A Traveller Will Hardly Understand Me,
Especially A Seaman, When I Speak Of The River Stour And The River
Orwell
At Harwich, for they know them by no other names than those
of Manningtree water and Ipswich water; so while
I am on salt
water, I must speak as those who use the sea may understand me, and
when I am up in the country among the inland towns again, I shall
call them out of their names no more.
It is twelve miles from Harwich up the water to Ipswich. Before I
come to the town, I must say something of it, because speaking of
the river requires it. In former times, that is to say, since the
writer of this remembers the place very well, and particularly just
before the late Dutch wars, Ipswich was a town of very good
business; particularly it was the greatest town in England for
large colliers or coal-ships employed between Newcastle and London.
Also they built the biggest ships and the best, for the said
fetching of coals of any that were employed in that trade. They
built, also, there so prodigious strong, that it was an ordinary
thing for an Ipswich collier, if no disaster happened to him, to
reign (as seamen call it) forty or fifty years, and more.
In the town of Ipswich the masters of these ships generally dwelt,
and there were, as they then told me, above a hundred sail of them,
belonging to the town at one time, the least of which carried
fifteen score, as they compute it, that is, 300 chaldron of coals;
this was about the year 1668 (when I first knew the place). This
made the town be at that time so populous, for those masters, as
they had good ships at sea, so they had large families who lived
plentifully, and in very good houses in the town, and several
streets were chiefly inhabited by such.
The loss or decay of this trade accounts for the present pretended
decay of the town of Ipswich, of which I shall speak more
presently. The ships wore out, the masters died off, the trade
took a new turn; Dutch flyboats taken in the war, and made free
ships by Act of Parliament, thrust themselves into the coal-trade
for the interest of the captors, such as the Yarmouth and London
merchants, and others; and the Ipswich men dropped gradually out of
it, being discouraged by those Dutch flyboats. These Dutch
vessels, which cost nothing but the caption, were bought cheap,
carried great burthens, and the Ipswich building fell off for want
of price, and so the trade decayed, and the town with it. I
believe this will be owned for the true beginning of their decay,
if I must allow it to be called a decay.
But to return to my passage up the river. In the winter-time those
great collier ships, above-mentioned, are always laid up, as they
call it; that is to say, the coal trade abates at London, the
citizens are generally furnished, their stores taken in, and the
demand is over; so that the great ships, the northern seas and
coast being also dangerous, the nights long, and the voyage
hazardous, go to sea no more, but lie by, the ships are unrigged,
the sails, etc., carried ashore, the top-masts struck, and they
ride moored in the river, under the advantages and security of
sound ground, and a high woody shore, where they lie as safe as in
a wet dock; and it was a very agreeable sight to see, perhaps two
hundred sail of ships, of all sizes, lie in that posture every
winter. All this while, which was usually from Michaelmas to Lady
Day, the masters lived calm and secure with their families in
Ipswich; and enjoying plentifully, what in the summer they got
laboriously at sea, and this made the town of Ipswich very populous
in the winter; for as the masters, so most of the men, especially
their mates, boatswains, carpenters, etc., were of the same place,
and lived in their proportions, just as the masters did; so that in
the winter there might be perhaps a thousand men in the town more
than in the summer, and perhaps a greater number.
To justify what I advance here, that this town was formerly very
full of people, I ask leave to refer to the account of Mr. Camden,
and what it was in his time. His words are these:- "Ipswich has a
commodious harbour, has been fortified with a ditch and rampart,
has a great trade, and is very populous, being adorned with
fourteen churches, and large private buildings." This confirms
what I have mentioned of the former state of this town; but the
present state is my proper work; I therefore return to my voyage up
the river.
The sight of these ships thus laid up in the river, as I have said,
was very agreeable to me in my passage from Harwich, about five and
thirty years before the present journey; and it was in its
proportion equally melancholy to hear that there were now scarce
forty sail of good colliers that belonged to the whole town.
In a creek in this river, called Lavington Creek, we saw at low
water such shoals, or hills rather, of mussels, that great boats
might have loaded with them, and no miss have been made of them.
Near this creek, Sir Samuel Barnadiston had a very fine seat, as,
also, a decoy for wild ducks, and a very noble estate; but it is
divided into many branches since the death of the ancient
possessor. But I proceed to the town, which is the first in the
county of Suffolk of any note this way.
Ipswich is seated, at the distance of twelve miles from Harwich,
upon the edge of the river, which, taking a short turn to the west,
the town forms, there, a kind of semicircle, or half moon, upon the
bank of the river.
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