However, The Town Of Plymouth Is, And Will Always Be, A Very
Considerable Town, While That Excellent Harbour Makes It
Such a
general port for the receiving all the fleets of merchants' ships
from the southward (as from Spain, Italy,
The West Indies, &c.),
who generally make it the first port to put in at for refreshment,
or safety from either weather or enemies.
The town is populous and wealthy, having, as above, several
considerable merchants and abundance of wealthy shopkeepers, whose
trade depends upon supplying the sea-faring people that upon so
many occasions put into that port. As for gentlemen--I mean, those
that are such by family and birth and way of living--it cannot be
expected to find many such in a town merely depending on trade,
shipping, and sea-faring business; yet I found here some men of
value (persons of liberal education, general knowledge, and
excellent behaviour), whose society obliges me to say that a
gentleman might find very agreeable company in Plymouth.
From Plymouth we pass the Tamar over a ferry to Saltash--a little,
poor, shattered town, the first we set foot on in the county of
Cornwall. The Tamar here is very wide, and the ferry-boats bad; so
that I thought myself well escaped when I got safe on shore in
Cornwall.
Saltash seems to be the ruins of a larger place; and we saw many
houses, as it were, falling down, and I doubt not but the mice and
rats have abandoned many more, as they say they will when they are
likely to fall.
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