A HISTORY OF DORSET 



tor allowances to pay for walling the town." In 1388 the farm, as well as 

 the tenths and fifteenths, was remitted for seven years, because ' often ' burnt 

 and destroyed by the enemy, the inhabitants having thereby been driven 

 away." From this it may be guessed that it suffered again when the Con- 

 stable, Oliver de Clisson, harried the coast in 1380. These attempts at 

 alleviation were fruitless, for in 1394 a further remission for twelve years was 

 necessary." When this term expired the town was still ' poor and desolate,' 

 whereas of old the customs and subsidies were wont to amount to jf 1,000 a 

 year.''* In 1410 there was further reason for petition, but here the customs 

 and subsidies were stated as being at least 1,000 marks.'*^ In this a definite 

 assertion is made that the town was burnt in the reigns of both Edward III 

 and Richard II ; the exact date of the first attack must remain unknown, but 

 it may have occurred a few days before Edward's death. 



These petitions and allowances can be traced as late as 1433, when 



having consideration of its feebleness and non-sufficiency, nought inhabited nor of strength 

 ... as it well seemed by the loss that John Roger and other had there late for lack and 

 scarcity of help and people to withstand . . . your enemies, 



SO that traders feared to send or receive merchandise there, Melcombe was 

 discontinued as a customs port, the collection being removed to Poole." The 

 story of the ruin of Melcombe, due to two French attacks and acknowledged 

 after half a century of struggle and decline, is of general as well as of local 

 interest. It has been held"" that ' cross-ravaging,' i.e. raids for destruction and 

 plunder such as French and English inflicted on each other in the mediaeval 

 period, were of no value in helping towards the decision of a war. It is 

 altogether questionable whether such raids were merely for plunder,'* but it 

 is obvious that any permanent injury done to an element of national strength, 

 such as a commercial town, reduces by that much the power of the state in 

 the immediate war and in the endless national rivalry which is the cause and 

 sequel of wars. Here, Melcombe, which had been climbing gradually to a 

 place among the leading ports, soon ceased to be a revenue-producing portion 

 of the body politic ; its shipping must have nearly disappeared, and with its 

 shipping its trade and seamen, for in 1407 there were only eight burgesses, 

 and therefore few employers. By all this the nation was so much the poorer 

 in its future contests with France. Locally, the effect of the disaster must 

 have been widespread in the district to which it had been the seaport, for it 

 was practically the only outlet between Poole and Lyme ; the difficulty and 

 cost of transit in transporting merchandise between the interior it had served 

 and the eastern and western borders of the county must, for a time, have 

 extinguished the nascent commercial spirit growing up inland. By this, 

 again, the nation as a whole was the poorer. But for its association with 

 Weymouth in the Newfoundland fishery, which gave it a term of renewed 

 life for two centuries, it would at once have sunk to the condition of coast 

 village from which it was rescued by the favour of George III. Moreover, 

 it is not unlikely that had it continued to grow in the especial attributes of 



■' Rot. Pari. (Rec. Com.), iii, 70. " Pat. 2 Rlc. II, pt. ii, m. 12. 



■' Ibid. 17 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. ^o. 



'^ Rot. Pari. (Rec. Com.), iii, 6 1 6. Before the assault of 1 377 there were 24 sea-going vessels and 40 fishing 

 boats belonging to the town. Hutchins, Hist, of Dorset (3rd ed.), ii, 450. 



"' Rot. Pari. (Rec. Com.), iii, 639. " Ibid, iv, 445. 



"" Colomb, tiaval Warfare, 3. "' Cf V.C.H. Sussex, 'Maritime Histor}-,' ii, 140. 



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