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.
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,