FKIIHIES AND NAVIGABLE KIYERS. 



PART IV. 



burning it within the limits of the City. But as the 

 forests became consumed for the production of " charre 

 coal " for domestic purposes and for iron-smelting, 1 there 

 was no alternative but to fall back upon the rich stores 

 of coal found in the northern parts of England. Then 

 it was that the Newcastle coal shipping-trade sprang 

 into importance, and ever since has proved the principal 

 nursery of our seamen. The fleets of colliers entering 

 the Thames, added to the other shipping, caused a gr,eat 

 throng of vessels in the river ; and what with the coal- 

 lighters and merchandise-barges, which formed the com- 

 munication between the vessels lying in the Pool or 

 down the river, and the warehouses and coalyards on 

 shore, it became a very crowded arid often a very con- 

 fused scene. The merchandise, thus borne from the 

 vessels to the warehouses, became liable to serious de- 

 predations ; and the losses from this cause, as well as 

 the crowding of the river, at length led to the provision 

 of floating docks at various points, and to a further vast 

 development of the port of London. 



The Thames was not only the harbour but the great 

 highway of the metropolis. The city lay mostly along 

 the line of the river, and the streets and roads for a long 

 time continued so bad, that passengers desiring to proceed 

 eastward or westward almost invariably went by boat. 



1 The destruction of the woods 

 was a topic of lamentation with the 

 poets of the time. George Withers, 

 in 1634, tells us with what feelings 

 he beheld 



The havoc and the spoyle, 

 Which, ev'n within the compass of my dayes, 

 Is made through every quarter of this He 

 In woods and groves, which were this kingdom's 

 praise. 



Stowe, also, in his ' Annals,' says : 

 "At this present, through the great 

 consuming of wood as aforesaid, and 

 the neglect of planting of woods, there 

 is so great scarcity of wood throughout 

 the whole kingdom that not only the 

 city of London, all haven towns, and 

 in very many parts within the land, 



the inhabitants in general are con- 

 strained to make them fires of sea- 

 coal or pit-coal, even in the chambers 

 of honourable personages; and through 

 necessity, which is the mother of all 

 arts, they have of very late years de- 

 vised the making of iron, the making 

 of all sorts of glass, and burning of 

 brick, with sea-coal or pit-coal. \V i 1 1 1 i 1 1 

 thirty years last, the nice dames of 

 London would not come into any 

 house or room where sea-coals were 

 burned, nor willingly eat of the meat 

 that was either sod or roasted with 

 sea-coal lire." Stowe's ' Annals,' by 

 Home)-. London, 1G32, p. 1025. 



