Plymouth Is Indeed A Town Of Consideration, And Of Great Importance
To The Public.
The situation of it between two very large inlets
of the sea, and in the bottom of a large bay, which is very
remarkable for the advantage of navigation.
The Sound or Bay is
compassed on every side with hills, and the shore generally steep
and rocky, though the anchorage is good, and it is pretty safe
riding. In the entrance to this bay lies a large and most
dangerous rock, which at high-water is covered, but at low-tide
lies bare, where many a good ship has been lost, even in the view
of safety, and many a ship's crew drowned in the night, before help
could be had for them.
Upon this rock (which was called the Eddystone, from its situation)
the famous Mr. Winstanley undertook to build a lighthouse for the
direction of sailors, and with great art and expedition finished
it; which work--considering its height, the magnitude of its
building, and the little hold there was by which it was possible to
fasten it to the rock--stood to admiration, and bore out many a
bitter storm.
Mr. Winstanley often visited, and frequently strengthened, the
building by new works, and was so confident of its firmness and
stability that he usually said he only desired to be in it when a
storm should happen; for many people had told him it would
certainly fall if it came to blow a little harder than ordinary.
But he happened at last to be in it once too often--namely, when
that dreadful tempest blew, November 27, 1703. This tempest began
on the Wednesday before, and blew with such violence, and shook the
lighthouse so much, that, as they told me there, Mr. Winstanley
would fain have been on shore, and made signals for help; but no
boats durst go off to him; and, to finish the tragedy, on the
Friday, November 26, when the tempest was so redoubled that it
became a terror to the whole nation, the first sight there seaward
that the people of Plymouth were presented with in the morning
after the storm was the bare Eddystone, the lighthouse being gone;
in which Mr. Winstanley and all that were with him perished, and
were never seen or heard of since. But that which was a worse loss
still was that, a few days after, a merchant's ship called the
Winchelsea, homeward bound from Virginia, not knowing the Eddystone
lighthouse was down, for want of the light that should have been
seen, run foul of the rock itself, and was lost with all her lading
and most of her men. But there is now another light-house built on
the same rock.
What other disasters happened at the same time in the Sound and in
the roads about Plymouth is not my business; they are also
published in other books, to which I refer.
One thing which I was a witness to on a former journey to this
place, I cannot omit. It was the next year after that great storm,
and but a little sooner in the year, being in August; I was at
Plymouth, and walking on the Hoo (which is a plain on the edge of
the sea, looking to the road), I observed the evening so serene, so
calm, so bright, and the sea so smooth, that a finer sight, I
think, I never saw. There was very little wind, but what was,
seemed to be westerly; and about an hour after, it blew a little
breeze at south-west, with which wind there came into the Sound
that night and the next morning a fleet of fourteen sail of ships
from Barbadoes, richly laden for London. Having been long at sea,
most of the captains and passengers came on shore to refresh
themselves, as is usual after such tedious voyages; and the ships
rode all in the Sound on that side next to Catwater. As is
customary upon safe arriving to their native country, there was a
general joy and rejoicing both on board and on shore.
The next day the wind began to freshen, especially in the
afternoon, and the sea to be disturbed, and very hard it blew at
night; but all was well for that time. But the night after, it
blew a dreadful storm (not much inferior, for the time it lasted,
to the storm mentioned above which blew down the lighthouse on the
Eddystone). About mid-night the noise, indeed, was very dreadful,
what with the rearing of the sea and of the wind, intermixed with
the firing of guns for help from the ships, the cries of the seamen
and people on shore, and (which was worse) the cries of those which
were driven on shore by the tempest and dashed in pieces. In a
word, all the fleet except three, or thereabouts, were dashed to
pieces against the rocks and sunk in the sea, most of the men being
drowned. Those three who were saved, received so much damage that
their lading was almost all spoiled. One ship in the dark of the
night, the men not knowing where they were, run into Catwater, and
run on shore there; by which she was, however, saved from
shipwreck, and the lives of her crew were saved also.
This was a melancholy morning indeed. Nothing was to be seen but
wrecks of the ships and a foaming, furious sea in that very place
where they rode all in joy and triumph but the evening before. The
captains, passengers, and officers who were, as I have said, gone
on shore, between the joy of saving their lives, and the affliction
of having lost their ships, their cargoes, and their friends, were
objects indeed worth our compassion and observation. And there was
a great variety of the passions to be observed in them--now
lamenting their losses, their giving thanks for their deliverance.
Many of the passengers had lost their all, and were, as they
expressed themselves, "utterly undone." They were, I say, now
lamenting their losses with violent excesses of grief; then giving
thanks for their lives, and that they should be brought on shore,
as it were, on purpose to be saved from death; then again in tears
for such as were drowned.
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