fowls seventy, eighty, or, one hundred miles
in two days and one night. The horses in this new-fashioned
voiture go two abreast, as above, but no perch below, as in a
coach, but they are fastened together by a piece of wood lying
crosswise upon their necks, by which they are kept even and
together, and the driver sits on the top of the cart like as in the
public carriages for the army, etc.
In this manner they hurry away the creatures alive, and infinite
numbers are thus carried to London every year. This method is also
particular for the carrying young turkeys or turkey poults in their
season, which are valuable, and yield a good price at market; as
also for live chickens in the dear seasons, of all which a very
great number are brought in this manner to London, and more
prodigiously out of this country than any other part of England,
which is the reason of my speaking of it here.
In this part, which we call High Suffolk, there are not so many
families of gentry or nobility placed as in the other side of the
country. But it is observed that though their seats are not so
frequent here, their estates are; and the pleasure of West Suffolk
is much of it supported by the wealth of High Suffolk, for the
richness of the lands and application of the people to all kinds of
improvement is scarce credible; also the farmers are so very
considerable and their farms and dairies so large that it is very
frequent for a farmer to have 1,000 pounds stock upon his farm in
cows only.
NORFOLK.
From High Suffolk I passed the Waveney into Norfolk, near Schole
Inn. In my passage I saw at Redgrave (the seat of the family) a
most exquisite monument of Sir John Holt, Knight, late Lord Chief
Justice of the King's Bench several years, and one of the most
eminent lawyers of his time. One of the heirs of the family is now
building a fine seat about a mile on the south side of Ipswich,
near the road.
The epitaph or inscription on this monument is as follows:-
M. S.
D. Johannis Holt, Equitis Aur.
Totius Anglioe in Banco Regis
per 21 Annos continuos
Capitalis Justitiarii
Gulielmo Regi Annoequr Reginae
Consiliarii perpetui:
Libertatis ac Legum Anglicarum
Assertoris, Vindicis, Custodis,
Vigilis Acris & intrepidi,
Rolandus Frater Uncius & Hoeres
Optime de se Merito
posuit,
Die Martis Vto. 1709. Sublatus est
ex Oculis nostris
Natus 30 Decembris, Anno 1642.
When we come into Norfolk, we see a face of diligence spread over
the whole country; the vast manufactures carried on (in chief) by
the Norwich weavers employs all the country round in spinning yarn
for them; besides many thousand packs of yarn which they receive
from other countries, even from as far as Yorkshire and
Westmoreland, of which I shall speak in its place.
This side of Norfolk is very populous, and thronged with great and
spacious market-towns, more and larger than any other part of
England so far from London, except Devonshire, and the West Riding
of Yorkshire; for example, between the frontiers of Suffolk and the
city of Norwich on this side, which is not above 22 miles in
breadth, are the following market-towns, viz.:-
Thetford, Hingham, Harleston,
Diss, West Dereham, E. Dereham,
Harling, Attleborough, Watton,
Bucknam, Windham, Loddon, etc.
Most of these towns are very populous and large; but that which is
most remarkable is, that the whole country round them is so
interspersed with villages, and those villages so large, and so
full of people, that they are equal to market-towns in other
countries; in a word, they render this eastern part of Norfolk
exceeding full of inhabitants.
An eminent weaver of Norwich gave me a scheme of their trade on
this occasion, by which, calculating from the number of looms at
that time employed in the city of Norwich only, besides those
employed in other towns in the same county, he made it appear very
plain, that there were 120,000 people employed in the woollen and
silk and wool manufactures of that city only; not that the people
all lived in the city, though Norwich is a very large and populous
city too: but, I say, they were employed for spinning the yarn used
for such goods as were all made in that city. This account is
curious enough, and very exact, but it is too long for the compass
of this work.
This shows the wonderful extent of the Norwich manufacture, or
stuff-weaving trade, by which so many thousands of families are
maintained. Their trade, indeed, felt a very sensible decay, and
the cries of the poor began to be very loud, when the wearing of
painted calicoes was grown to such a height in England, as was seen
about two or three years ago; but an Act of Parliament having been
obtained, though not without great struggle, in the years 1720 and
1721, for prohibiting the use and wearing of calicoes, the stuff
trade revived incredibly; and as I passed this part of the country
in the year 1723, the manufacturers assured me that there was not,
in all the eastern and middle part of Norfolk, any hand unemployed,
if they would work; and that the very children, after four or five
years of age, could every one earn their own bread. But I return
to speak of the villages and towns in the rest of the county; I
shall come to the city of Norwich by itself.
This throng of villages continues through all the east part of the
country, which is of the greatest extent, and where the manufacture
is chiefly carried on. If any part of it be waste and thin of
inhabitants, it is the west part, drawing a line from about Brand,
or Brandon, south, to Walsinghan, north. This part of the country
indeed is full of open plains, and somewhat sandy and barren, and
feeds great flocks of good sheep; but put it all together, the
county of Norfolk has the most people in the least tract of land of
any county in England, except about London, and Exon, and the West
Riding of Yorkshire, as above.
Add to this, that there is no single county in England, except as
above, that can boast of three towns so populous, so rich, and so
famous for trade and navigation, as in this county. By these three
towns, I mean the city of Norwich, the towns of Yarmouth and Lynn.
Besides that, it has several other seaports of very good trade, as
Wisbech, Wells, Burnham, Clye, etc.
Norwich is the capital of all the county, and the centre of all the
trade and manufactures which I have just mentioned; an ancient,
large, rich, and populous city. If a stranger was only to ride
through or view the city of Norwich for a day, he would have much
more reason to think there was a town without inhabitants, than
there is really to say so of Ipswich; but on the contrary if he was
to view the city, either on a Sabbath-day, or on any public
occasion, he would wonder where all the people could dwell, the
multitude is so great. But the case is this: the inhabitants being
all busy at their manufactures, dwell in their garrets at their
looms, and in their combing shops (so they call them), twisting-
mills, and other work-houses, almost all the works they are
employed in being done within doors. There are in this city
thirty-two parishes besides the cathedral, and a great many
meeting-houses of Dissenters of all denominations. The public
edifices are chiefly the castle, ancient and decayed, and now for
many years past made use of for a gaol. The Duke of Norfolk's
house was formerly kept well, and the gardens preserved for the
pleasure and diversion of the citizens, but since feeling too
sensibly the sinking circumstances of that once glorious family,
who were the first peers and hereditary earl-marshals of England.
The walls of this city are reckoned three miles in circumference,
taking in more ground than the City of London, but much of that
ground lying open in pasture-fields and gardens; nor does it seem
to be, like some ancient places, a decayed, declining town, and
that the walls mark out its ancient dimensions; for we do not see
room to suppose that it was ever larger or more populous than it is
now. But the walls seem to be placed as if they expected that the
city would in time increase sufficiently to fill them up with
buildings.
The cathedral of this city is a fine fabric, and the spire steeple
very high and beautiful. It is not ancient, the bishop's see
having been first at Thetford, from whence it was not translated
hither till the twelfth century. Yet the church has so many
antiquities in it, that our late great scholar and physician, Sir
Thomas Brown, thought it worth his while to write a whole book to
collect the monuments and inscriptions in this church, to which I
refer the reader.
The River Yare runs through this city, and is navigable thus far
without the help of any art (that is to say, without locks or
stops), and being increased by other waters, passes afterwards
through a long tract of the richest meadows, and the largest, take
them all together, that are anywhere in England, lying for thirty
miles in length, from this city to Yarmouth, including the return
of the said meadows on the bank of the Waveney south, and on the
River Thyrn north.
Here is one thing indeed strange in itself, and more so, in that
history seems to be quite ignorant of the occasion of it. The
River Waveney is a considerable river, and of a deep and full
channel, navigable for large barges as high as Beccles; it runs for
a course of about fifty miles, between the two counties of Suffolk
and Norfolk, as a boundary to both; and pushing on, though with a
gentle stream, towards the sea, no one would doubt, but, that when
they see the river growing broader and deeper, and going directly
towards the sea, even to the edge of the beach - that is to say,
within a mile of the main ocean - no stranger, I say, but would
expect to see its entrance into the sea at that place, and a noble
harbour for ships at the mouth of it; when on a sudden, the land
rising high by the seaside, crosses the head of the river, like a
dam, checks the whole course of it, and it returns, bending its
course west, for two miles, or thereabouts; and then turning north,
through another long course of meadows (joining to those just now
mentioned) seeks out the River Yare, that it may join its water
with hers, and find their way to the sea together
Some of our historians tell a long, fabulous story of this river
being once open, and a famous harbour for ships belonging to a town
of Lowestoft adjoining; but that the town of Yarmouth envying the
prosperity of the said town of Lowestoft, made war upon them; and
that after many bloody battles, as well by sea as by land, they
came at last to a decisive action at sea with their respective
fleets, and the victory fell to the Yarmouth men, the Lowestoft
fleet being overthrown and utterly destroyed; and that upon this
victory, the Yarmouth men either actually did stop up the mouth of
the said river, or obliged the vanquished Lowestoft men to do it
themselves, and bound them never to attempt to open it again.
