to the fociety for a mean fubfiftence, or perchance be obliged to end her days in a monaftic confinement: and again, that fhould I happen to give them any provocation, or break their orders or rules, I might be unjefuited, expelled their fociety, and excluded both from my inheritance, and all means of living. And then, she added, that if in after-life my inclinations continued, when youth was conquered, and the world could yield me no pleasure, I might then do as I pleased; and it would yet be time enough to retire.

Thus advised, I no longer appeared at St. Anthony's, nor in my ftudent's drefs; yet my bookish inclination continued: But the course of my ftudies was changed, for instead of Ariftotle's Philofophy, School Divinity, and Cafuiftry, I now relished nothing but Voyages, Travels, and Geography; and fuch other books as would lead me into a just notion of the world, and aflist me in that state of life I then had just entered into.

As for languages, I had been very happy in taking them at fchool; fo that I was at no lofs in reading authors of diverfe nations, except the English: for though the English factory at Lisbon is both the richest and the largest, and there is alfo an Englifh college, an English nunnery, and two Irish colleges, and a nunnery of that nation alfo, who fpeak the English tongue; and I may add, though our greatest dealings in the mercantile way are with the fubjects of Great Britain, none of the natives endeavour to teach or learn their language. Therefore my next step towards obtaining true ideas of a nation I, in all probability, was to deal with during my life, was to fearch not only for Portugueze and Spanish, but for French and Italian authors; yet I could find none in any of thefe languages, that are any other than mere fuperficial accounts, and, in my opinion, no way capable to convey just ideas of so deserving a people, nor fufficient to inflruct a foreigner how to manage an advantageous commerce with them. For fo long as we are kept ignorant of any country, and traffic with its natives only by factors of their own nation, fettled among us, we must take only what they please to import, and at their own times and price, to our own great lofs: whereas a merchant, that is thoroughly acquainted with the product, manufacture, and genius of the nations he traffics with, has the advantage to fupply himself with the best commodities, in the best seasons, and at the cheapest rates. Confequently,

I, refolving to merchandise with Great Britain, refolved alfo firft to learn the language, and then to make a voyage to the island itself. I foon made myfelf master of as much of the English tongue, as to enable me to attempt my intended voyage, without the incumbrance and the accidents that often befal gentlemen, who are obliged to trust all to an interpreter. Having gained my parents' consent, I embarked with their bleffing, on board the packet, on the 23d of April, being St. George's day, commonly called the patron of England; and, after a pleasant voyage of feven days, we arrived fafe at Falmouth, the 30th of April 1730, N. S.

CHAPTER II.-A Chorographical Defcription of England *.

BEING thus accompanied and inftructed, it was to be my peculiar care to improve my journey to the uses I firft intended, at my departure from Lisbon; and, in particular, to render it, for the future, fubfervient to my mercantile way of life: Therefore I began to take minutes of the foil, produce, and manufactures of every county through

In the original this is the ninth chapter, feven chapters being filled with a hafty and imperfect history of England, which can nowife intereft the reader.

which we paffed; and made my particular obfervations on the genius of the people, their different methods of dealing; and diftinguished the feveral cities, towns, and villages, which are most remarkable for trade and navigation; of all which, take the following true, though rude and unpolifhed account.-I begin with Cornwall, the county in which I landed.

Cornwall is the most western county of England, and is fo wafhed by the fea on the north, fouth, and weft, and the river Tamer on the eaft, that it is a perfect peninfula fhaped like a horn. I prefently found the people of this county valued themfelves upon fome pretenfions above the other part of the nation, which I was informed was their ability in wrestling, and strength of body; their having most of the old British blood in their families; and their peculiar honour of giving title of Duke without crea tion to the eldest fon of the King of Great Britain.

