At the end of this book there are a couple of letters from a volume of
the "Travels in England" which were not by Defoe, although resembling
Defoe's work so much in form and title, and so near to it in date of
publication, that a volume of one book is often found taking the place of
a volume of the other. A purchaser of Defoe's "Travels in England" has
therefore to take care that he is not buying one of the mixed sets. Each
of the two works describes England at the end of the first quarter of the
eighteenth century. Our added descriptions of Bath, and of the journey
by Chester to Holyhead, were published in 1722; Defoe's "Journey from
London to the Land's End" was published in 1724, and both writers help us
to compare the past with the present by their accounts of England as it
was in the days of George the First, more than a hundred and sixty years
ago. The days certainly are gone when, after a good haul of pilchards,
seventeen can be bought for a halfpenny, and two gentlemen and their
servant can have them broiled at a tavern and dine on them for three
farthings, dressing and all. In another of his journeys Defoe gives a
seaside tavern bill, in which the charges were ridiculously small for
everything except for bread. It was war time, and the bread was the most
costly item in the bill.
In the earlier part of this account of the "Journey from London to the
Land's End," there is interest in the fresh memories of the rebuilding
and planting at Hampton Court by William III. and Queen Mary. The
passing away, and in opinion of that day the surpassing, of Wolsey's
palace there were none then to regret.
A more characteristic feature in this letter will be found in the details
of a project which Defoe says he had himself advocated before the Lord-
Treasurer Godolphin, for the settlement of poor refugees from the
Palatinate upon land in the New Forest. Our friendly relations with the
Palatinate had begun with the marriage of James the First's eldest
daughter to the Elector Palatine, who brought on himself much trouble by
accepting the crown of Bohemia from the subjects of the Emperor Ferdinand
the Second. As a Protestant Prince allied by marriage to England, he
drew from England sympathies and ineffectual assistance. Many years
afterwards, during the war with France in Queen Anne's time, the allies
were unprosperous in 1707, and Marshal Villars was victorious upon the
Rhine. The pressure of public feeling on behalf of refugees from the
Palatinate did not last long enough for any action to be taken. But if
it had seemed well to the Government to accept the project advocated by
Defoe, we should have had a clearance of what is now the most beautiful
part of the New Forest, near Lyndhurst; and in place of the little area
that still preserves all the best features of forest land, we should have
had a town of Englishmen descended from the latest of the German
settlements upon our soil. Upon the political economy of Defoe's
project, and the accuracy of his calculations, and the more or less
resemblance of his scheme to the system of free grants of land in
unsettled regions beyond the sea, each reader will speculate in his own
way.
There are interesting notes on the extent of the sheep farming upon the
Downs crossed in this journey. There is high praise of the ladies of
Dorsetshire. There are some pleasant notes upon dialect, including the
story, often quoted, of the schoolboy whom Defoe saw and heard reading
his Bible in class, and while following every word and line with his eye,
translating it as he went into his own way of speech. Thus he turned the
third verse of the fifth chapter of Solomon's Song, "I have put off my
coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile
them?" into "Chav a doffed my cooat; how shall I don't? Chav a washed my
veet; how shall I moil 'em?" This is a good example of intelligent
reading; for the boy took in the sense of the printed lines, and then
made it his own by giving homely utterance to what he understood.
Defoe tells in this letter several tales of the shorefolk about the Great
Storm of November, 1703, recollection of which Addison used effectively
in the following year in his poem on the Battle of Blenheim. There was
the sweeping away of the first Eddystone Lighthouse, with the builder,
confident in its strength, who had desired to be in it some night when
the wind blew with unusual fury. There was the story also of the man and
two boys, in a ship laden with tin, blown out of Helford Haven, and of
their hairbreadth escape by counsel of one of the boys who ran the ship
through rocks into a narrow creek that he knew in the Isle of Wight. The
form of the coast has been changed so much since 1703 by the beat of many
storms, that it may be now impossible to know that little cove as the boy
knew it. It must have been at the back of the island. Were the storm
waves tossing then in Steephill Cove or Luccombe Chine? Does there
survive anywhere a tradition of that perilous landing? Probably not.
Wreck follows upon wreck, and memory of many tales of death and peril on
the rock-bound coast lie between us and the boy who took the helm when he
spied the well-known creek as the great storm was sweeping the ship on to
destruction. From the next year after that famous storm, Defoe gives a
memory of disaster seen by himself at Plymouth in the wreck of a little
fleet from Barbadoes. In another part of this letter he tells what he
had seen of a fight at sea between three French men-of-war and two
English with a convoy of two or three trading vessels.
There will be found also in this letter a good story of a Cornish dog
taken from Carew's "Survey of Cornwall," which may pair with that of the
London dog who lately took a wounded fellow dog to hospital.
The writer of this letter speaks of the civil war times as a friend of
monarchy, but when he tells of the landing of William III. at Torbay, he
suggests that the people had good reason for rejoicing, and throughout
the journey he takes note of a great inequality he finds in distribution
of the right of returning members to Parliament. It is evident that he
could propound a project for a Reform Bill, though he is careful so to
describe England as to avoid giving offence to Englishmen of any party.
The possibility of some change for the better here and there presents
itself; Defoe glances and passes on. His theme is England and the
English; he shows us, clearly and very simply, what he has seen of the
social life and manners of the people, of the features of the land
itself, and their relation to its industries; traces of the past, and
prospects of the future; shepherds, fishermen, merchants; catching of
salmon peel in mill-weirs, and catching of husbands at provincial
assemblies; with whatever else he found worth friendly observation.