For us he is the inspired revealer of the tranquil beauties of a district beloved and studied by him dearly and closely as the most ardent of Scots ever loved and studied Caledonia stern and wild, or the "banks and braes o' bonny Doon," and he has expressed his affection for his birthplace in words, not perhaps of fire, but of placid truth, which exactly express the character of the scenery. Of East Bergholt he writes: "The beauty of the surrounding scenery, its gentle declivities, its luxuriant meadow flats sprinkled with flocks and herds, its well-cultivated uplands, its woods and rivers, with numerous scattered villages and churches, farms and picturesque cottages, all impart to this particular spot an amenity and elegance hardly anywhere else to be found." Reflecting thus we return to Manningtree and our peninsula.
Manningtree lies at the very easternmost part of the estuary of the Stour—all these estuaries would be fjord-like if they had but higher banks—and is really quite close to our pretty Stratford St. Mary, on the Roman road between Ipswich and Colchester, as well as to Dedham and East Bergholt. From it we turn due east, and, the road following the estuary, proceed through Lawford, Mistley, and Bradfield, seven miles to Dovercourt and Harwich. There is a fairly sharp hill of 1 in 13 between Mistley and Bradfield, and another of 1 in 15 between Bradfield and Dovercourt. Mistley is part of the port of Manningtree, and its park, praised by Walpole, still survives sufficiently for the district to be most pleasantly clothed with trees. Dovercourt bulks large in the history of superstition, its church having possessed a peculiarly holy rood, to which pilgrimages used to be made. Now it is a suburb of Harwich, and Harwich, after many ups and downs, and in spite of the inroads of the sea, is doing fairly well. It was certainly a Roman station, it is, like Sole Bay, one of the few places on land from which naval battles of importance have been seen—one between Alfred and the Danes, and another against De Ruyter; it was the starting point of Frobisher on his voyage to find the North West Passage, and of Dr. Johnson for Leyden. All this, to render unto Cæsar the things which are his, I learn from "Murray." From the same source, too, it is gathered that the introduction of steamboats lost the port much of its trade, and that railways revived it. But this particular "Murray" is old (1875). Its views of commerce need bringing up to date; its views of the aspect of a seaport are not mine. One does not expect "sweetness and light," concerning the absence of which complaint is made, in a seaport devoted to fishing-boats and passenger traffic. I can see more of the picturesque in the narrow and struggling streets, in spite of some dirt, than the writer of 1875; but on me a port or a dock exercises a special and peculiar fascination, and that all the more when, as in the case of Harwich, its waters are the head-quarters of a Yacht Club.
To the annals of this Yacht Club (the Royal Harwich) I am able to contribute some little crumbs, probably not generally known, from the Memories of Sir Llewelyn Turner, a book already mentioned in another connection. Would that he were alive to give permission, as he would have given it with eager kindness, to reproduce a passage out of his genial work which gives a vivid impression of a Harwich Regatta of 1846, throws in one or two useful observations, and recalls some valuable associations, and leaves a very vivid impression of the manner in which the yachtsmen of those days enjoyed themselves when the day's sport was over. For preliminary, it need only be said that the owner of the Ranger, a fast racing yacht, had asked Mr. Turner (as he was then), a resident in North Wales, and Mr. Parker Smith, an Irish barrister, to race the Ranger for him at Harwich during his illness. The rest may be told in Sir Llewelyn's own words, only, beforehand, it must be noted that the yachtsman from Wales, new to the water as he was, taught the east coast men a useful lesson. Sir Llewelyn Turner's remarks concerning ignorant interference with tidal action, too, deserve serious attention.
"We joined the yacht at Gravesend late in the evening, and at once set sail for Harwich, where we arrived next morning after a rapid run. A more agreeable and satisfactory companion than Smith I could not have desired, and we both agreed that we felt as if we had known each other for years. Soon after our arrival we took up our quarters at the Three Cups Hotel, as the cabin would be required for the spare top-sails and jibs to be ready for shifting canvas in the race.