This is not the most fruitful part of England, the foil being for the most part mountainous, thin, and rocky underneath: yet the vallies are fat with corn and good pasture; the hills are rich in tin and copper mines; and they every where abound in wild fowls, especially the dainty woodcock. Nor muft I forget their produce of eringo, famphire, fine flate, and marble. But their chief metal and manufacture is tin. When the ore is brought above ground in the stone, it is broke with hammers, and then carried to the ftamping mills, which make it ready for other mills, whereby it is ground to powder. After it is wafhed and cleared from earth, &c. it is melted at the blowing-houses into pigs of three or four hundred weight, marked with the owner's name, and the value is fet upon it at the coining-house, where it is affayed, to know what it is worth. The times for coining or making it, are Midfummer and Michaelmas; and for such as have not their tin then ready, there is a poft-coinage at Lady-day and Christmas. The ftamp is, the feal of the duchy of Cornwal. The tinners are regulated by Stannary laws, fo called from ftannum, the Latin word for tin; and the trials of their causes are by juries, returned by the mayors of the ftannary towns; for which purpose, courts are held by the Lord Warden of the ftannaries, who has alfo a deputy. When all the legal duties are fatisfied, the tinner may fell his tin where he will; only, if the King, or the Duke of Cornwall, have a mind to be purchasers, they have a right of preemption.

The coinage towns are Lefkard, Leftwithiel, Truro, Helfton, and Penfance; and the tinners are reckoned at least 100,000.

The mundic, in which the tin lies as in its bed, yields fuch a quantity of lapis calaminaris, for making brafs, that instead of importing copper and brafs, which yearly heretofore did amount to 100,000l. they now export as much, if not more.

In this county alfo is carried on a great trade for pilchards, which are caught between July and November, of which the merchants export vaft quantities to foreign markets, and for which they fit them by fuming, preffing, and pickling: Thefe are falted but not gutted, the entrails being reckoned the beft part; and, after having been piled in heaps in a cellar for ten days, and preffed, to drain off the fuperfluous moisture of the blood and falt, they are barrelled up with pickle, for France; but without it, for Spain, Italy, and other hotter countries.

We pafs through this county into Devonshire, travelling eaftward; which being not fo much incompaffed with the fea, is of a more pure air; and both the roads are better, and the foil more fruitful; though Devonshire has many both hills and woods.

Its commodities are corn, cattle, wool, &c. and its manufactures, kerfes, ferges, druggets, perpetuanas, long-ells, fhalloons, narrow cloths, &c. as alfo bonelace.

That part called the South-hams is famous for its noble rough cyder: In other parts of it mines of tin have been formerly discovered in fuch abundance, that in King John's time the coinage of Devonshire was fet to farm for 100l. a-year, when Cornwall paid but 667. 18s. 4d.; and it has four ftannary towns, with as many ftannary courts, and towns of coinage; which are Plympton, Tavistock, Ashburton, and Chagford; but there is very little tin dug in this country now.

Veins of loadstone are found here, which I was told, a learned naturalift fays generally run eaft and weft, contrary to the received opinion, that the loadstone gave a a northerly direction; because its natural pofition in the mine is fuppofed to be north and fouth. Here are quarries of good stone for building, and also of flate for covering houfes; and of the latter great quantities are exported.

Proceeding ftill eastward, we entered the pleasant and fruitful county of Dorset, or Dorsetshire, which not only produceth great plenty of corn, pasture, cattle, wild fowl and fish, but hemp and flax; and great quantities of cloth are made here, both woollen and linen. Nor can any fhire match its plenty of excellent stone in the quarries at Portland and Purbeck, (in the last of which marble has been dug up fometimes); and from Blacknore Foreft may be brought fufficient timber to serve the whole county: And what a conveniency this is to the inhabitants, appears, from the elegance of the buildings, not only of the gentlemen's feats, but in their towns. Many kinds of earth, that are useful, are difperfed up and down the county: particularly, the best tobacco pipe-clay, which, as I was told, would fell at London for 30s. a-ton.

From hence we travelled into Somersetshire, so called from its being the warmeft county in the whole island of Britain. It is a very rich, plentiful, populous and pleafant county, famous among the graziers for its large fheep and oxen; and among merchant-adventurers, for its commodious havens. But the roads in winter are very foul and bad for travellers.

