by Daniel Defoe
biggest towns in that county sent no members to Parliament, and
that the smallest did--that is to say that Sherborne, Blandford,
Wimborneminster, Stourminster, and several other towns choose no
members; whereas Weymouth, Melcombe, and Bridport were all burgess
towns. But now we come to Devonshire we find almost all the great
towns, and some smaller, choosing members also. It is true there
are some large populous towns that do not choose, but then there
are so many that do, that the county seems to have no injustice,
for they send up six-and-twenty members.
However, as I say above, there are several great towns which do not
choose Parliament men, of which Bideford is one, Crediton or Kirton
another, Ilfracombe a third; but, those excepted, the principal
towns in the county do all choose members of Parliament.
Honiton is one of those, and may pass not only for a pleasant good
town, as before, but stands in the best and pleasantest part of the
whole county, and I cannot but recommend it to any gentlemen that
travel this road, that if they please to observe the prospect for
half a mile till their coming down the hill and to the entrance
into Honiton, the view of the country is the most beautiful
landscape in the world--a mere picture--and I do not remember the
like in any one place in England. It is observable that the market
of this town was kept originally on the Sunday, till it was changed
by the direction of King John.
From Honiton the country is exceeding pleasant still, and on the
road they have a beautiful prospect almost all the way to Exeter
(which is twelve miles). On the left-hand of this road lies that
part of the county which they call the South Hams, and which is
famous for the best cider in that part of England; also the town of
St.-Mary-Ottery, commonly called St. Mary Autree. They tell us the
name is derived from the River Ottery, and that from the multitude
of otters found always in that river, which however, to me, seems
fabulous. Nor does there appear to be any such great number of
otters in that water, or in the county about, more than is usual in
other counties or in other parts of the county about them. They
tell us they send twenty thousand hogsheads of cider hence every
year to London, and (which is still worse) that it is most of it
bought there by the merchants to mix with their wines--which, if
true, is not much to the reputation of the London vintners. But
that by-the-bye.
From hence we came to Exeter, a city famous for two things which we
seldom find unite in the same town--viz., that it is full of gentry
and good company, and yet full of trade and manufactures also. The
serge market held here every week is very well worth a stranger's
seeing, and next to the Brigg Market at Leeds, in Yorkshire, is the
greatest in England. The people assured me that at this market is
generally sold from sixty to seventy to eighty, and sometimes a
hundred, thousand pounds value in serges in a week. I think it is
kept on Mondays.
They have the River Esk here, a very considerable river, and
principal in the whole county; and within three miles, or
thereabouts, it receives ships of any ordinary burthen, the port
there being called Topsham. But now by the application, and at the
expense, of the citizens the channel of the river is so widened,
deepened, and cleansed from the shoal, which would otherwise
interrupt the navigation, that the ships come now quite up to the
city, and there with ease both deliver and take in their lading.
This city drives a very great correspondence with Holland, as also
directly to Portugal, Spain, and Italy--shipping off vast
quantities of their woollen manufactures especially to Holland, the
Dutch giving very large commissions here for the buying of serges
perpetuans, and such goods; which are made not only in and about
Exeter, but at Crediton, Honiton, Culliton, St.-Mary-Ottery, Newton
Bushel, Ashburton, and especially at Tiverton, Cullompton, Bampton,
and all the north-east part of the county--which part of the county
is, as it may be said, fully employed, the people made rich, and
the poor that are properly so called well subsisted and employed by
it.
Exeter is a large, rich, beautiful, populous, and was once a very
strong city; but as to the last, as the castle, the walls, and all
the old works are demolished, so, were they standing, the way of
managing sieges and attacks of towns is such now, and so altered
from what it was in those days, that Exeter in the utmost strength
it could ever boast would not now hold out five days open trenches-
-nay, would hardly put an army to the trouble of opening trenches
against it at all. This city was famous in the late civil
unnatural war for its loyalty to the king, and for being a
sanctuary to the queen, where her Majesty resided for some time,
and here she was delivered of a daughter, being the Princess
Henrietta Maria, of whom our histories give a particular account,
so I need say no more of it here.
The cathedral church of this city is an ancient beauty, or, as it
may be said, it is beautiful for its antiquity; but it has been so
fully and often described that it would look like a mere copying
from others to mention it. There is a good library kept in it, in
which are some manuscripts, and particularly an old missal or mass-
book, the leaves of vellum, and famous for its most exquisite
writing.
This county, and this part of it in particular, has been famous for
the birth of several eminent men as well for learning as for arts
and for war, as particularly:-
1. Sir William Petre, who the learned Dr. Wake (now Archbishop of
Canterbury, and author of the Additions to Mr. Camden) says was
Secretary of State and Privy Councillor to King Henry VIII., Edward
VI., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, and seven times sent
ambassador into foreign countries.
