war
against the order of nature, the effects of its impetuous resentment
were speedily felt. Whoever supposes he can control old Ocean, or make
war upon his ancient border with impunity, will find himself mistaken,
and soon discover that he knew little of the perseverance, the genius,
or the power of his opponent. It retired from some towns and places
where they intended it should remain, and overflowed or washed away
others grown rich by its bounty; here it fretted and undermined the
shore till it fell, and there it cast up beach and sand, covering a
good soil with that which is both disagreeable and useless; and instead
of being the source of industry and wealth, it became the engine of
destruction and terror. Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Rye, and Winchelsea,
with their dependencies, are now totally gone as ports, and greatly
diminished in wealth and consequence. Winchelsea was once so large and
handsome, that Elizabeth, during one of her progresses, bestowed upon it
the appellation of Little London. Hythe formerly contained seven parish
churches, now reduced to one. Rye and Romney look as if the plague had
been raging through their dull and gloomy streets, and had carried
off nearly all the population. Hastings, though still flourishing
as a town, owes its prosperity to its having become a fashionable
sea-bathing-place; for as to a port or haven, there is not a vestige of
one remaining. Thus it will be seen that private individuals, for their
own benefit, have been suffered to gain from the sea fifty thousand
acres of pasture land, at a cost to the nation of five safe and
commodious harbours, and the ruin of their several towns; thus reversing
the political maxim, that private interest ought to give way to public
benefit.

Similar in state to the five towns just named, is the once-celebrated
and commodious port and town of Sandwich, now distant a mile and a half
from the sea. This circumstance, also, is not attributable to any
natural decline or desertion of the water, but to the long-continued
exertions of individuals, for the purpose of gaining land from that
estuary which formerly divided Kent from the Isle of Thanet. The estuary
is no more, and deplorable are the consequences which have followed its
loss; for towns have dwindled into villages, and villages into solitary
farm-houses, throughout the entire district through which it flowed;
trade and commerce have declined, and population has suffered a most
extensive