anley would fain have been
on shore, and made signals for help; but no boats durst go off to him;
and, to finish the tragedy, on the Friday, November 26, when the tempest
was so redoubled that it became a terror to the whole nation, the first
sight there seaward that the people of Plymouth were presented with in
the morning after the storm was the bare Eddystone, the lighthouse being
gone; in which Mr. Winstanley and all that were with him perished, and
were never seen or heard of since. But that which was a worse loss still
was that, a few days after, a merchant's ship called the _Winchelsea_,
homeward bound from Virginia, not knowing the Eddystone lighthouse was
down, for want of the light that should have been seen, run foul of the
rock itself, and was lost with all her lading and most of her men. But
there is now another light-house built on the same rock.

What other disasters happened at the same time in the Sound and in the
roads about Plymouth is not my business; they are also published in other
books, to which I refer.

One thing which I was a witness to on a former journey to this place, I
cannot omit. It was the next year after that great storm, and but a
little sooner in the year, being in August; I was at Plymouth, and
walking on the Hoo (which is a plain on the edge of the sea, looking to
the road), I observed the evening so serene, so calm, so bright, and the
sea so smooth, that a finer sight, I think, I never saw. There was very
little wind, but what was, seemed to be westerly; and about an hour
after, it blew a little breeze at south-west, with which wind there came
into the Sound that night and the next morning a fleet of fourteen sail
of ships from Barbadoes, richly laden for London. Having been long at
sea, most of the captains and passengers came on shore to refresh
themselves, as is usual after such tedious voyages; and the ships rode
all in the Sound on that side next to Catwater. As is customary upon
safe arriving to their native country, there was a general joy and
rejoicing both on board and on shore.

The next day the wind began to freshen, especially in the afternoon, and
the sea to be disturbed, and very hard it blew at night; but all was well
for that time. But the night after, it blew a dreadful storm (not much
inferior, for the time it lasted, to the storm mentioned above which blew
down the lighthouse on the Eddystone). About mid-night the noise,
indeed, was very dreadful, what