I believe my share of this story, and I recommend no more of it to
the reader; adding, that I see no authority for the relation,
neither do the relators agree either in the time of it, or in the
particulars of the fact; that is to say, in whose reign, or under
what government all this happened; in what year, and the like; so I
satisfy myself with transcribing the matter of fact, and then leave
it as I find it.
In this vast tract of meadows are fed a prodigious number of black
cattle which are said to be fed up for the fattest beef, though not
the largest in England; and the quantity is so great, as that they
not only supply the city of Norwich, the town of Yarmouth, and
county adjacent, but send great quantities of them weekly in all
the winter season to London.
And this in particular is worthy remark, that the gross of all the
Scots cattle which come yearly into England are brought hither,
being brought to a small village lying north of the city of
Norwich, called St. Faith's, where the Norfolk graziers go and buy
them.
These Scots runts, so they call them, coming out of the cold and
barren mountains of the Highlands in Scotland, feed so eagerly on
the rich pasture in these marshes, that they thrive in an unusual
manner, and grow monstrously fat; and the beef is so delicious for
taste, that the inhabitants prefer them to the English cattle,
which are much larger and fairer to look at; and they may very well
do so. Some have told me, and I believe with good judgment, that
there are above forty thousand of these Scots cattle fed in this
county every year, and most of them in the said marshes between
Norwich, Beccles, and Yarmouth.
Yarmouth is an ancient town, much older than Norwich; and at
present, though not standing on so much ground, yet better built;
much more complete; for number of inhabitants, not much inferior;
and for wealth, trade, and advantage of its situation, infinitely
superior to Norwich.
It is placed on a peninsula between the River Yare and the sea; the
two last lying parallel to one another, and the town in the middle.
The river lies on the west side of the town, and being grown very
large and deep, by a conflux of all the rivers on this side the
county, forms the haven; and the town facing to the west also, and
open to the river, makes the finest quay in England, if not in
Europe, not inferior even to that of Marseilles itself.
The ships ride here so close, and, as it were, keeping up one
another, with their headfasts on shore, that for half a mile
together they go across the stream with their bowsprits over the
land, their bows, or heads touching the very wharf; so that one may
walk from ship to ship as on a floating bridge, all along by the
shore-side. The quay reaching from the drawbridge almost to the
south gate, is so spacious and wide, that in some places it is near
one hundred yards from the houses to the wharf. In this pleasant
and agreeable range of houses are some very magnificent buildings,
and among the rest, the Custom House and Town Hall, and some
merchant's houses, which look like little palaces rather than the
dwelling-houses of private men.
The greatest defect of this beautiful town seems to be that, though
it is very rich and increasing in wealth and trade, and
consequently in people, there is not room to enlarge the town by
building, which would be certainly done much more than it is, but
that the river on the land side prescribes them, except at the
north end without the gate; and even there the land is not very
agreeable. But had they had a larger space within the gates there
would before now have been many spacious streets of noble fine
buildings erected, as we see is done in some other thriving towns
in England, as at Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Frome, etc.
The quay and the harbour of this town during the fishing fair, as
they call it, which is every Michaelmas, one sees the land covered
with people, and the river with barques and boats, busy day and
night landing and carrying of the herrings, which they catch here
in such prodigious quantities, that it is incredible. I happened
to be there during their fishing fair, when I told in one tide 110
barques and fishing vessels coming up the river all laden with
herrings, and all taken the night before; and this was besides what
was brought on shore on the Dean (that is the seaside of the town)
by open boats, which they call cobles, and which often bring in two
or three last of fish at a time. The barques often bring in ten
last a piece.
This fishing fair begins on Michaelmas Day, and lasts all the month
of October, by which time the herrings draw off to sea, shoot their
spawn, and are no more fit for the merchant's business - at least,
not those that are taken thereabouts.
The quantity of herrings that are caught in this season are
diversely accounted for. Some have said that the towns of Yarmouth
and Lowestoft only have taken 40,000 last in a season. I will not
venture to confirm that report; but this I have heard the merchants
themselves say, viz., that they have cured - that is to say, hanged
and dried in the smoke - 40,000 barrels of merchantable red
herrings in one season, which is in itself (though far short of the
other) yet a very considerable article; and it is to be added that
this is besides all the herrings consumed in the country towns of
both those populous counties for thirty miles from the sea, whither
very great quantities are carried every tide during the whole
season.
But this is only one branch of the great trade carried on in this
town. Another part of this commerce is in the exporting these
herrings after they are cured; and for this their merchants have a
great trade to Genoa, Leghorn, Naples, Messina, and Venice; as also
to Spain and Portugal, also exporting with their herring very great
quantities of worsted stuffs, and stuffs made of silk and worsted,
camblets, etc., the manufactures of the neighbouring city of
Norwich and of the places adjacent.
Besides this, they carry on a very considerable trade with Holland,
whose opposite neighbours they are; and a vast quantity of woollen
manufactures they export to the Dutch every year. Also they have a
fishing trade to the North Seas for white fish, which from the
place are called the North Sea cod.
They have also a considerable trade to Norway and to the Baltic,
from whence they bring back deals and fir timber, oaken plank,
balks, spars, oars, pitch, tar, hemp, flax, spruce canvas, and
sail-cloth, with all manner of naval stores, which they generally
have a consumption for in their own port, where they build a very
great number of ships every year, besides refitting and repairing
the old.
Add to this the coal trade between Newcastle and the river of
Thames, in which they are so improved of late years that they have
now a greater share of it than any other town in England, and have
quite worked the Ipswich men out of it who had formerly the chief
share of the colliery in their hands.
For the carrying on all these trades they must have a very great
number of ships, either of their own or employed by them: and it
may in some measure be judged of by this that in the year 1697, I
had an account from the town register that there was then 1,123
sail of ships using the sea and belonged to the town, besides such
ships as the merchants of Yarmouth might be concerned in, and be
part owners of, belonging to any other ports.
To all this I must add, without compliment to the town or to the
people, that the merchants, and even the generality of traders of
Yarmouth, have a very good reputation in trade as well abroad as at
home for men of fair and honourable dealing, punctual and just in
their performing their engagements and in discharging commissions;
and their seamen, as well masters as mariners, are justly esteemed
among the ablest and most expert navigators in England.
This town, however populous and large, was ever contained in one
parish, and had but one church; but within these two years they
have built another very fine church near the south end of the town.
The old church is dedicated to St. Nicholas, and was built by that
famous Bishop of Norwich, William Herbert, who flourished in the
reign of William II., and Henry I., William of Malmesbury, calls
him VIR PECUNIOSUS; he might have called him VIR PECUNIOSISSIMUS,
considering the times he lived in, and the works of charity and
munificence which he has left as witnesses of his immense riches;
for he built the Cathedral Church, the Priory for sixty monks, the
Bishop's Palace, and the parish church of St. Leonard, all in
Norwich; this great church at Yarmouth, the Church of St. Margaret
at Lynn, and of St. Mary at Elmham. He removed the episcopal see
from Thetford to Norwich, and instituted the Cluniack Monks at
Thetford, and gave them or built them a house. This old church is
very large, and has a high spire, which is a useful sea-mark.
Here is one of the finest market-places and the best served with
provisions in England, London excepted; and the inhabitants are so
multiplied in a few years that they seem to want room in their town
rather than people to fill it, as I have observed above.
The streets are all exactly straight from north to south, with
lanes or alleys, which they call rows, crossing them in straight
lines also from east to west, so that it is the most regular built
town in England, and seems to have been built all at once; or that
the dimensions of the houses and extent of the streets were laid
out by consent.
