The indolence of others, and
the increasing vigilance of our neighbours, that is not my business
here to dispute.
What I have said is only to let the world see what improvement this
town and port is capable of; I cannot think but that Providence,
which made nothing in vain, cannot have reserved so useful, so
convenient a port to lie vacant in the world, but that the time
will some time or other come (especially considering the improving
temper of the present age) when some peculiar beneficial business
may be found out, to make the port of Ipswich as useful to the
world, and the town as flourishing, as Nature has made it proper
and capable to be.
As for the town, it is true, it is but thinly inhabited, in
comparison of the extent of it; but to say there are hardly any
people to be seen there, is far from being true in fact; and
whoever thinks fit to look into the churches and meeting-houses on
a Sunday, or other public days, will find there are very great
numbers of people there. Or if he thinks fit to view the market,
and see how the large shambles, called Cardinal Wolsey's Butchery,
are furnished with meat, and the rest of the market stocked with
other provisions, must acknowledge that it is not for a few people
that all those things are provided. A person very curious, and on
whose veracity I think I may depend, going through the market in
this town, told me, that he reckoned upwards of six hundred country
people on horseback and on foot, with baskets and other carriage,
who had all of them brought something or other to town to sell,
besides the butchers, and what came in carts and waggons.
It happened to be my lot to be once at this town at the time when a
very fine new ship, which was built there for some merchants of
London, was to be launched; and if I may give my guess at the
numbers of people which appeared on the shore, in the houses, and
on the river, I believe I am much within compass if I say there
were 20,000 people to see it; but this is only a guess, or they
might come a great way to see the sight, or the town may be
declined farther since that. But a view of the town is one of the
surest rules for a gross estimate.
It is true here is no settled manufacture. The French refugees
when they first came over to England began a little to take to this
place, and some merchants attempted to set up a linen manufacture
in their favour; but it has not met with so much success as was
expected, and at present I find very little of it. The poor people
are, however, employed, as they are all over these counties, in
spinning wool for other towns where manufactures are settled.
The country round Ipswich, as are all the counties so near the
coast, is applied chiefly to corn, of which a very great quantity
is continually shipped off for London; and sometimes they load corn
here for Holland, especially if the market abroad is encouraging.
They have twelve parish churches in this town, with three or four
meetings; but there are not so many Quakers here as at Colchester,
and no Anabaptists or Antipoedo Baptists, that I could hear of--at
least, there is no meeting-house of that denomination. There is
one meeting-house for the Presbyterians, one for the Independents
and one for the Quakers; the first is as large and as fine a
building of that kind as most on this side of England, and the
inside the best finished of any I have seen, London not excepted;
that for the Independents is a handsome new-built building, but not
so gay or so large as the other.
There is a great deal of very good company in this town, and though
there are not so many of the gentry here as at Bury, yet there are
more here than in any other town in the county; and I observed
particularly that the company you meet with here are generally
persons well informed of the world, and who have something very
solid and entertaining in their society. This may happen, perhaps,
by their frequent conversing with those who have been abroad, and
by their having a remnant of gentlemen and masters of ships among
them who have seen more of the world than the people of an inland
town are likely to have seen. I take this town to be one of the
most agreeable places in England for families who have lived well,
but may have suffered in our late calamities of stocks and bubbles,
to retreat to, where they may live within their own compass; and
several things indeed recommend it to such:-
1. Good houses at very easy rents.
2. An airy, clean, and well-governed town.
3. Very agreeable and improving company almost of every kind.
4. A wonderful plenty of all manner of provisions, whether flesh
or fish, and very good of the kind.
5. Those provisions very cheap, so that a family may live cheaper
here than in any town in England of its bigness within such a small
distance from London.
6. Easy passage to London, either by land or water, the coach
going through to London in a day.
The Lord Viscount Hereford has a very fine seat and park in this
town; the house indeed is old built, but very commodious; it is
called Christ Church, having been, as it is said, a priory or
religious house in former times.