It abounds with grain of all kinds, of which it fupplies home and foreign markets with vast quantities. Its hills afford mines of coal, lead, and copper. Wood thrives here, as well as in any fhire in the kingdom; and teazles (a fort of thistles used by the cloth-dreffers) grow fcarce any where elfe. Ocre is dug up, on and about Mendip hills; and of lapis calaminaris (without which, and copper, there is no making of brafs) more is dug up here than in all the kingdom befides. As this county is rich in pasture, no wonder it yields fuch great quantities of cheese, of which the best and biggest in England are made at Chedder, and reckoned as good as Parmefan; and it is worthy both the obfervation and imitation of fuch as defire to excel in this branch of trade, that the whole milk of the parifh is, by the agreement of the parifhioners, preferved for the making of it. Its oxen are as large as thofe of Lancashire and Lincolnfhire; and the grain of the flesh is faid to be finer. Its vales feed and fatten a prodigious number of fheep, and of the largest fize. Its maftiff dogs are the boldeft of all others of the kind at baiting the bull, a fport in which the ruder fort of people among them, and fome of the low bred gentry, take perhaps too much delight, as well here, as in other parts of this nation.

All forts of cloth is manufactured here; as broad and narrow kerfeys, druggets, ferges, duroys and fhalloons, together with stockings and buttons; and in the foutheaft parts of the fhire are made great quantities of linen. The value of the woollen manufacture alone here, in the firft hands, has been rated at a million a-year; and if a calculation was made of its other manufactures: and its produce by mines, tillage, feeding, grazing, dairies, &c. it would undoubtedly exceed any county of the kingdom in riches, both natural and acquired, Yorkshire not excepted; due allowance being made

for

for the difference in extent. As to foreign trade, furely no fhire but Middlefex will compare with one that has the city of Bristol to boaft of; not to mention the coasting trade in the little ports of Bridgewater and Minhead.

We then entered Wiltshire, the northern part of which is full of pleasant rifings, and watered with clear ftreams. It was once overfpread with woods, which are now in a manner quite deftroyed. The foil of this part of the country being clay, is confequently troublesome fometimes to travellers; but here is a great variety of delightful profpects, to make them amends. And my tutor told me, that a good author of their own made this remark of Wiltshire: "That an ox, left to himfelf, would, of all England, chufe to live in the north of this county, a fheep in the south párt of it, "and a man in the middle between both; as partaking of the pleafure of the plain, " and the plenty of the deep country." The foil of the vale is very fruitful, and affords great quantity of as good cheese as any in England; and though that of the hills is in fome places chalky, and barren enough, yet its cheapne's makes it beneficial to the neighbouring farmers. I have been told on the spot, that on the downs betwixt Sandy-lane and Marlborough, and between the Devizes and Salisbury, hundreds of acres have been rented at a groat an acre per annum. But the numerous flocks of sheep fed there turn much more to the profit of the proprietors. The abundance of wool which these sheep produce, invited the inhabitants to fall very much into the clothing trade; and the best broad cloths, both white and dyed, in England, are made in the west and north parts of this county, and indeed, in the south and east parts too, but not in fuch quantities.

Fuel is not very plenty in this county, which has no coal pits, nor indeed much wood: 'Tis productive, however, of all forts of grain, especially wheat.

From Wiltshire we departed for Hampshire or Hantfhire, by fome called the county of Southampton. This is the county where I faw, what my tutor had before told me, the tract of land, called New Foreft, which was enlarged by William the Conqueror at the destruction of several towns and villages, and 36 parishes, being computed 50 miles in compass; and became remarkable for the death of two of his fons and a grandfon, who loft their lives strangely in this forest.

The air of this county is moft pure and piercing, efpecially the downs, of which there is a ridge that runs almost athwart it, and affords plenty of game. The foil is various as to its fertility, the hilly parts being barren, like other downs, and fit only for sheep; but the lower grounds are fruitful in corn and herbage. It produces great quantities of all manner of grain, particularly wheat and barley, with which it fupplies the flourishing markets of Farnham, Bafingftoke, and Reading; and their teams of horses, many of which are fit for the best coach in the kingdom, fhew the wealth of the farmer. The arable ground, though very ftony, is fruitful; for the ftones lie loofe upon the foil: and those who are well fkilled in agriculture affirm, that they keep it warm, and that therefore, the taking them away would do more hurt than good. This county is particularly famous for its honey, with which they make moft excellent mead and metheglin. Hampshire bacon is allowed by all to be the best in England, the fwine being fupplied with acorns in plenty, from the New Foreft, and other woods, in which they are fuffered to run at large: And the delicacy of their flefh is attributed to their not being pent up in ftyes. Kerfey and cloth are made here; and though not in fo great plenty as in Wiltshire, Somerfetfhire, and Gloucestershire, yet there is enough' made, not only for home confumption, but for a foreign trade. Its fea-coafts furnish oyflers, lobsters, and other falt water fish. And indeed, both for profit and pleasure, there is not a more inviting county in Great Britain.

