CHAP. V, ST<UTA<;K or DA< JKM1AM UllKACII. r.'.i 



CHAPTER \. 



STOPPAGE OP DAGENHAM BREACH CAPTAIN PKKKV. 



l>i-:i''oni: dismissing from consideration those early under- 

 l;i kin^s of embankment and drainage, we may briefly 

 allude to further works which were rendered necessary 

 by the neglected embankment of the Thames down to a 

 comparatively recent period. 



The banks first raised seemed to have been in many 

 places of in sufficient strength ; and when a strong north- 

 easterly wind blew down the North Sea, and the waters 

 became pent up in that narrow part of it lying between 

 the Belgian and the English coasts, and especially when 

 this occurred at a time of the highest spring tides, 

 the strength of the river embankments became severely 

 tested throughout their entire length, and breaches often 

 took place, occasioning destructive inundations. 



Thus, in the year 1676, a serious breach took place at 

 Limehouse, by which a number of houses was destroyed, 

 and it was with great difficulty the waters could be 

 banked out again. The wonder is that sweeping, as the 

 new current did, over the Isle of Dogs, in the direction 

 of Wapping, and in the line of the present West India 

 Docks, the channel of the river was not then permanently 

 altered. But Deptford was already established as a 

 royal dockyard, and probably the diversion of the river 

 would have inflicted as much local injury, judging by 

 comparison, as it unquestionably would do at the pre- 

 sent day. The breach was accordingly stemmed, and the 

 course of the river held in its ancient channel by Dept- 

 ford and Greenwich. Another destructive inundation 

 shortly after occurred through a breach made in the 