"There was a fine display of racing yachts and others whose owners came to enjoy the sport. Several of them had come over from the Ostend Regatta, one of them bringing an enormous silver cup, by far the largest I ever saw in the numerous regattas in which I was a participator. Most of the yachts' cabins were given up for the sails to be ready for shifting, and the Three Cups Hotel was crammed with yachtsmen. Taking it all together, it was one of the pleasantest yachting proceedings I ever enjoyed. Like too many harbours on our coast, Harwich had been a terrible sufferer by the lamentable interference with tidal laws by men entirely ignorant of the science, and interested workers. The harbour is, or rather was, entered in a straight line, and then diverges inside up the bed of the River Stour to the left, and to the right of that river the tide ascends the River Orwell to Ipswich. Above the right bank of the Orwell is the residence of the man whose memory every lover of his country should adore—Philip Bowes Vere Broke—the gallant captain of the Shannon, who, in less than fifteen minutes captured by boarding a frigate of superior force. There were on the Orwell two schooner yachts belonging to Sir Hyde Parker, whose ancestor commanded the Tenedos frigate which was sent away by Broke that he might fight the Chesapeake on equal terms.
"Dredging for personal gain was permitted to the westward outside the harbour, with the result that the deep-water channel was diverted no less than two thousand feet from the east to the west side, a large sand-bank forming on the east side below Landguard Fort, and a corresponding destruction of Beacon's Cliff ensued on the opposite side.
"Four yachts in our class started from a point on the harbour between the town and Walton Marsh. We had a soldier's wind (side). A brand new yacht, the name of which I forget, was on our weather-side, and the two others to leeward; and we three leeward-most vessels headed rather towards the projecting bank before Landguard Point, the weathermost yacht pressing us to leeward as much as possible; I kept my eye most of the time on the weather yacht, the master of which kept his eye on us, taking advantage of every opportunity of pressing us to leeward. So near was he that I could see his eyes most distinctly, but he outwitted himself, as he got the whole four yachts so far to leeward that unless we could cross the bank a tack would be inevitable.
"I asked the pilot if we could venture to cross the bank, the limits of which were plainly seen by the broken water. He replied, 'If you don't mind two or three bumps I will guarantee her crossing,' and Smith agreeing to my proposal, I said, 'We are an iron vessel, let her go.' We passed safely over with about three bumps, and our weather companion having gone too far to leeward in pressing us down, and drawing more water, had to tack. The two others to leeward funked the bank, and tacked also; we were then safe out of the harbour into the 'rolling ground' outside, and spanking before a very strong wind towards the Cork lightships some miles dead to leeward. My plan of crossing the bank, which we were not prohibited from doing, gave us an enormous advantage, as in tacking with a side wind the three yachts had a smooth dead beat to get to windward of the bank. When we rounded the Cork lightships the other three were, I fancy, about a mile or more astern of us. We had then to beat up to windward, passed the mouth of Harwich Harbour, and up to a flag-vessel under the lee of Walton-on-the-Naze, a long low promontory which gave us the full force of the wind, but lessened what would have been, I fancy, too heavy a sea for us. When we had got about half a mile to windward of the Cork lightships, some one called out 'Look at the——' (name forgotten). And there, far astern of us, was our weathermost competitor (at starting) dismasted, with the water rolling in and out of her scuppers. The lower mast had broken about ten or twelve feet above the decks, as far as we could judge, and we had the satisfaction of seeing her taken in tow of a large sailing-yacht that was not racing. In a few minutes we saw another of our competitors in the same state, her lower mast having gone apparently about the same distance from the deck. This left us with only one to compete with in the dead beat up against a very strong breeze, but, as stated, the sea was mitigated by the Walton projection, and the more so as we approached it. We rounded that mark, and after a long run before the wind round the flagship in the harbour whence we had started, and as our single competitor was good four miles astern, the Rear-Commodore hailed that he would not trouble us any further, and he stopped the race; the course was twice round, with power to shorten, which we were glad was done. I was less surprised to see the first yacht dismantled, as, being a new vessel, her rigging probably stretched, and left the strain of the sails upon the mast, but in the other case it was rather odd. I have been at vast numbers of regattas and have seen many topmasts carried away in races, and in one case a lower mast head with the topmast, but two lower masts out of four in a class was a unique experience."
As to the next extract some doubts are felt, on the ground of relevancy only, but still the "Battle of Harwich," as my old friend liked to call it, was fought there, and the manner of fighting was eminently characteristic of the age, after all only sixty years ago; and, if relevance be granted, the little yarn is, at any rate, entertaining.