They have particular privileges in this town and a jurisdiction by
which they can try, condemn, and execute in especial cases without
waiting for a warrant from above; and this they exerted once very
smartly in executing a captain of one of the king's ships of war in
the reign of King Charles II. for a murder committed in the street,
the circumstance of which did indeed call for justice; but some
thought they would not have ventured to exert their powers as they
did. However, I never heard that the Government resented it or
blamed them for it.
It is also a very well-governed town, and I have nowhere in England
observed the Sabbath day so exactly kept, or the breach so
continually punished, as in this place, which I name to their
honour.
Among all these regularities it is no wonder if we do not find
abundance of revelling, or that there is little encouragement to
assemblies, plays, and gaming meetings at Yarmouth as in some other
places; and yet I do not see that the ladies here come behind any
of the neighbouring counties, either in beauty, breeding, or
behaviour; to which may be added too, not at all to their
disadvantage, that they generally go beyond them in fortunes.
From Yarmouth I resolved to pursue my first design, viz., to view
the seaside on this coast, which is particularly famous for being
one of the most dangerous and most fatal to the sailors in all
England - I may say in all Britain - and the more so because of the
great number of ships which are continually going and coming this
way in their passage between London and all the northern coasts of
Great Britain. Matters of antiquity are not my inquiry, but
principally observations on the present state of things, and, if
possible, to give such accounts of things worthy of recording as
have never been observed before; and this leads me the more
directly to mention the commerce and the navigation when I come to
towns upon the coast as what few writers have yet meddled with.
The reason of the dangers of this particular coast are found in the
situation of the county and in the course of ships sailing this
way, which I shall describe as well as I can thus:- The shore from
the mouth of the River of Thames to Yarmouth Roads lies in a
straight line from SSE. TO NNW., the land being on the W. or
larboard side.
From Wintertonness, which is the utmost northerly point of land in
the county of Norfolk, and about four miles beyond Yarmouth, the
shore falls off for nearly sixty miles to the west, as far as Lynn
and Boston, till the shore of Lincolnshire tends north again for
about sixty miles more as far as the Humber, whence the coast of
Yorkshire, or Holderness, which is the east riding, shoots out
again into the sea, to the Spurn and to Flamborough Head, as far
east, almost, as the shore of Norfolk had given back at Winterton,
making a very deep gulf or bay between those two points of
Winterton and the Spurn Head; so that the ships going north are
obliged to stretch away to sea from Wintertonness, and leaving the
sight of land in that deep bay which I have mentioned, that reaches
to Lynn and the shore of Lincolnshire, they go, I say, N. or still
NNW. to meet the shore of Holderness, which I said runs out into
the sea again at the Spurn; and the first land they make or desire
to make, is called as above, Flamborough Head, so that
Wintertonness and Flamborough Head are the two extremes of this
course, there is, as I said, the Spurn Head indeed between; but as
it lies too far in towards the Humber, they keep out to the north
to avoid coming near it.
In like manner the ships which come from the north, leave the shore
at Flamborough Head, and stretch away SSE. for Yarmouth Roads; and
they first land they make is Wintertonness (as above). Now, the
danger of the place is this: if the ships coming from the north are
taken with a hard gale of wind from the SE., or from any point
between NE. and SE., so that they cannot, as the seamen call it,
weather Wintertonness, they are thereby kept within that deep bay;
and if the wind blows hard, are often in danger of running on shore
upon the rocks about Cromer, on the north coast of Norfolk, or
stranding upon the flat shore between Cromer and Wells; all the
relief they have, is good ground tackle to ride it out, which is
very hard to do there, the sea coming very high upon them; or if
they cannot ride it out then, to run into the bottom of the great
bay I mentioned, to Lynn or Boston, which is a very difficult and
desperate push: so that sometimes in this distress whole fleets
have been lost here altogether.
The like is the danger to ships going northward, if after passing
by Winterton they are taken short with a north-east wind, and
cannot put back into the Roads, which very often happens, then they
are driven upon the same coast, and embayed just as the latter.
The danger on the north part of this bay is not the same, because
if ships going or coming should be taken short on this side
Flamborough, there is the river Humber open to them, and several
good roads to have recourse to, as Burlington Bay, Grimsby Road,
and the Spurn Head, and others, where they ride under shelter.
The dangers of this place being thus considered, it is no wonder,
that upon the shore beyond Yarmouth there are no less than four
lighthouses kept flaming every night, besides the lights at Castor,
north of the town, and at Goulston S., all of which are to direct
the sailors to keep a good offing in case of bad weather, and to
prevent their running into Cromer Bay, which the seamen call the
devil's throat.
As I went by land from Yarmouth northward, along the shore towards
Cromer aforesaid, and was not then fully master of the reason of
these things, I was surprised to see, in all the way from
Winterton, that the farmers and country people had scarce a barn,
or a shed, or a stable, nay, not the pales of their yards and
gardens, not a hogstye, not a necessary house, but what was built
of old planks, beams, wales, and timbers, etc., the wrecks of
ships, and ruins of mariners' and merchants' fortunes; and in some
places were whole yards filled and piled up very high with the same
stuff laid up, as I supposed to sell for the like building
purposes, as there should he occasion.
About the year 1692 (I think it was that year) there was a
melancholy example of what I have said of this place: a fleet of
200 sail of light colliers (so they call the ships bound northward
empty to fetch coals from Newcastle to London) went out of Yarmouth
Roads with a fair wind, to pursue their voyage, and were taken
short with a storm of wind at NE. after they were past
Wintertonness, a few leagues; some of them, whose masters were a
little more wary than the rest, or perhaps, who made a better
judgment of things, or who were not so far out as the rest, tacked,
and put back in time, and got safe into the roads; but the rest
pushing on in hopes to keep out to sea, and weather it, were by the
violence of the storm driven back, when they were too far embayed
to weather Wintertonness as above, and so were forced to run west,
everyone shifting for themselves as well as they could; some run
away for Lynn Deeps, but few of them (the night being so dark)
could find their way in there; some, but very few, rode it out at a
distance; the rest, being above 140 sail, were all driven on shore
and dashed to pieces, and very few of the people on board were
saved: at the very same unhappy juncture, a fleet of laden ships
were coming from the north, and being just crossing the same bay,
were forcibly driven into it, not able to weather the Ness, and so
were involved in the same ruin as the light fleet was; also some
coasting vessels laden with corn from Lynn and Wells, and bound for
Holland, were with the same unhappy luck just come out to begin
their voyage, and some of them lay at anchor; these also met with
the same misfortune, so that, in the whole, above 200 sail of
ships, and above a thousand people, perished in the disaster of
that one miserable night, very few escaping.
Cromer is a market town close to the shore of this dangerous coast.
I know nothing it is famous for (besides it being thus the terror
of the sailors) except good lobsters, which are taken on that coast
in great numbers and carried to Norwich, and in such quantities
sometimes too as to be conveyed by sea to London.
Farther within the land, and between this place and Norwich, are
several good market towns, and innumerable villages, all diligently
applying to the woollen manufacture, and the country is exceedingly
fruitful and fertile, as well in corn as in pastures; particularly,
which was very pleasant to see, the pheasants were in such great
plenty as to be seen in the stubbles like cocks and hens - a
testimony though, by the way, that the county had more tradesmen
than gentlemen in it; indeed, this part is so entirely given up to
industry, that what with the seafaring men on the one side, and the
manufactures on the other, we saw no idle hands here, but every man
busy on the main affair of life, that is to say, getting money;
some of the principal of these towns are:- Alsham, North Walsham,
South Walsham, Worsted, Caston, Reepham, Holt, Saxthorp, St.
Faith's, Blikling, and many others. Near the last, Sir John
Hobart, of an ancient family in this county, has a noble seat, but
old built. This is that St. Faith's, where the drovers bring their
black cattle to sell to the Norfolk graziers, as is observed above.
From Cromer we ride on the strand or open shore to Weyburn Hope,
the shore so flat that in some places the tide ebbs out near two
miles. From Weyburn west lies Clye, where there are large salt-
works and very good salt made, which is sold all over the county,
and sometimes sent to Holland and to the Baltic. From Clye we go
to Masham and to Wells, all towns on the coast, in each whereof
there is a very considerable trade carried on with Holland for
corn, which that part of the county is very full of. I say nothing
of the great trade driven here from Holland, back again to England,
because I take it to be a trade carried on with much less honesty
than advantage, especially while the clandestine trade, or the art
of smuggling was so much in practice: what it is now, is not to my
present purpose.
