"There was a fine show of yachts at Harwich at this time, and there was a great assemblage of yachtsmen in the prime of life, many, like myself, young fellows of about twenty-three. As there was time before the next port we were to visit, Yarmouth, we had an idle day at Harwich, and, as Dr. Watts says, 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.' As the yachts' cabins had the sails, etc., in them ready for changing jibs, top-sails, etc., we were almost all living ashore at the Three Cups Hotel, and there this memorable battle was fought under these circumstances. My pleasant companion, Michael Parker Smith, and I went for a long walk up country, and on our return were met in front of the hotel by some of our brother yachtsmen, who said they had been in search of us to see if we would join and make a party of eleven, and they had ordered dinner for that number, calculating that we would join, which we gladly did. Another lot of nine had just sat down to dinner in an adjoining room, and the windows of both rooms, which were upstairs, looked over a lower part of the hotel, so that any one going out of the window of one room could go along the roof of the lower building to the window of the other room. It was somewhat curious that not only were we numerically superior, but we were all the biggest men. While we were at dinner, one of the nine going out of their window crept under ours, and threw a squib right along our table. He was a man with a curious head of hair, and was known amongst us as 'Old Frizzlewig,' alias 'Door-mat.' Frizzlewig beat a retreat after delivering his shot, two of us lay in wait for him on each side of our window, and while he was launching another squib we got hold of him; a detachment of the other army got out on the lower roof, and it was soon a case of 'pull devil, pull baker.' We had his upper half inside the room, and his party the lower end outside. As the other side were being reinforced, the cry on our side was, 'Shut the window,' the result being that to avoid the guillotining of poor Frizzlewig in the centre, the other side had to let go his legs. We took him prisoner, and fastened the window, and the other army going back through their room came to the rescue through our door. Then arose the din of this memorable engagement, recorded in humorous lines soon after, but now lost by me. My chum Smith was very neatly dressed, so much so that I had a light suit made afterwards like it for myself. When the battle commenced the puddings and pies were on the table. The blood was apparently pouring down the neat shirt front, pretty waistcoat and white trousers with the blue stripes of Smith, the ball with which he was struck in the chest and which called the scarlet overflow being nothing less in size than a thirty-two pounder. This ball had a minute before graced the head of our table in the form of a fine red-currant pudding, which one of the attacking force had seized with both hands, and hurled it into Smith's bosom, and the red-currant juice gave Smith the bloody look that crimsoned his attire. In a few minutes the crockeryware and glass had all left the table for the floor, or been smashed, excepting one big jug. Not to harrow the minds of the readers by a further account of so sanguinary an engagement, I conclude by saying that the mortality was nil, and the whole of the enemy had to surrender, the eleven being too much for the nine. Our principal prisoner was Rear-Commodore Knight, who was not very big, one of the smallest of his army. We treated our captives with all consideration and humanity, and did not hang any of them. We then rang the bell for the landlord, and told him to estimate the damage, and as luckily the crockery, etc., was not of a costly kind, the whole cost of this great battle only came to 3s. 8d. or 3s. 10d. per head. As far as I saw, the whole thing was conducted with the greatest good humour, and I heard not a cross word; but my friend Smith told me afterwards, when I spoke of everybody's good humour, that he and a namesake of his very nearly got to blows. Those were days when rough jokes were practised more, I fancy, than now. Every one of us had squibs and crackers ad lib.; but a better-humoured lot I never met, the great battle notwithstanding. After the racing the yachtsmen all dined pleasantly together at the Three Cups, after a hard day's racing, and some one said there was a ball to which we could go, and off we went, finding to our amazement that we had got into a low-class place, where there were a lot of most disreputable men and women, and on our attempting to beat a retreat we found the door we had entered by was barricaded. We then burst open another, and going down stairs found the bottom of that barricaded. Sir Richard Marion Wilson, who was with his yacht at Harwich, but not racing, vaulted over the banisters into the middle of a lot of fellows who vowed we should not go out without paying our footing as they called it. I immediately vaulted over, and stood by Sir Richard Wilson, and was followed by the adjutant of the Flintshire Militia. Sir R. Wilson ordered the ruffians to open the door, saying, 'Any man who touches me will have reason to repent it.' There was little room for reinforcements from our side as the place we had jumped into was small, but as there were a lot more yachtsmen on the stairs, the bargees showed some desire for a compromise, and said if we would order some liquor the door should be opened. Sir R. Wilson said, 'Not one drop of anything will we give you, or do anything else, excepting on our own terms. Bring a flat wash tub, if there is one at hand,' and they at once found a large shallow wooden one, the place being, it seems, used for washing. He then told them to bring him a gallon of beer, which they quickly did. 'Now,' he said, 'pour it into the tub.' He paid for the ale, and the door was opened, and he said, 'Now let the pigs drink'; and while they were all struggling for the liquor we all walked into the street, having been completely sold by whoever gave out that there was a ball. I never was in such another blackguard assembly in my life."
I am tempted to proceed because Sir Llewelyn gives us a new view of the Suffolk coast.
"We sailed from Harwich to Yarmouth in company with two of the fastest 25-tonners afloat, viz., the Ino, and the Prima Donna; the third, the Seiont, though she went to Yarmouth, did not sail in our company. I have seen every one of the three beat the others at East Coast regattas, and I fancy yachting men will appreciate the following curious statement.
"The Seiont and Ino were singularly well matched in beating to windward, and up to the turning-point of a race they were always close together, but the Seiont had an ugly trick in running before a strong breeze of cocking up her stern, and the Ino would pass and leave her far behind in a long run.