2. Sir Thomas Bodley, famous and of grateful memory to all learned
men and lovers of letters for his collecting and establishing the
best library in Britain, which is now at Oxford, and is called,
after his name, the Bodleian Library to this day.
3. Also Sir Francis Drake, born at Plymouth.
4. Sir Walter Raleigh. Of both those I need say nothing; fame
publishes their merit upon every mention of their names.
5. That great patron of learning, Richard Hooker, author of the
"Ecclesiastical Polity," and of several other valuable pieces.
6. Of Dr. Arthur Duck, a famed civilian, and well known by his
works among the learned advocates of Doctors' Commons.
7. Dr. John Moreman, of Southold, famous for being the first
clergyman in England who ventured to teach his parishioners the
Lord's Prayer, Creed, and Ten Commandments in the English tongue,
and reading them so publicly in the parish church of Mayenhennet in
this county, of which he was vicar.
8. Dr. John de Brampton, a man of great learning who flourished in
the reign of Henry VI., was famous for being the first that read
Aristotle publicly in the University of Cambridge, and for several
learned books of his writing, which are now lost.
9. Peter Blundel, a clothier, who built the free school at
Tiverton, and endowed it very handsomely; of which in its place.
10. Sir John Glanvill, a noted lawyer, and one of the Judges of
the Common Pleas.
11. Sergeant Glanvill, his son; as great a lawyer as his father.
12. Sir John Maynard, an eminent lawyer of later years; one of the
Commissioners of the Great Seal under King William III. All these
three were born at Tavistock.
13. Sir Peter King, the present Lord Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas. And many others.
I shall take the north part of this county in my return from
Cornwall; so I must now lean to the south--that is to say, to the
South Coast--for in going on indeed we go south-west.
About twenty-two miles from Exeter we go to Totnes, on the River
Dart. This is a very good town, of some trade; but has more
gentlemen in it than tradesmen of note. They have a very fine
stone bridge here over the river, which, being within seven or
eight miles of the sea, is very large; and the tide flows ten or
twelve feet at the bridge. Here we had the diversion of seeing
them catch fish with the assistance of a dog. The case is this:-
On the south side of the river, and on a slip, or narrow cut or
channel made on purpose for a mill, there stands a corn-mill; the
mill-tail, or floor for the water below the wheels, is wharfed up
on either side with stone above high-water mark, and for above
twenty or thirty feet in length below it on that part of the river
towards the sea; at the end of this wharfing is a grating of wood,
the cross-bars of which stand bearing inward, sharp at the end, and
pointing inward towards one another, as the wires of a mouse-trap.
When the tide flows up, the fish can with ease go in between the
points of these cross-bars, but the mill being shut down they can
go no farther upwards; and when the water ebbs again, they are left
behind, not being able to pass the points of the grating, as above,
outwards; which, like a mouse-trap, keeps them in, so that they are
left at the bottom with about a foot or a foot and a half of water.
We were carried hither at low water, where we saw about fifty or
sixty small salmon, about seventeen to twenty inches long, which
the country people call salmon-peal; and to catch these the person
who went with us, who was our landlord at a great inn next the
bridge, put in a net on a hoop at the end of a pole, the pole going
cross the hoop (which we call in this country a shove-net). The
net being fixed at one end of the place, they put in a dog (who was
taught his trade beforehand) at the other end of the place, and he
drives all the fish into the net; so that, only holding the net
still in its place, the man took up two or three and thirty salmon-
peal at the first time.
Of these we took six for our dinner, for which they asked a
shilling (viz., twopence a-piece); and for such fish, not at all
bigger, and not so fresh, I have seen six-and-sixpence each given
at a London fish-market, whither they are sometimes brought from
Chichester by land carriage.
This excessive plenty of so good fish (and other provisions being
likewise very cheap in proportion) makes the town of Totnes a very
good place to live in; especially for such as have large families
and but small estates. And many such are said to come into those
parts on purpose for saving money, and to live in proportion to
their income.
From hence we went still south about seven miles (all in view of
this river) to Dartmouth, a town of note, seated at the mouth of
the River Dart, and where it enters into the sea at a very narrow
but safe entrance. The opening into Dartmouth Harbour is not
broad, but the channel deep enough for the biggest ship in the
Royal Navy. The sides of the entrance are high-mounded with rocks,
without which, just at the first narrowing of the passage, stands a
good strong fort without a platform of guns, which commands the
port.
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.
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.