Near this town lie The Seven Burnhams, as they are called, that is
to say, seven small towns, all called by the same name, and each
employed in the same trade of carrying corn to Holland, and
bringing back, - etc.
From hence we turn to the south-west to Castle Rising, an old
decayed borough town, with perhaps not ten families in it, which
yet (to the scandal of our prescription right) sends two members to
the British Parliament, being as many as the City of Norwich itself
or any town in the kingdom, London excepted, can do.
On our left we see Walsingham, an ancient town, famous for the old
ruins of a monastery of note there, and the Shrine of our Lady, as
noted as that of St. Thomas-e-Becket at Canterbury, and for little
else.
Near this place are the seats of the two allied families of the
Lord Viscount Townsend and Robert Walpole, Esq.; the latter at this
time one of the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury and Minister of
State, and the former one of the principal Secretaries of State to
King George, of which again.
From hence we went to Lynn, another rich and populous thriving
port-town. It stands on more ground than the town of Yarmouth, and
has, I think, parishes, yet I cannot allow that it has more people
than Yarmouth, if so many. It is a beautiful, well built, and well
situated town, at the mouth of the River Ouse, and has this
particular attending it, which gives it a vast advantage in trade;
namely, that there is the greatest extent of inland navigation here
of any port in England, London excepted. The reason whereof is
this, that there are more navigable rivers empty themselves here
into the sea, including the washes, which are branches of the same
port, than at any one mouth of waters in England, except the Thames
and the Humber. By these navigable rivers, the merchants of Lynn
supply about six counties wholly, and three counties in part, with
their goods, especially wine and coals, viz., by the little Ouse,
they send their goods to Brandon and Thetford, by the Lake to
Mildenhall, Barton Mills, and St. Edmundsbury; by the River Grant
to Cambridge, by the great Ouse itself to Ely, to St. Ives, to St.
Neots, to Barford Bridge, and to Bedford; by the River Nyne to
Peterborough; by the drains and washes to Wisbeach, to Spalding,
Market Deeping, and Stamford; besides the several counties, into
which these goods are carried by land-carriage, from the places,
where the navigation of those rivers end; which has given rise to
this observation on the town of Lynn, that they bring in more coals
than any sea-port between London and Newcastle; and import more
wines than any port in England, except London and Bristol; their
trade to Norway and to the Baltic Sea is also great in proportion,
and of late years they have extended their trade farther to the
southward.
Here are more gentry, and consequently is more gaiety in this town
than in Yarmouth, or even in Norwich itself - the place abounding
in very good company.
The situation of this town renders it capable of being made very
strong, and in the late wars it was so; a line of fortification
being drawn round it at a distance from the walls; the ruins, or
rather remains of which works appear very fair to this day; nor
would it be a hard matter to restore the bastions, with the
ravelins, and counterscarp, upon any sudden emergency, to a good
state of defence: and that in a little time, a sufficient number of
workmen being employed, especially because they are able to fill
all their ditches with water from the sea, in such a manner as that
it cannot be drawn off.
There is in the market-place of this town a very fine statue of
King William on horseback, erected at the charge of the town. The
Ouse is mighty large and deep, close to the very town itself, and
ships of good burthen may come up to the quay; but there is no
bridge, the stream being too strong and the bottom moorish and
unsound; nor, for the same reason, is the anchorage computed the
best in the world; but there are good roads farther down.
They pass over here in boats into the fen country, and over the
famous washes into Lincolnshire, but the passage is very dangerous
and uneasy, and where passengers often miscarry and are lost; but
then it is usually on their venturing at improper times, and
without the guides, which if they would be persuaded not to do,
they would very rarely fail of going or coming safe.
From Lynn I bent my course to Downham, where is an ugly wooden
bridge over the Ouse; from whence we passed the fen country to
Wisbeach, but saw nothing that way to tempt our curiosity but deep
roads, innumerable drains and dykes of water, all navigable, and a
rich soil, the land bearing a vast quantity of good hemp, but a
base unwholesome air; so we came back to Ely, whose cathedral,
standing in a level flat country, is seen far and wide, and of
which town, when the minster, so they call it, is described,
everything remarkable is said that there is room to say. And of
the minster, this is the most remarkable thing that I could hear
it, namely, that some of it is so ancient, totters so much with
every gust of wind, looks so like a decay, and seems so near it,
that whenever it does fall, all that it is likely will be thought
strange in it will be that it did not fall a hundred years sooner.
From hence we came over the Ouse, and in a few miles to Newmarket.
In our way, near Snaybell, we saw a noble seat of the late Admiral
Russell, now Earl of Orford, a name made famous by the glorious
victory obtained under his command over the French fleet and the
burning their ships at La Hogue - a victory equal in glory to, and
infinitely more glorious to the English nation in particular, than
that at Blenheim, and, above all, more to the particular advantage
of the confederacy, because it so broke the heart of the naval
power of France that they have not fully recovered it to this day.
But of this victory it must be said it was owing to the haughty,
rash, and insolent orders given by the King of France to his
admiral, viz., to fight the confederate fleet wherever he found
them, without leaving room for him to use due caution if he found
them too strong, which pride of France was doubtless a fate upon
them, and gave a cheap victory to the confederates, the French
coming down rashly, and with the most impolitic bravery, with about
five-and-forty sail to attack between seventy and eighty sail, by
which means they met their ruin. Whereas, had their own fleet been
joined, it might have cost more blood to have mastered them if it
had been done at all.
The situation of this house is low, and on the edge of the fen
country, but the building is very fine, the avenues noble, and the
gardens perfectly finished. The apartments also are rich, and I
see nothing wanting but a family and heirs to sustain the glory and
inheritance of the illustrious ancestor who raised it - SED CARET
PEDIBUS; these are wanting.
Being come to Newmarket in the month of October, I had the
opportunity to see the horse races and a great concourse of the
nobility and gentry, as well from London as from all parts of
England, but they were all so intent, so eager, so busy upon the
sharping part of the sport - their wagers and bets - that to me
they seemed just as so many horse-coursers in Smithfield,
descending (the greatest of them) from their high dignity and
quality to picking one another's pockets, and biting one another as
much as possible, and that with such eagerness as that it might be
said they acted without respect to faith, honour, or good manners.
There was Mr. Frampton the oldest, and, as some say, the cunningest
jockey in England; one day he lost one thousand guineas, the next
he won two thousand; and so alternately he made as light of
throwing away five hundred or one thousand pounds at a time as
other men do of their pocket-money, and as perfectly calm,
cheerful, and unconcerned when he had lost one thousand pounds as
when he had won it. On the other side there was Sir R Fagg, of
Sussex, of whom fame says he has the most in him and the least to
show for it (relating to jockeyship) of any man there, yet he often
carried the prize. His horses, they said, were all cheats, how
honest soever their master was, for he scarce ever produced a horse
but he looked like what he was not, and was what nobody could
expect him to be. If he was as light as the wind, and could fly
like a meteor, he was sure to look as clumsy, and as dirty, and as
much like a cart-horse as all the cunning of his master and the
grooms could make him, and just in this manner he beat some of the
greatest gamesters in the field.
I was so sick of the jockeying part that I left the crowd about the
posts and pleased myself with observing the horses: how the
creatures yielded to all the arts and managements of their masters;
how they took their airings in sport, and played with the daily
heats which they ran over the course before the grand day. But
how, as knowing the difference equally with their riders, would
they exert their utmost strength at the time of the race itself!
And that to such an extremity that one or two of them died in the
stable when they came to be rubbed after the first heat.
Here I fancied myself in the Circus Maximus at Rome seeing the
ancient games and the racings of the chariots and horsemen, and in
this warmth of my imagination I pleased and diverted myself more
and in a more noble manner than I could possibly do in the crowds
of gentlemen at the weighing and starting-posts and at their coming
in, or at their meetings at the coffee-houses and gaming-tables
after the races were over, where there was little or nothing to be
seen but what was the subject of just reproach to them and reproof
from every wise man that looked upon them.
N.B. - Pray take it with you, as you go, you see no ladies at
Newmarket, except a few of the neighbouring gentlemen's families,
who come in their coaches on any particular day to see a race, and
so go home again directly.
