I Found No Business The People Here Were
Employed In But The Fishery, As Above, For Herrings And Sprats,
Which They Cure By The Help Of Smoke, As They Do At Yarmouth.
There is but one church in this town, but it is a very large one
and well built, as
Most of the churches in this county are, and of
impenetrable flint; indeed, there is no occasion for its being so
large, for staying there one Sabbath day, I was surprised to see an
extraordinary large church, capable of receiving five or six
thousand people, and but twenty-seven in it besides the parson and
the clerk; but at the same time the meeting-house of the Dissenters
was full to the very doors, having, as I guessed, from six to eight
hundred people in it.
This town is made famous for a very great engagement at sea, in the
year 1672, between the English and Dutch fleets, in the bay
opposite to the town, in which, not to be partial to ourselves, the
English fleet was worsted; and the brave Montague, Earl of
Sandwich, Admiral under the Duke of York, lost his life. The ship
Royal Prince, carrying one hundred guns, in which he was, and which
was under him, commanded by Sir Edward Spragg, was burnt, and
several other ships lost, and about six hundred seamen; part of
those killed in the fight were, as I was told, brought on shore
here and buried in the churchyard of this town, as others also were
at Ipswich.
At this town in particular, and so at all the towns on this coast,
from Orfordness to Yarmouth, is the ordinary place where our summer
friends the swallows first land when they come to visit us; and
here they may be said to embark for their return, when they go back
into warmer climates; and as I think the following remark, though
of so trifling a circumstance, may be both instructing as well as
diverting, it may be very proper in this place. The case is this;
I was some years before at this place, at the latter end of the
year, viz., about the beginning of October, and lodging in a house
that looked into the churchyard, I observed in the evening, an
unusual multitude of birds sitting on the leads of the church.
Curiosity led me to go nearer to see what they were, and I found
they were all swallows; that there was such an infinite number that
they covered the whole roof of the church, and of several houses
near, and perhaps might of more houses which I did not see. This
led me to inquire of a grave gentleman whom I saw near me, what the
meaning was of such a prodigious multitude of swallows sitting
there. "Oh, sir," says he, turning towards the sea, "you may see
the reason; the wind is off sea." I did not seem fully informed by
that expression, so he goes on, "I perceive, sir," says he, "you
are a stranger to it; you must then understand first, that this is
the season of the year when the swallows, their food here failing,
begin to leave us, and return to the country, wherever it be, from
whence I suppose they came; and this being the nearest to the coast
of Holland, they come here to embark" (this he said smiling a
little); "and now, sir," says he, "the weather being too calm or
the wind contrary, they are waiting for a gale, for they are all
wind-bound."
This was more evident to me, when in the morning I found the wind
had come about to the north-west in the night, and there was not
one swallow to be seen of near a million, which I believe was there
the night before.
How those creatures know that this part of the Island of Great
Britain is the way to their home, or the way that they are to go;
that this very point is the nearest cut over, or even that the
nearest cut is best for them, that we must leave to the naturalists
to determine, who insist upon it that brutes cannot think.
Certain it is that the swallows neither come hither for warm
weather nor retire from cold; the thing is of quite another nature.
They, like the shoals of fish in the sea, pursue their prey; they
are a voracious creature, they feed flying; their food is found in
the air, viz., the insects, of which in our summer evenings, in
damp and moist places, the air is full. They come hither in the
summer because our air is fuller of fogs and damps than in other
countries, and for that reason feeds great quantities of insects.
If the air be hot and dry the gnats die of themselves, and even the
swallows will be found famished for want, and fall down dead out of
the air, their food being taken from them. In like manner, when
cold weather comes in the insects all die, and then of necessity
the swallows quit us, and follow their food wherever they go. This
they do in the manner I have mentioned above, for sometimes they
are seen to go off in vast flights like a cloud. And sometimes
again, when the wind grows fair, they go away a few and a few as
they come, not staying at all upon the coast.
Note.--This passing and re-passing of the swallows is observed
nowhere so much, that I have heard of, or in but few other places,
except on this eastern coast, namely, from above Harwich to the
east point of Norfolk, called Winterton Ness, North, which is all
right against Holland. We know nothing of them any farther north,
the passage of the sea being, as I suppose, too broad from
Flamborough Head and the shore of Holderness in Yorkshire, etc.
I find very little remarkable on this side of Suffolk, but what is
on the sea-shore as above.
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