From Lynn I Bent My Course To Downham, Where Is An Ugly Wooden
Bridge Over The Ouse; From Whence We
Passed the fen country to
Wisbeach, but saw nothing that way to tempt our curiosity but deep
roads, innumerable drains
And dykes of water, all navigable, and a
rich soil, the land bearing a vast quantity of good hemp, but a
base unwholesome air; so we came back to Ely, whose cathedral,
standing in a level flat country, is seen far and wide, and of
which town, when the minster, so they call it, is described,
everything remarkable is said that there is room to say. And of
the minster, this is the most remarkable thing that I could hear
it, namely, that some of it is so ancient, totters so much with
every gust of wind, looks so like a decay, and seems so near it,
that whenever it does fall, all that it is likely will be thought
strange in it will be that it did not fall a hundred years sooner.
From hence we came over the Ouse, and in a few miles to Newmarket.
In our way, near Snaybell, we saw a noble seat of the late Admiral
Russell, now Earl of Orford, a name made famous by the glorious
victory obtained under his command over the French fleet and the
burning their ships at La Hogue--a victory equal in glory to, and
infinitely more glorious to the English nation in particular, than
that at Blenheim, and, above all, more to the particular advantage
of the confederacy, because it so broke the heart of the naval
power of France that they have not fully recovered it to this day.
But of this victory it must be said it was owing to the haughty,
rash, and insolent orders given by the King of France to his
admiral, viz., to fight the confederate fleet wherever he found
them, without leaving room for him to use due caution if he found
them too strong, which pride of France was doubtless a fate upon
them, and gave a cheap victory to the confederates, the French
coming down rashly, and with the most impolitic bravery, with about
five-and-forty sail to attack between seventy and eighty sail, by
which means they met their ruin.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 108 of 136
Words from 31156 to 31540
of 39569