As I was pleasing myself with what was to be seen here, I went in
the intervals of the sport to see the fine seats of the gentlemen
in the neighbouring county, for this part of Suffolk, being an open
champaign country and a healthy air, is formed for pleasure and all
kinds of country diversion, Nature, as it were, inviting the
gentlemen to visit her where she was fully prepared to receive
them, in conformity to which kind summons they came, for the
country is, as it were, covered with fine palaces of the nobility
and pleasant seats of the gentlemen.
The Earl of Orford's house I have mentioned already; the next is
Euston Hall, the seat of the Duke of Grafton. It lies in the open
country towards the side of Norfolk, not far from Thetford, a place
capable of all that is pleasant and delightful in Nature, and
improved by art to every extreme that Nature is able to produce.
From thence I went to Rushbrook, formerly the seat of the noble
family of Jermyns, lately Lord Dover, and now of the house of
Davers. Here Nature, for the time I was there, drooped and veiled
all the beauties of which she once boasted, the family being in
tears and the house shut up, Sir Robert Davers, the head thereof,
and knight of the shire for the county of Suffolk, and who had
married the eldest daughter of the late Lord Dover, being just
dead, and the corpse lying there in its funeral form of ceremony,
not yet buried. Yet all looked lovely in their sorrow, and a
numerous issue promising and grown up intimated that the family of
Davers would still flourish, and that the beauties of Rushbrook,
the mansion of the family, were not formed with so much art in vain
or to die with the present possessor.
After this we saw Brently, the seat of the Earl of Dysert, and the
ancient palace of my Lord Cornwallis, with several others of
exquisite situation, and adorned with the beauties both of art and
Nature, so that I think any traveller from abroad, who would desire
to see how the English gentry live, and what pleasures they enjoy,
should come into Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and take but a light
circuit among the country seats of the gentlemen on this side only,
and they would be soon convinced that not France, no, not Italy
itself, can outdo them in proportion to the climate they lived in.
I had still the county of Cambridge to visit to complete this tour
of the eastern part of England, and of that I come now to speak.
We enter Cambridgeshire out of Suffolk, with all the advantage in
the world; the county beginning upon those pleasant and agreeable
plains called Newmarket Heath, where passing the Devil's Ditch,
which has nothing worth notice but its name, and that but fabulous
too, from the hills called Gogmagog, we see a rich and pleasant
vale westward, covered with corn-fields, gentlemen's seats,
villages, and at a distance, to crown all the rest, that ancient
and truly famous town and university of Cambridge, capital of the
county, and receiving its name from, if not, as some say, giving
name to it; for if it be true that the town takes its name of
Cambridge from its bridge over the river Cam, then certainly the
shire or county, upon the division of England into counties, had
its name from the town, and Cambridgeshire signifies no more or
less than the county of which Cambridge is the capital town.
As my business is not to lay out the geographical situation of
places, I say nothing of the buttings and boundings of this county.
It lies on the edge of the great level, called by the people here
the Fen Country; and great part, if not all, the Isle of Ely lies
in this county and Norfolk. The rest of Cambridgeshire is almost
wholly a corn country, and of that corn five parts in six of all
they sow is barley, which is generally sold to Ware and Royston,
and other great malting towns in Hertfordshire, and is the fund
from whence that vast quantity of malt, called Hertfordshire malt,
is made, which is esteemed the best in England. As Essex, Suffolk,
and Norfolk are taken up in manufactures, and famed for industry,
this county has no manufacture at all; nor are the poor, except the
husbandmen, famed for anything so much as idleness and sloth, to
their scandal be it spoken. What the reason of it is I know not.
It is scarce possible to talk of anything in Cambridgeshire but
Cambridge itself; whether it be that the county has so little worth
speaking of in it, or, that the town has so much, that I leave to
others; however, as I am making modern observations, not writing
history, I shall look into the county, as well as into the
colleges, for what I have to say.
As I said, I first had a view of Cambridge from Gogmagog hills; I
am to add that there appears on the mountain that goes by this
name, an ancient camp or fortification, that lies on the top of the
hill, with a double, or rather treble, rampart and ditch, which
most of our writers say was neither Roman nor Saxon, but British.
I am to add that King James II. caused a spacious stable to be
built in the area of this camp for his running homes, and made old
Mr. Frampton, whom I mentioned above, master or inspector of them.
The stables remain still there, though they are not often made use
of. As we descended westward we saw the Fen country on our right,
almost all covered with water like a sea, the Michaelmas rains
having been very great that year, they had sent down great floods
of water from the upland countries, and those fens being, as may be
very properly said, the sink of no less than thirteen counties -
that is to say, that all the water, or most part of the water, of
thirteen counties falls into them; they are often thus overflowed.
The rivers which thus empty themselves into these fens, and which
thus carry off the water, are the Cam or Grant, the Great Ouse and
Little Ouse, the Nene, the Welland, and the river which runs from
Bury to Milden Hall. The counties which these rivers drain, as
above, are as follows:-
Lincoln, Warwick, Norfolk,
* Cambridge, Oxford, Suffolk,
* Huntingdon, Leicester, Essex,
* Bedford, * Northampton
Buckingham, * Rutland.
Those marked with (*) empty all their waters this way, the rest but
in part.
In a word, all the water of the middle part of England which does
not run into the Thames or the Trent, comes down into these fens.
In these fens are abundance of those admirable pieces of art called
decoys that is to say, places so adapted for the harbour and
shelter of wild fowl, and then furnished with a breed of those they
call decoy ducks, who are taught to allure and entice their kind to
the places they belong to, that it is incredible what quantities of
wild fowl of all sorts, duck, mallard, teal, widgeon, &c., they
take in those decoys every week during the season; it may, indeed,
be guessed at a little by this, that there is a decoy not far from
Ely which pays to the landlord, Sir Thomas Hare, 500 pounds a year
rent, besides the charge of maintaining a great number of servants
for the management; and from which decoy alone, they assured me at
St. Ives (a town on the Ouse, where the fowl they took was always
brought to be sent to London) that they generally sent up three
thousand couple a week.
There are more of these about Peterborough, who send the fowl up
twice a week in waggon-loads at a time, whose waggons before the
late Act of Parliament to regulate carriers I have seen drawn by
ten and twelve horses a-piece, they were laden so heavy.
As these fens appear covered with water, so I observed, too, that
they generally at this latter part of the year appear also covered
with fogs, so that when the downs and higher grounds of the
adjacent country were gilded with the beams of the sun, the Isle of
Ely looked as if wrapped up in blankets, and nothing to be seen but
now and then the lantern or cupola of Ely Minster.
One could hardly see this from the hills and not pity the many
thousands of families that were bound to or confined in those fogs,
and had no other breath to draw than what must be mixed with those
vapours, and that steam which so universally overspreads the
country. But notwithstanding this, the people, especially those
that are used to it, live unconcerned, and as healthy as other
folks, except now and then an ague, which they make light of, and
there are great numbers of very ancient people among them.
I now draw near to Cambridge, to which I fancy I look as if I was
afraid to come, having made so many circumlocutions beforehand; but
I must yet make another digression before I enter the town (for in
my way, and as I came in from Newmarket, about the beginning of
September), I cannot omit, that I came necessarily through
Stourbridge Fair, which was then in its height.
If it is a diversion worthy a book to treat of trifles, such as the
gaiety of Bury Fair, it cannot be very unpleasant, especially to
the trading part of the world, to say something of this fair, which
is not only the greatest in the whole nation, but in the world;
nor, if I may believe those who have seen the mall, is the fair at
Leipzig in Saxony, the mart at Frankfort-on-the-Main, or the fairs
at Nuremberg, or Augsburg, any way to compare to this fair at
Stourbridge.
It is kept in a large corn-field, near Casterton, extending from
the side of the river Cam, towards the road, for about half a mile
square.
If the husbandmen who rent the land, do not get their corn off
before a certain day in August, the fair-keepers may trample it
under foot and spoil it to build their booths, or tents, for all
the fair is kept in tents and booths. On the other hand, to
balance that severity, if the fair-keepers have not done their
business of the fair, and removed and cleared the field by another
certain day in September, the ploughmen may come in again, with
plough and cart, and overthrow all, and trample into the dirt; and
as for the filth, dung, straw, etc. necessarily left by the fair-
keepers, the quantity of which is very great, it is the farmers'
fees, and makes them full amends for the trampling, riding, and
carting upon, and hardening the ground.
