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