The Work To The Land Side Is Complete; The Bastions Are Faced With
Brick.
There is a double ditch, or moat, the innermost part of
which is 180 feet broad; there is a good counterscarp, and a
covered way marked out with ravelins and tenailles, but they are
not raised a second time after their first settling.
On the land side there are also two small redoubts of brick, but of
very little strength, for the chief strength of this fort on the
land side consists in this, that they are able to lay the whole
level under water, and so to make it impossible for an enemy to
make any approaches to the fort that way.
On the side next the river there is a very strong curtain, with a
noble gate called the Water Gate in the middle, and the ditch is
palisadoed. At the place where the water bastion was designed to
be built, and which by the plan should run wholly out into the
river, so to flank the two curtains of each side; I say, in the
place where it should have been, stands a high tower, which they
tell us was built in Queen Elizabeth's time, and was called the
Block House; the side next the water is vacant.
Before this curtain, above and below the said vacancy, is a
platform in the place of a counterscarp, on which are planted 106
pieces of cannon, generally all of them carrying from twenty-four
to forty-six pound ball; a battery so terrible as well imports the
consequence of that place; besides which, there are smaller pieces
planted between, and the bastions and curtain also are planted with
guns; so that they must be bold fellows who will venture in the
biggest ships the world has heard of to pass such a battery, if the
men appointed to serve the guns do their duty like stout fellows,
as becomes them.
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