It is impossible to describe all the parts and circumstances of
this fair exactly; the shops are placed in rows like streets,
whereof one is called Cheapside; and here, as in several other
streets, are all sorts of trades, who sell by retail, and who come
principally from London with their goods; scarce any trades are
omitted - goldsmiths, toyshops, brasiers, turners, milliners,
haberdashers, hatters, mercers, drapers, pewterers, china-
warehouses, and in a word all trades that can be named in London;
with coffee-houses, taverns, brandy-shops, and eating-houses,
innumerable, and all in tents, and booths, as above.
This great street reaches from the road, which as I said goes from
Cambridge to Newmarket, turning short out of it to the right
towards the river, and holds in a line near half a mile quite down
to the river-side: in another street parallel with the road are
like rows of booths, but larger, and more intermingled with
wholesale dealers; and one side, passing out of this last street to
the left hand, is a formal great square, formed by the largest
booths, built in that form, and which they call the Duddery; whence
the name is derived, and what its signification is, I could never
yet learn, though I made all possible search into it. The area of
this square is about 80 to 100 yards, where the dealers have room
before every booth to take down, and open their packs, and to bring
in waggons to load and unload.
This place is separated, and peculiar to the wholesale dealers in
the woollen manufacture. Here the booths or tents are of a vast
extent, have different apartments, and the quantities of goods they
bring are so great, that the insides of them look like another
Blackwell Hall, being as vast warehouses piled up with goods to the
top. In this Duddery, as I have been informed, there have been
sold one hundred thousand pounds worth of woollen manufactures in
less than a week's time, besides the prodigious trade carried on
here, by wholesale men, from London, and all parts of England, who
transact their business wholly in their pocket-books, and meeting
their chapmen from all parts, make up their accounts, receive money
chiefly in bills, and take orders: These they say exceed by far the
sales of goods actually brought to the fair, and delivered in kind;
it being frequent for the London wholesale men to carry back orders
from their dealers for ten thousand pounds' worth of goods a man,
and some much more. This especially respects those people, who
deal in heavy goods, as wholesale grocers, salters, brasiers, iron-
merchants, wine-merchants, and the like; but does not exclude the
dealers in woollen manufactures, and especially in mercery goods of
all sorts, the dealers in which generally manage their business in
this manner.
Here are clothiers from Halifax, Leeds, Wakefield and Huddersfield
in Yorkshire, and from Rochdale, Bury, etc., in Lancashire, with
vast quantities of Yorkshire cloths, kerseys, pennistons, cottons,
etc., with all sorts of Manchester ware, fustiains, and things made
of cotton wool; of which the quantity is so great, that they told
me there were near a thousand horse-packs of such goods from that
side of the country, and these took up a side and half of the
Duddery at least; also a part of a street of booths were taken up
with upholsterer's ware, such as tickings, sackings, kidderminster
stuffs, blankets, rugs, quilts, etc.
In the Duddery I saw one warehouse, or booth with six apartments in
it, all belonging to a dealer in Norwich stuffs only, and who, they
said, had there above twenty thousand pounds value in those goods,
and no other.
Western goods had their share here also, and several booths were
filled as full with serges, duroys, druggets, shalloons,
cantaloons, Devonshire kerseys, etc., from Exeter, Taunton,
Bristol, and other parts west, and some from London also.
But all this is still outdone at least in show, by two articles,
which are the peculiars of this fair, and do not begin till the
other part of the fair, that is to say for the woollen manufacture
begins to draw to a close. These are the wool and the hops; as for
the hops, there is scarce any price fixed for hops in England, till
they know how they sell at Stourbridge fair; the quantity that
appears in the fair is indeed prodigious, and they, as it were,
possess a large part of the field on which the fair is kept to
themselves; they are brought directly from Chelmsford in Essex,
from Canterbury and Maidstone in Kent, and from Farnham in Surrey,
besides what are brought from London, the growth of those and other
places.
Enquiring why this fair should be thus, of all other places in
England, the centre of that trade; and so great a quantity of so
bulky a commodity be carried thither so far; I was answered by one
thoroughly acquainted with that matter thus: the hops, said he, for
this part of England, grow principally in the two counties of
Surrey and Kent, with an exception only to the town of Chelmsford
in Essex, and there are very few planted anywhere else.
There are indeed in the west of England some quantities growing: as
at Wilton, near Salisbury; at Hereford and Broomsgrove, near Wales,
and the like; but the quantity is inconsiderable, and the places
remote, so that none of them come to London.
As to the north of England, they formerly used but few hops there,
their drink being chiefly pale smooth ale, which required no hops,
and consequently they planted no hops in all that part of England,
north of the Trent; nor did I ever see one acre of hop-ground
planted beyond Trent in my observation; but as for some years past,
they not only brew great quantities of beer in the north, but also
use hops in the brewing their ale much more than they did before;
so they all come south of Trent to buy their hops; and here being
quantities brought, it is great part of their back carriage into
Yorkshire, and Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, and all
these counties; nay, of late, since the Union, even to Scotland
itself; for I must not omit here also to mention, that the river
Grant, or Cam, which runs close by the north-west side of the fair
in its way from Cambridge to Ely, is navigable, and that by this
means, all heavy goods are brought even to the fair-field, by water
carriage from London and other parts; first to the port of Lynn,
and then in barges up the Ouse, from the Ouse into the Cam, and so,
as I say, to the very edge of the fair.
In like manner great quantities of heavy goods, and the hops among
the rest, are sent from the fair to Lynn by water, and shipped
there for the Humber, to Hull, York, etc., and for Newcastle-upon-
Tyne, and by Newcastle, even to Scotland itself. Now as there is
still no planting of hops in the north, though a great consumption,
and the consumption increasing daily, this, says my friend, is one
reason why at Stourbridge fair there is so great a demand for the
hops. He added, that besides this, there were very few hops, if
any worth naming, growing in all the counties even on this side
Trent, which were above forty miles from London; those counties
depending on Stourbridge fair for their supply, so the counties of
Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Northampton, Lincoln,
Leicester, Rutland, and even to Stafford, Warwick, and
Worcestershire, bought most if not all of their hops at Stourbridge
fair.
These are the reasons why so great a quantity of hops are seen at
this fair, as that it is incredible, considering, too, how remote
from this fair the growth of them is as above.
This is likewise a testimony of the prodigious resort of the
trading people of all parts of England to this fair; the quantity
of hops that have been sold at one of these fairs is diversely
reported, and some affirm it to be so great, that I dare not copy
after them; but without doubt it is a surprising account,
especially in a cheap year.
The next article brought thither is wool, and this of several
sorts, but principally fleece wool, out of Lincolnshire, where the
longest staple is found; the sheep of those countries being of the
largest breed.
The buyers of this wool are chiefly indeed the manufacturers of
Norfolk and Suffolk and Essex, and it is a prodigious quantity they
buy.
Here I saw what I have not observed in any other county of England,
namely, a pocket of wool. This seems to be first called so in
mockery, this pocket being so big, that it loads a whole waggon,
and reaches beyond the most extreme parts of it hanging over both
before and behind, and these ordinarily weigh a ton or twenty-five
hundredweight of wool, all in one bag.
The quantity of wool only, which has been sold at this place at one
fair, has been said to amount to fifty or sixty thousand pounds in
value, some say a great deal more.
By these articles a stranger may make some guess at the immense
trade carried on at this place; what prodigious quantities of goods
are bought and sold here, and what a confluence of people are seen
here from all parts of England.
I might go on here to speak of several other sorts of English
manufactures which are brought hither to be sold; as all sorts of
wrought-iron and brass-ware from Birmingham; edged tools, knives,
etc., from Sheffield; glass wares and stockings from Nottingham and
Leicester; and an infinite throng of other things of smaller value
every morning.
To attend this fair, and the prodigious conflux of people which
come to it, there are sometimes no less than fifty hackney coaches
which come from London, and ply night and morning to carry the
people to and from Cambridge; for there the gross of the people
lodge; nay, which is still more strange, there are wherries brought
from London on waggons to ply upon the little river Cam, and to row
people up and down from the town, and from the fair as occasion
presents.