Adjoining

Adjoining to Hampshire is the inland county of Berks; whofe air is generally healthy and fweet; the foil fertile enough, where 'tis cultivated; and the whole county, which is one of the most pleafant in England, is well ftored with cattle and timber, particularly oak and beech, in the western parts, and in Windfor Foreft; which alfo abounds with wild fowl, and other game; as its rivers Thames and Kennet, the one on the north, the other on the fouth fide of it, do with fifh, efpecially fine large trout and cray-fifh. It has been obferved, that land is dearer here, than in other parts the fame diftance from London. The chief manufactures of this county are woollen cloth, fail cloth, and malt; their being great crops of barley in the west part of the county, particularly the vale of White-horse, fo named from the bare fide of a chalky hill representing that animal, which the inhabitants once a-year, about mid-summer, take fome pains in trimming, to keep it to its fhape and colour, and then conclude the day with mirth. 'Tis fuppofed by fome, that the ground there was formed into this figure by the Saxons, who had the White-horfe for their arms.

Having regaled ourfelves four days with the fowl and delicious fish of Berkshire, we paffed into Surrey, which I could not find to be remarkable for any particular trade or manufacture, excepting the corn market at Croydon, and the feveral branches of trade carried on in the borough of Southwark: but as that borough is contiguous to London, I shall remark their trade together. In general, I obferve this to be a healthy, pleasant county; and therefore it boafts of feveral royal palaces, and many feats of the nobility and gentry. But the air, as well as the foil, of the middle and extreme parts is vastly different, the air being mild in the latter, which is very fruitful in corn and hay, with a fine mixture of woods and fields, especially on the fouth about Holmfdale, and on the north towards the Thames; but the air is bleak in the heart of the county, which, except a delightful fpot indeed here and there, is all open fandy ground, and barren heath: for which reafon, the county is not unaptly compared to a coarse cloth with a fine lift or hem. In fome places there are long ridges of hills or downs, with warrens for rabbits and hares, and parks for deer; and its rivers, the chief of which, befides the Thames, are the Mole, the Wey, and the Wandle, abound with fish. And the chief commodities of this county, befides its corn, are box-wood, walnuts, and fullers-earth, which laft is fold at a groat a bufhel at the pits near Ryegate, and is fent up to London for the ufe of the woollen manufactures all over England. N. B. This earth is prohibited exportation by the fame laws, and under the fame penalties as wool itself.

Our tour through Surrey was pretty agreeable in regard to the many fine feats which we met with, but I was more pleafed to turn off into Suffex, a maritime county upon the English channel; whofe downs near the coaft are charming, and its vallies, or the Wild of Suffex, as it is commonly called, very plentiful, especially in oats. The downs are very high green hills, well known to travellers, especially fuch as deal in wool or fheep; there being great numbers bred here, whose wool, which is very fine, is too often exported clandeftinely to France by farmers and jobbers, who are called owlers. Many parts of the downs being a fat chalky foil, are, on that account, very fruitful, both in corn and grafs. The middle part of the county is delightfully chequer'd with meadows, pastures, groves, and corn-fields, that produce wheat and barley. The north quarter is fhaded with woods, from which they make abundance of charcoal; and they fupply timber for the navy docks, and fuel for the iron works, there being not only plenty of ore on the east fide towards Kent, but many great forges, furnaces, and watermills, for both caft and wrought iron, which, though it is faid to be more brittle than the Spanish, yet cannon are caft with it; and the best gunpowder in the world is

made