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 a year to £60,

very few under £20 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 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, 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 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. _The Explanation in Modern

English_.

IChe EDWARD Koning, I Edward the king,

Have given of my Forrest the Have made ranger of my forest of

kepen of the Hundred of _Chelmer_ Chelmsford hundred and Deering

and _Dancing_. hundred,

To RANDOLPH PEPERKING, Ralph Peverell, for him and his

And to his kindling. heirs for ever;

With Heorte and Hind, Doe and With both the red and fallow

Bocke, deer.

Hare and Fox, Cat and Brock, Hare and fox, otter and badger;

Wild Fowle with his Flock; Wild fowl of all sorts,

Patrich, Pheasant Hen, and Partridges and pheasants,

Pheasant Cock,

With green and wild Stub and Timber and underwood roots and

Stock, tops;

To kepen and to yemen with all With power to preserve the

her might. forest,

Both by Day, and eke by Night; And watch it against

deer-stealers and others:

And Hounds for to hold, With a right to keep hounds of

Good and Swift and Bold: all sorts,

Four Greyhound and six Raches, Four greyhounds and six terriers,

For Hare and Fox, and Wild Harriers and foxhounds, and other

Cattes, hounds.

And therefore Iche made him my And to this end I have registered

Book. this my grant in the crown rolls

or books;

Witness the Bishop of _Wolston_. To which the bishop has set his

And Booke ylrede many on, hand as a witness for any one to

read.

And _Sweyne_ of _Essex_, our Also signed by the king’s brother

Brother, (or, as some think, the

Chancellor Sweyn, then Earl or

Count of Essex).

And taken him many other He might call such other

witnesses to sign as he thought

fit.

And our steward _Howlein_, Also the king’s high steward was

That _By sought_ me for him. 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:—