It is not to be wondered at, if the town of Cambridge cannot
receive, or entertain the numbers of people that come to this fair;
not Cambridge only, but all the towns round are full; nay, the very
barns and stables are turned into inns, and made as fit as they can
to lodge the meaner sort of people: as for the people in the fair,
they all universally eat, drink, and sleep in their booths and
tents; and the said booths are so intermingled with taverns,
coffee-houses, drinking-houses, eating-houses, cook-shops, etc.,
and all in tents too; and so many butchers and higglers from all
the neighbouring counties come into the fair every morning with
beef, mutton, fowls, butter, bread, cheese, eggs, and such things,
and go with them from tent to tent, from door to door, that there
is no want of any provisions of any kind, either dressed or
undressed.
In a word, the fair is like a well-fortified city, and there is the
least disorder and confusion I believe, that can be seen anywhere
with so great a concourse of people.
Towards the latter end of the fair, and when the great hurry of
wholesale business begins to be over, the gentry come in from all
parts of the county round; and though they come for their
diversion, yet it is not a little money they lay out, which
generally falls to the share of the retailers, such as toy-shops,
goldsmiths, braziers, ironmongers, turners, milliners, mercers,
etc., and some loose coins they reserve for the puppet shows,
drolls, rope-dancers, and such like, of which there is no want,
though not considerable like the rest. The last day of the fair is
the horse-fair, where the whole is closed with both horse and foot
races, to divert the meaner sort of people only, for nothing
considerable is offered of that kind. Thus ends the whole fair,
and in less than a week more, there is scarce any sign left that
there has been such a thing there, except by the heaps of dung and
straw and other rubbish which is left behind, trod into the earth,
and which is as good as a summer's fallow for dunging the land; and
as I have said above, pays the husbandman well for the use of it.
I should have mentioned that here is a court of justice always
open, and held every day in a shed built on purpose in the fair;
this is for keeping the peace, and deciding controversies in
matters deriving from the business of the fair. The magistrates of
the town of Cambridge are judges in this court, as being in their
jurisdiction, or they holding it by special privilege: here they
determine matters in a summary way, as is practised in those we
call Pye Powder Courts in other places, or as a Court of
Conscience; and they have a final authority without appeal.
I come now to the town and university of Cambridge; I say the town
and university, for though they are blended together in the
situation, and the colleges, halls, and houses for literature are
promiscuously scattered up and down among the other parts, and some
even among the meanest of the other buildings, as Magdalene College
over the bridge is in particular; yet they are all incorporated
together by the name of the university, and are governed apart and
distinct from the town which they are so intermixed with.
As their authority is distinct from the town, so are their
privileges, customs, and government; they choose representatives,
or members of Parliament for themselves, and the town does the like
for themselves, also apart.
The town is governed by a mayor and aldermen; the university by a
chancellor, and vice-chancellor, etc. Though their dwellings are
mixed, and seem a little confused, their authority is not so; in
some cases the vice-chancellor may concern himself in the town, as
in searching houses for the scholars at improper hours, removing
scandalous women, and the like.
But as the colleges are many, and the gentlemen entertained in them
are a very great number, the trade of the town very much depends
upon them, and the tradesmen may justly be said to get their bread
by the colleges; and this is the surest hold the university may be
said to have of the townsmen, and by which they secure the
dependence of the town upon them, and consequently their
submission.
I remember some years ago a brewer, who being very rich and popular
in the town, and one of their magistrates, had in several things so
much opposed the university, and insulted their vice-chancellor, or
other heads of houses, that in short the university having no other
way to exert themselves, and show their resentment, they made a
bye-law or order among themselves, that for the future they would
not trade with him; and that none of the colleges, halls, etc.,
would take any more beer of him; and what followed? The man indeed
braved it out a while, but when he found he could not obtain a
revocation of the order, he was fain to leave off his brewhouse,
and if I remember right, quitted the town.
Thus I say, interest gives them authority; and there are abundance
of reasons why the town should not disoblige the university, as
there are some also on the other hand, why the university should
not differ to any extremity with the town; nor, such is their
prudence, do they let any disputes between them run up to any
extremities if they can avoid it. As for society; to any man who
is a lover of learning, or of learned men, here is the most
agreeable under heaven; nor is there any want of mirth and good
company of other kinds; but it is to the honour of the university
to say, that the governors so well understand their office, and the
governed their duty, that here is very little encouragement given
to those seminaries of crime, the assemblies, which are so much
boasted of in other places.
Again, as dancing, gaming, intriguing are the three principal
articles which recommend those assemblies; and that generally the
time for carrying on affairs of this kind is the night, and
sometimes all night, a time as unseasonable as scandalous; add to
this, that the orders of the university admit no such excesses; I
therefore say, as this is the case, it is to the honour of the
whole body of the university that no encouragement is given to them
here.
As to the antiquity of the university in this town, the originals
and founders of the several colleges, their revenues, laws,
government, and governors, they are so effectually and so largely
treated of by other authors, and are so foreign to the familiar
design of these letters, that I refer my readers to Mr. Camden's
"Britannia" and the author of the "Antiquities of Cambridge," and
other such learned writers, by whom they may be fully informed.
The present Vice-Chancellor is Dr. Snape, formerly Master of Eaton
School near Windsor, and famous for his dispute with, and evident
advantage over, the late Bishop of Bangor in the time of his
government; the dispute between the University and the Master of
Trinity College has been brought to a head so as to employ the pens
of the learned on both sides, but at last prosecuted in a judicial
way so as to deprive Dr. Bentley of all his dignities and offices
in the university; but the doctor flying to the royal protection,
the university is under a writ of mandamus, to show cause why they
do not restore the doctor again, to which it seems they demur, and
that demur has not, that we hear, been argued, at least when these
sheets were sent to the press. What will be the issue time must
show.
From Cambridge the road lies north-west on the edge of the fens to
Huntingdon, where it joins the great north road. On this side it
is all an agreeable corn country as above, adorned with several
seats of gentlemen; but the chief is the noble house, seat, or
mansion of Wimple or Wimple Hall, formerly built at a vast expense
by the late Earl of Radnor, adorned with all the natural beauties
of situation, and to which was added all the most exquisite
contrivances which the best heads could invent to make it
artificially as well as naturally pleasant.
However, the fate of the Radnor family so directing, it was bought
with the whole estate about it by the late Duke of Newcastle, in a
partition of whose immense estate it fell to the Right Honourable
the Lord Harley, son and heir-apparent of the present Earl of
Oxford and Mortimer, in right of the Lady Harriet Cavendish, only
daughter of the said Duke of Newcastle, who is married to his
lordship, and brought him this estate and many other, sufficient to
denominate her the richest heiress in Great Britain.
Here his lordship resides, and has already so recommended himself
to this county as to be by a great majority chosen Knight of the
Shire for the county of Cambridge.
From Cambridge, my design obliging me, and the direct road in part
concurring, I came back through the west part of the county of
Essex, and at Saffron Walden I saw the ruins of the once largest
and most magnificent pile in all this part of England - viz.,
Audley End - built by, and decaying with, the noble Dukes and Earls
of Suffolk.
A little north of this part of the country rises the River Stour,
which for a course of fifty miles or more parts the two counties of
Suffolk and Essex, passing through or near Haveril, Clare,
Cavendish, Halsted, Sudbury, Bowers, Nayland, Stretford, Dedham,
Manningtree, and into the sea at Harwich, assisting by its waters
to make one of the best harbours for shipping that is in Great
Britain - I mean Orwell Haven or Harwich, of which I have spoken
largely already.
As we came on this side we saw at a distance Braintree and Bocking,
two towns, large, rich, and populous, and made so originally by the
bay trade, of which I have spoken at large at Colchester, and which
flourishes still among them.
The manor of Braintree I found descended by purchase to the name of
Olmeus, the son of a London merchant of the same name, making good
what I had observed before, of the great number of such who have
purchased estates in this county.
Near this town is Felsted, a small place, but noted for a free
school of an ancient foundation, for many years under the
mastership of the late Rev. Mr. Lydiat, and brought by him to the
meridian of its reputation. It is now supplied, and that very
worthily, by the Rev. Mr. Hutchins.
Near to this is the Priory of Lees, a delicious seat of the late
Dukes of Manchester, but sold by the present Duke to the Duchess
Dowager of Bucks, his Grace the Duke of Manchester removing to his
yet finer seat of Kimbolton in Northamptonshire, the ancient
mansion of the family. From hence keeping the London Road I came
to Chelmsford, mentioned before, and Ingerstone, five miles west,
which I mention again, because in the parish church of this town
are to be seen the ancient monuments of the noble family of Petre,
whose seat and large estate lie in the neighbourhood, and whose
whole family, by a constant series of beneficent actions to the
poor, and bounty upon all charitable occasions, have gained an
affectionate esteem through all that part of the country such as no
prejudice of religion could wear out, or perhaps ever may; and I
must confess, I think, need not, for good and great actions command
our respect, let the opinions of the persons be otherwise what they
will.
