A HISTORY OF DORSET 



enemy's fleets but to his privateers ; against these local armaments still had 

 their use. A survey of 1714-17 '*''* tells us that Portland Castle had saved 

 many ships from being taken by them during the recent wars ; it had ten 

 guns when surveyed but was in a dilapidated condition. There had been 

 twenty guns at Sandsfoot in 1691, but in 1717 there were only three, of 

 which one was old and rusty and two had been washed into the sea. In 1701 

 the Ordnance Office had seen no objection in allowing the corporation of 

 Weymouth to pull down so much of the walls of the castle as might 

 be sufficient to supply them with stones to repair their bridge, and the 

 Treasury had sanctioned the proceeding.'"' This, therefore, marks the 

 definite abandonment of Sandsfoot. On the Isle of Portland there were 

 batteries at the Bill, at Blacknor Point on the west side, at the pier and at 

 Rufus Castle on the east side, and at the village of Chesil, but the guns were 

 all honeycombed and useless. At Weymouth there was a five-gun battery on 

 the Nothe and two others below, one being at the jetty -'"^ and one between 

 the Nothe and Sandsfoot. Here, also, the guns were in a condition which 

 proves that there could have been little fear of attack during the preceding 

 wars. At Melcombe there were four guns in the Blockhouse, eight in the 

 Mountjoy battery, and two at the jetty. There were nine guns at Lyme, and 

 from a notice of 1724 we learn that they were in two batteries or forts."" 



In 1708 Weymouth petitioned for assistance from the Customs for the 

 repair of the bridge, quays, and piers, as the harbour was ' choked up with 

 sand occasioned by the ruins of the said quays and bridge,' so that only the 

 smallest vessels could enter instead of those of 200 or 300 tons as formerly."* 

 It was no doubt in consequence of the deterioration of the harbour that the 

 Newfoundland trade deserted Weymouth in favour of Poole during this 

 century. From a statement of the grievances of the Poole men against the 

 French we find that the town sent forty ships to Newfoundland in 1725.*" 

 Defoe notices Poole in 1724 as 'the most considerable sea port in all this 

 part of England . . particularly successful for many years past ' in the 



fishery."- The Poole trade grew steadily until between 1769 and 1774 

 there were from sixty-two to seventy-four ships a year, and between 1787 

 and 1792 from sixty-five to eighty-four."^ The highest number from 

 Weymouth was eight ships in 1773, and Lyme seems to have given up the 

 fishery. The American War of Independence inflicted great injury on Poole 

 not only in the captures made on the Banks by privateers but also by the 

 destruction of a trade with the colonies which had been increasing largely 

 during the century. Some of the capital thus unemployed was transferred to 

 the southern whale fishery to which Poole sent two ships in 178 i and four in 

 1783."* The importance of the Newfoundland fishery in breeding seamen 

 is shown markedly in the assessments of men on the ports in 1795,"* where 

 those places engaged in the traffic stand out in contrast to the others. The 

 same influence had acted through three centuries, and had been of priceless 

 value in filling the cadres of the Navy, but direct proofs such as that of 1795 

 are naturally infrequent. 



^ King's MSS. 45. '"■ Trea. Papers, Ixxiv, 32. 



** This is shoun in the Survey of 1698, ante, p. 220. '■"' Stukely, It'm. Curiosum, 152. 



"° Ttcas. Pti/xrs, cviii, 17. "' Ibid, cclv, 54. 



'" Tour Through Gt. Britnlti, i, Letter ii, 70. '" Pari. Papers, 1793, xlii, App. No. 6. 



'" Pari. Papers, 17S6, Ixxiv, 274. '" Post, p. 224. 



222 



