The Dangers Of This Place Being Thus Considered, It Is No Wonder,
That Upon The Shore Beyond Yarmouth There Are
No less than four
lighthouses kept flaming every night, besides the lights at Castor,
north of the town, and at
Goulston S., all of which are to direct
the sailors to keep a good offing in case of bad weather, and to
prevent their running into Cromer Bay, which the seamen call the
devil's throat.
As I went by land from Yarmouth northward, along the shore towards
Cromer aforesaid, and was not then fully master of the reason of
these things, I was surprised to see, in all the way from
Winterton, that the farmers and country people had scarce a barn,
or a shed, or a stable, nay, not the pales of their yards and
gardens, not a hogstye, not a necessary house, but what was built
of old planks, beams, wales, and timbers, etc., the wrecks of
ships, and ruins of mariners' and merchants' fortunes; and in some
places were whole yards filled and piled up very high with the same
stuff laid up, as I supposed to sell for the like building
purposes, as there should he occasion.
About the year 1692 (I think it was that year) there was a
melancholy example of what I have said of this place: a fleet of
200 sail of light colliers (so they call the ships bound northward
empty to fetch coals from Newcastle to London) went out of Yarmouth
Roads with a fair wind, to pursue their voyage, and were taken
short with a storm of wind at NE. after they were past
Wintertonness, a few leagues; some of them, whose masters were a
little more wary than the rest, or perhaps, who made a better
judgment of things, or who were not so far out as the rest, tacked,
and put back in time, and got safe into the roads; but the rest
pushing on in hopes to keep out to sea, and weather it, were by the
violence of the storm driven back, when they were too far embayed
to weather Wintertonness as above, and so were forced to run west,
everyone shifting for themselves as well as they could; some run
away for Lynn Deeps, but few of them (the night being so dark)
could find their way in there; some, but very few, rode it out at a
distance; the rest, being above 140 sail, were all driven on shore
and dashed to pieces, and very few of the people on board were
saved: at the very same unhappy juncture, a fleet of laden ships
were coming from the north, and being just crossing the same bay,
were forcibly driven into it, not able to weather the Ness, and so
were involved in the same ruin as the light fleet was; also some
coasting vessels laden with corn from Lynn and Wells, and bound for
Holland, were with the same unhappy luck just come out to begin
their voyage, and some of them lay at anchor; these also met with
the same misfortune, so that, in the whole, above 200 sail of
ships, and above a thousand people, perished in the disaster of
that one miserable night, very few escaping.
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