250 THE DOVER ROAD 



to the painful, not to say humiliating, process of 

 snapping a jDair of handcuffs on his wrists, much to 

 the surprise of the passengers. But whether gentlemen 

 elect to go quietly or to take it fighting is not much 

 matter : the result is the same. Sometimes these quiet 

 ones came back to Dover after a while, and were 

 accommodated in free quarters on the Castle Hill ; 

 presently revisiting the harbour as masons under 

 Government employ. They come here no longer, for 

 the convict prison on the hill is deserted, and the 

 harbour-works are now carried on with paid labour. 



And Britain is proceeding with some energy to rule 

 the waves at Dover, for the Harbour of Refuge is 

 completed ; to the end that the battle-ships, the 

 merchantmen beating up and down Channel, and the 

 fisher-boats may ride in some degree of safety, protected 

 from the north-easterly gales that nowadays strew the 

 Downs and the Goodwin Sands with wrecks. For 

 centuries this project had been discussed — and shelved 

 in the dusty pigeon-holes of the Admiralty offices. 

 Raleigh reported in the reign of Elizabeth that " no 

 promontory, town, or haven in Europe was so well 

 situated for annoying the enemy, protecting commerce, 

 or sending and receiving despatches from the Con- 

 tinent ; " and works were commenced to replace the 

 pier begun by Henry the Eighth that had been 

 abandoned and allowed to fall into ruin. But when 

 Defoe was here the Harbour had fallen back into its 

 old state, half-choked Avith shingle cast up b}^ the set 

 of the tides from the westward, and the piers decayed. 

 " Ill-repaired, dangerous, good for nothing, very 

 chargeable and little worth," those were the epithets 

 the author of Robinson Crusoe applied to it, and thus it 

 remained until 1847, despite local and half-hearted 

 attempts to prevent the accumulation of shingle. 

 In that year the Admiralty Pier was commenced. 

 Meanwhile, the sea, and the tides, thrust out from 

 Dover Harbour by this mighty arm, are setting in 

 strongly upon the Castle Cliffs, and that Castle, the 



