The Narrow Entrance Is Not Much Above Half A Mile, When It Opens
And Makes A Basin Or Harbour Able To Receive 500 Sail Of Ships Of
Any Size, And Where They May Ride With The Greatest Safety, Even As
In A Mill-Pond Or Wet Dock.
I had the curiosity here, with the
assistance of a merchant of the town, to go out to the
Mouth of the
haven in a boat to see the entrance, and castle or fort that
commands it; and coming back with the tide of flood, I observed
some small fish to skip and play upon the surface of the water,
upon which I asked my friend what fish they were. Immediately one
of the rowers or seamen starts up in the boat, and, throwing his
arms abroad as if he had been bewitched, cries out as loud as he
could bawl, "A school! a school!" The word was taken to the shore
as hastily as it would have been on land if he had cried "Fire!"
And by that time we reached the quays the town was all in a kind of
an uproar.
The matter was that a great shoal--or, as they call it, a "school"-
-of pilchards came swimming with the tide of flood, directly out of
the sea into the harbour. My friend whose boat we were in told me
this was a surprise which he would have been very glad of if he
could but have had a day or two's warning, for he might have taken
200 tons of them. And the like was the case of other merchants in
town; for, in short, nobody was ready for them, except a small
fishing-boat or two--one of which went out into the middle of the
harbour, and at two or three hauls took about forty thousand of
them. We sent our servant to the quay to buy some, who for a
halfpenny brought us seventeen, and, if he would have taken them,
might have had as many more for the same money. With these we went
to dinner; the cook at the inn broiled them for us, which is their
way of dressing them, with pepper and salt, which cost us about a
farthing; so that two of us and a servant dined--and at a tavern,
too--for three farthings, dressing and all. And this is the reason
of telling the tale. What drink--wine or beer--we had I do not
remember; but, whatever it was, that we paid for by itself. But
for our food we really dined for three farthings, and very well,
too. Our friend treated us the next day with a dish of large
lobsters, and I being curious to know the value of such things, and
having freedom enough with him to inquire, I found that for 6d. or
8d. they bought as good lobsters there as would have cost in London
3s. to 3s. 6d. each.
In observing the coming in of those pilchards, as above, we found
that out at sea, in the offing, beyond the mouth of the harbour,
there was a whole army of porpoises, which, as they told us,
pursued the pilchards, and, it is probable, drove them into the
harbour, as above. The school, it seems, drove up the river a
great way, even as high as Totnes Bridge, as we heard afterwards;
so that the country people who had boats and nets catched as many
as they knew what to do with, and perhaps lived upon pilchards for
several days. But as to the merchants and trade, their coming was
so sudden that it was no advantage to them.
Round the west side of this basin or harbour, in a kind of a
semicircle, lies the town of Dartmouth, a very large and populous
town, though but meanly built, and standing on the side of a steep
hill; yet the quay is large, and the street before it spacious.
Here are some very flourishing merchants, who trade very
prosperously, and to the most considerable trading ports of Spain,
Portugal, Italy, and the Plantations; but especially they are great
traders to Newfoundland, and from thence to Spain and Italy, with
fish; and they drive a good trade also in their own fishery of
pilchards, which is hereabouts carried on with the greatest number
of vessels of any port in the west, except Falmouth.
A little to the southward of this town, and to the east of the
port, is Tor Bay, of which I know nothing proper to my observation,
more than that it is a very good road for ships, though sometimes
(especially with a southerly or south-east wind) ships have been
obliged to quit the bay and put out to sea, or run into Dartmouth
for shelter.
I suppose I need not mention that they had from the hilly part of
this town, and especially from the hills opposite to it, the noble
prospect, and at that time particularly delightful, of the Prince
of Orange's fleet when he came to that coast, and as they entered
into Tor Bay to land--the Prince and his army being in a fleet of
about 600 sail of transport ships, besides 50 sail of men-of-war of
the line, all which, with a fair wind and fine weather, came to an
anchor there at once.
This town, as most of the towns of Devonshire are, is full of
Dissenters, and a very large meeting-house they have here. How
they act here with respect to the great dispute about the doctrine
of the Trinity, which has caused such a breach among those people
at Exeter and other parts of the county, I cannot give any account
of. This town sends two members to Parliament.
From hence we went to Plympton, a poor and thinly-inhabited town,
though blessed with the like privilege of sending members to the
Parliament, of which I have little more to say but that from thence
the road lies to Plymouth, distance about six miles.
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