On The Shore, Beginning A Little
Below Candy Island, Or Rather Below Leigh Road, There Lies A Great
Shoal Or
Sand called the Black Tail, which runs out near three
leagues into the sea due east; at the end of
It stands a pole or
mast, set up by the Trinity House men of London, whose business is
to lay buoys and set up sea marks for the direction of the sailors;
this is called Shoe Beacon, from the point of land where this sand
begins, which is called Shoeburyness, and that from the town of
Shoebury, which stands by it. From this sand, and on the edge of
Shoebury, before it, or south west of it, all along, to the mouth
of Colchester water, the shore is full of shoals and sands, with
some deep channels between; all which are so full of fish, that not
only the Barking fishing-smacks come hither to fish, but the whole
shore is full of small fisher-boats in very great numbers,
belonging to the villages and towns on the coast, who come in every
tide with what they take; and selling the smaller fish in the
country, send the best and largest away upon horses, which go night
and day to London market.
N.B.--I am the more particular in my remarks on this place, because
in the course of my travels the reader will meet with the like in
almost every place of note through the whole island, where it will
be seen how this whole kingdom, as well the people as the land, and
even the sea, in every part of it, are employed to furnish
something, and I may add, the best of everything, to supply the
City of London with provisions; I mean by provisions, corn, flesh,
fish, butter, cheese, salt, fuel, timber, etc., and clothes also;
with everything necessary for building, and furniture for their own
use or for trade; of all which in their order.
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