"The Prima Donna was not nearly equal on the wind to either of the two others, but if (which is not often the case) she had a long run without being close-hauled she beat both, and thus I saw each of the three successful over the others.
"Our trip from Harwich to Yarmouth was delightful; the land is so low that farm-carts in the fields looked as if we were higher than they, the gentle wind was on the land, and the sea was as smooth as a pond with only the gentlest ripple. We laid a plot to seize the Ino and navigate her into Yarmouth, we being the largest party; and we thought if we could get aboard when they were at lunch, and the bulk of the crew at dinner, we could do it. The wind fell to a dead calm two or three times; but luckily for us—as will be seen—before we could get our boat ready to board a gentle breeze arose, and we were all soon doing seven or eight knots. I often think our beating up the narrow entrance of the river at Yarmouth at low water against a dead head wind was a masterpiece in sailing, the space being exceedingly confined to tack in. All the yachtsmen had agreed at Harwich to dine together at the Star Hotel at Yarmouth, where dinner had been ordered by letter beforehand, and a most pleasant evening we had. Now my readers will learn why it was lucky for us that we could not board the Ino. I told them at dinner of our piratical design at sea that day, and they soon had the laugh against us: they had a powerful machine for wetting the sails at regattas, that would send water up to the topsail; and the owner said, 'Do you think after the experience we had of you fellows at Harwich that we would have let a lot of you aboard of us? We had a careful watch kept upon you, and whenever you were seen to be getting a boat ready the machine was ready for you, and we would have filled your boat with water in a short time.' What a pickle we should have been in! We were again successful at Yarmouth, coming in first and winning a cup.
"It was painful to witness the large number of people in deep mourning at this curious old town, with its quaint narrow lanes the names of which I forget ('wynds,' I think). The cause of all this mourning was a most extraordinary one. A short time previous to our advent some large travelling show had visited the town, and the clown gave out that at a particular hour on a day named he would go down the River Yare (a fresh-water river running from Norwich) in a tub drawn by two geese. A very large concourse of people assembled on both banks of the river, which is very narrow, and was spanned by a light iron suspension bridge. The bridge collapsed, and more than seventy lives were lost. I looked at the place in absolute amazement, and wondered had anything like a tithe of the loss have taken place; one lot must have suffocated the others."
No apology is offered for having conveyed some information concerning Harwich and its yachting memories of the past in the words of a pleasant gossip who has passed away. But my old friend was not terse, and he had a rooted objection while he lived, which shall be respected still, to curtailment by another hand, and so, if we want to proceed with our little cruise upon wheels of a single day and to finish it, let us take luncheon at Harwich, without throwing raspberry tarts at one another, and go on our way. Luncheon over, not being of the type of motorists who cannot endure to stand on their own feet or to be at rest for a moment, let us look across the estuary to Landguard Point and, with the aid of the books, think a little over the astonishing metamorphosis brought about, partly by the sweep of the tides, partly perhaps by the hand of man, not thoughtless so much as too confident of knowledge, in the outlines of this part of the coast during historical times.
"Murray" sets one thinking and no more. "Landguard Fort (mounting 36 guns), on a spit of land now joined to the Suffolk coast (it is said that the Stour once passed on the north side of it), was built in the reign of James I." To say thus much and no more is merely to excite curiosity without sating it. To consult Lord Avebury (The Scenery of England) is to obtain satisfaction on the general problem and to learn that details are of quite minor significance. He who has once realized the character, the untiring and irresistible, but in some respects irregular force, of the influences at work, will soon see how the outline of the coast may vary from year to year, even from day to day, in the future as in the past. "One of the finest spreads of shingle in the United Kingdom is on the left side of the Ore or Alde in Suffolk, reaching north-eastward to Aldeburgh, and which is still increasing by the deposit of shingle at its south-western end. A chart of the time of Henry VIII shows distinctly that the mouth of Orford Haven was then opposite Orford Castle, whilst a chart of the time of Elizabeth shows a considerable south-westerly progression. When the Ordnance map was made (published 1838), North Weir Point, as the end of the spit is called, was about east of Hollesley. It" (the spread of shingle, of course) "consists of a series of curved concentric ridges, or 'fulls,' sweeping round and forming a projecting cape or 'Ness' in advance of the general coastline." Seen in diagram, from a bird's-eye point of view, these "fulls" closely resemble a vastly long and narrow field ridged up for the reception of Cyclopean potatoes. (In passing, the bird's-eye view, involving an effort of the imagination, is out of date, and there is every prospect that very soon not one man or woman in a thousand, but a large percentage, will be in a position to speak without affectation of tracts of country as seen from a balloon.) This particular bird's-eye prospect, however, is that of a bird perched on the high lighthouse and looking south-west over Hollesley Bay and the adjacent land to the Naze, and it gives a very vivid idea of the struggles of the sluggish Suffolk streams before they reach the sea.
"The triangular projection encloses salt marshes, and extends from Aldeburgh to Landguard Point. Successive ridges or waves of shingle are, indeed, a marked characteristic of such headlands. Under ordinary circumstances, and when the shore line is stationary, each succeeding tide obliterates the ridge made by the last; but when the shore is encroaching on the sea, some great storm will throw up the shingle in the form of a ridge, after which another accumulation commences, and eventually forms another ridge. The development of this beach, however, has not been invariably progressive, breaches made by storms having sometimes given a temporary exit for the waters of the Ore and of the Butley River at the Upper Narrows, where the part of the channel to the south would be partially closed. The Ordnance map of 1831 shows separate knolls of shingle for a mile southwards from North Weir Point. The point no longer exists as there shown, the knolls having been united into a continuous bank, as marked on the Geological Survey map, which has been corrected from a later survey."