WHOEVER travels, as I do, over England, and writes the account of his
observations, will, as I noted before, always leave something, altering
or undertaking by such a growing improving nation as this, or something
to discover in a nation where so much is hid, sufficient to employ the
pens of those that come after him, or to add by way of appendix to what
he has already observed.
This is my case with respect to the particulars which follow: (1) Since
these sheets were in the press, a noble palace of Mr. Walpole’s, at
present First Commissioner of the Treasury, Privy-counsellor, etc., to
King George, is, as it were, risen out of the ruins of the ancient seat
of the family of Walpole, at Houghton, about eight miles distant from
Lynn, and on the north coast of Norfolk, near the sea.
As the house is not yet finished, and when I passed by it was but newly
designed, it cannot be expected that I should be able to give a
particular description of what it will be. I can do little more than
mention that it appears already to be exceedingly magnificent, and
suitable to the genius of the great founder.
But a friend of mine, who lives in that county, has sent me the following
lines, which, as he says, are to be placed upon the building, whether on
the frieze of the cornice, or over the portico, or on what part of the
building, of that I am not as yet certain. The inscription is as
follows, viz.:—
“H. M. P.
“_Fundamen ut essem Domûs_
_In Agro Natali Extruendæ_,
Robertus ille Walpole
Quem nulla nesciet Posteritas:
_Faxit Dues_.
“_Postquam Maturus Annis Dominus_.
_Diu Lætatus fuerit absolutâ_
_Incolumem tueantur Incolames_.
_Ad Summam omnium Diem_
_Et nati natorum et qui nascentur ab illis_.
_Hic me Posuit_.”
A second thing proper to be added here, by way of appendix, relates to
what I have mentioned of the Port of London, being bounded by the Naze on
the Essex shore, and the North Foreland on the Kentish shore, which some
people, guided by the present usage of the Custom House, may pretend is
not so, to answer such objectors. The true state of that case stands
thus:
“(1) The clause taken from the Act of Parliament establishing the extent
of the Port of London, and published in some of the books of rates, is
this:
“‘To prevent all future differences and disputes touching the extent and
limits of the Port of London, the said port is declared to extend, and be
accounted from the promontory or point called the North Foreland in the
Isle of Thanet, and from thence northward in a right line to the point
called the Naze, beyond the Gunfleet upon the coast of Essex, and so
continued westward throughout the river Thames, and the several channels,
streams, and rivers falling into it, to London Bridge, saving the usual
and known rights, liberties, and privileges of the ports of Sandwich and
Ipswich, and either of them, and the known members thereof, and of the
customers, comptrollers, searchers, and their deputies, of and within the
said ports of Sandwich and Ipswich and the several creeks, harbours, and
havens to them, or either of them, respectively belonging, within the
counties of Kent and Essex.’
“II. Notwithstanding what is above written, the Port of London, as in
use since the said order, is understood to reach no farther than
Gravesend in Kent and Tilbury Point in Essex, and the ports of Rochester,
Milton, and Faversham belong to the port of Sandwich.
“In like manner the ports of Harwich, Colchester, Wivenhoe, Malden,
Leigh, etc., are said to be members of the port of Ipswich.”
This observation may suffice for what is needful to be said upon the same
subject when I may come to speak of the port of Sandwich and its members
and their privileges with respect to Rochester, Milton, Faversham, etc.,
in my circuit through the county of Kent.