From hence we crossed the country to the great forest, called
Epping Forest, reaching almost to London. The country on that side
of Essex is called the Roodings, I suppose, because there are no
less than ten towns almost together, called by the name of Roding,
and is famous for good land, good malt, and dirty roads; the latter
indeed in the winter are scarce passable for horse or man. In the
midst of this we see Chipping Onger, Hatfield Broad Oak, Epping,
and many forest towns, famed as I have said for husbandry and good
malt, but of no other note. On the south side of the county is
Waltham Abbey; the ruins of the abbey remain, and though antiquity
is not my proper business, I could not but observe that King
Harold, slain in the great battle in Sussex against William the
Conqueror, lies buried here; his body being begged by his mother,
the Conqueror allowed it to be carried hither; but no monument was,
as I can find, built for him, only a flat gravestone, on which was
engraven HAROLD INFELIX.
From hence I came over the forest again - that is to say, over the
lower or western part of it, where it is spangled with fine
villages, and these villages filled with fine seats, most of them
built by the citizens of London, as I observed before, but the
lustre of them seems to be entirely swallowed up in the magnificent
palace of the Lord Castlemain, whose father, Sir Josiah Child, as
it were, prepared it in his life for the design of his son, though
altogether unforeseen, by adding to the advantage of its situation
innumerable rows of trees, planted in curious order for avenues and
vistas to the house, all leading up to the place where the old
house stood, as to a centre.
In the place adjoining, his lordship, while he was yet Sir Richard
Child only, and some years before he began the foundation of his
new house, laid out the most delicious, as well as most spacious,
pieces of ground for gardens that is to be seen in all this part of
England. The greenhouse is an excellent building, fit to entertain
a prince; it is furnished with stoves and artificial places for
heat from an apartment in which is a bagnio and other conveniences,
which render it both useful and pleasant. And these gardens have
been so the just admiration of the world, that it has been the
general diversion of the citizens to go out to see them, till the
crowds grew too great, and his lordship was obliged to restrain his
servants from showing them, except on one or two days in a week
only.
The house is built since these gardens have been finished. The
building is all of Portland stone in the front, which makes it look
extremely glorious and magnificent at a distance, it being the
particular property of that stone (except in the streets of London,
where it is tainted and tinged with the smoke of the city) to grow
whiter and whiter the longer it stands in the open air.
As the front of the house opens to a long row of trees, reaching to
the great road at Leightonstone, so the back face, or front (if
that be proper), respects the gardens, and, with an easy descent,
lands you upon the terrace, from whence is a most beautiful
prospect to the river, which is all formed into canals and openings
to answer the views from above and beyond the river; the walks and
wildernesses go on to such a distance, and in such a manner up the
hill, as they before went down, that the sight is lost in the woods
adjoining, and it looks all like one planted garden as far as the
eye can see.
I shall cover as much as possible the melancholy part of a story
which touches too sensibly many, if not most, of the great and
flourishing families in England. Pity and matter of grief is it to
think that families, by estate able to appear in such a glorious
posture as this, should ever be vulnerable by so mean a disaster as
that of stock-jobbing. But the general infatuation of the day is a
plea for it, so that men are not now blamed on that account. South
Sea was a general possession, and if my Lord Castlemain was wounded
by that arrow shot in the dark it was a misfortune. But it is so
much a happiness that it was not a mortal wound, as it was to some
men who once seemed as much out of the reach of it. And that blow,
be it what it will, is not remembered for joy of the escape, for we
see this noble family, by prudence and management, rise out of all
that cloud, if it may be allowed such a name, and shining in the
same full lustre as before.
This cannot be said of some other families in this county, whose
fine parks and new-built palaces are fallen under forfeitures and
alienations by the misfortunes of the times and by the ruin of
their masters' fortunes in that South Sea deluge.
But I desire to throw a veil over these things as they come in my
way; it is enough that we write upon them, as was written upon King
Harold's tomb at Waltham Abbey, INFELIX, and let all the rest sleep
among things that are the fittest to be forgotten.
From my Lord Castlemain's, house and the rest of the fine dwellings
on that side of the forest, for there are several very good houses
at Wanstead, only that they seem all swallowed up in the lustre of
his lordship's palace, I say, from thence, I went south, towards
the great road over that part of the forest called the Flats, where
we see a very beautiful but retired and rural seat of Mr.
Lethulier's, eldest son of the late Sir John Lethulier, of Lusum,
in Kent, of whose family I shall speak when I come on that side.
By this turn I came necessarily on to Stratford, where I set out.
And thus having finished my first circuit, I conclude my first
letter, and am,
Sir, your most humble and obedient servant.
APPENDIX.
Whoever travels, as I do, over England, and writes the account of
his observations, will, as I noted before, always leave something,
altering or undertaking by such a growing improving nation as this,
or something to discover in a nation where so much is hid,
sufficient to employ the pens of those that come after him, or to
add by way of appendix to what he has already observed.
This is my case with respect to the particulars which follow: (1)
Since these sheets were in the press, a noble palace of Mr.
Walpole's, at present First Commissioner of the Treasury, Privy-
counsellor, etc., to King George, is, as it were, risen out of the
ruins of the ancient seat of the family of Walpole, at Houghton,
about eight miles distant from Lynn, and on the north coast of
Norfolk, near the sea.
As the house is not yet finished, and when I passed by it was but
newly designed, it cannot be expected that I should be able to give
a particular description of what it will be. I can do little more
than mention that it appears already to be exceedingly magnificent,
and suitable to the genius of the great founder.
But a friend of mine, who lives in that county, has sent me the
following lines, which, as he says, are to be placed upon the
building, whether on the frieze of the cornice, or over the
portico, or on what part of the building, of that I am not as yet
certain. The inscription is as follows, viz.:-
"H. M. F.
"Fundamen ut essem Domus
In Agro Natali Extruendae,
Robertus ille Walpole
Quem nulla nesciet Posteritas:
Faxit Dues.
"Postquam Maturus Annis Dominus.
Diu Laetatus fuerit absoluta
Incolumem tueantur Incolames.
Ad Summam omnium Diem
Et nati natorum et qui nascentur ab illis.
Hic me Posuit."
A second thing proper to be added here, by way of appendix, relates
to what I have mentioned of the Port of London, being bounded by
the Naze on the Essex shore, and the North Foreland on the Kentish
shore, which some people, guided by the present usage of the Custom
House, may pretend is not so, to answer such objectors. The true
state of that case stands thus:
"(1) The clause taken from the Act of Parliament establishing the
extent of the Port of London, and published in some of the books of
rates, is this:
"'To prevent all future differences and disputes touching the
extent and limits of the Port of London, the said port is declared
to extend, and be accounted from the promontory or point called the
North Foreland in the Isle of Thanet, and from thence northward in
a right line to the point called the Naze, beyond the Gunfleet upon
the coast of Essex, and so continued westward throughout the river
Thames, and the several channels, streams, and rivers falling into
it, to London Bridge, saving the usual and known rights, liberties,
and privileges of the ports of Sandwich and Ipswich, and either of
them, and the known members thereof, and of the customers,
comptrollers, searchers, and their deputies, of and within the said
ports of Sandwich and Ipswich and the several creeks, harbours, and
havens to them, or either of them, respectively belonging, within
the counties of Kent and Essex.'
"II. Notwithstanding what is above written, the Port of London, as
in use since the said order, is understood to reach no farther than
Gravesend in Kent and Tilbury Point in Essex, and the ports of
Rochester, Milton, and Faversham belong to the port of Sandwich.
"In like manner the ports of Harwich, Colchester, Wivenhoe, Malden,
Leigh, etc., are said to be members of the port of Ipswich."
This observation may suffice for what is needful to be said upon
the same subject when I may come to speak of the port of Sandwich
and its members and their privileges with respect to Rochester,
Milton, Faversham, etc., in my circuit through the county of Kent.
End of the Project Gutenberg eText Tour Through the Eastern
Counties of England, 1722
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