The Venturous Weymouth Men Went Off, Even Before It Was Light, With
Two Boats To See Who She Was, And
What condition she was in; and
found she was come to an anchor, and had struck her topmasts; but
that
She had been in bad weather, had lost an anchor and cable
before, and had but one cable to trust to, which did hold her, but
was weak; and as the storm continued to blow, they expected every
hour to go on shore and split to pieces.
Upon this the Weymouth boats came back with such diligence that in
less than three hours they were on board them again with an anchor
and cable, which they immediately bent in its place, and let go to
assist the other, and thereby secured the ship. It is true that
they took a good price of the master for the help they gave him;
for they made him draw a bill on his owners at London for 12 pounds
for the use of the anchor, cable, and boat, besides some gratuities
to the men. But they saved the ship and cargo by it, and in three
or four days the weather was calm, and he proceeded on his voyage,
returning the anchor and cable again; so that, upon the whole, it
was not so extravagant as at first I thought it to be.
The Isle of Portland, on which the castle I mentioned stands, lies
right against this Port of Weymouth. Hence it is that our best and
whitest freestone comes, with which the Cathedral of St. Paul's,
the Monument, and all the public edifices in the City of London are
chiefly built; and it is wonderful, and well worth the observation
of a traveller, to see the quarries in the rocks from whence they
are cut out, what stones, and of what prodigious a size are cut out
there.
The island is indeed little more than one continued rock of
freestone, and the height of the land is such that from this island
they see in clear weather above half over the Channel to France,
though the Channel here is very broad. The sea off of this island,
and especially to the west of it, is counted the most dangerous
part of the British Channel. Due south, there is almost a
continued disturbance in the waters, by reason of what they call
two tides meeting, which I take to be no more than the sets of the
currents from the French coast and from the English shore meeting:
this they call Portland Race; and several ships, not aware of these
currents, have been embayed to the west of Portland, and been
driven on shore on the beach (of which I shall speak presently),
and there lost.
To prevent this danger, and guide the mariner in these distresses,
they have within these few months set up two lighthouses on the two
points of that island; and they had not been many months set up,
with the directions given to the public for their bearings, but we
found three outward-bound East India ships which were in distress
in the night, in a hard extreme gale of wind, were so directed by
those lights that they avoided going on shore by it, which, if the
lights had not been there, would inevitably happened to their
destruction.
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