Many persons may consider it a remarkable circumstance, that an individual, whose profession requires his leisure time to be devoted to the acquirement of knowledge for the comfort of man in his corporeal ailments, should find an opportunity to direct considerable attention to a subject, so very different in character, as the one now submitted to the reader. [5] The suggestions, however, of a near, respected, and venerable relative, aroused and stimulated me to make the strictest investigation, and subsequently led to the submitting a plan or design for future benefit, not only to the mariner, the merchant, the ship-owner, to those whose landed property lies contiguous to the ocean, but what is of still greater consequence, the preservation of human life; and although an abler and a more experienced individual might have given a better statement, or submitted a better design, yet it is hoped sufficient will be found in this first and hasty attempt, to excite the attention of the learned and the wealthy.

An acknowledgment of the truth, a grateful feeling for the assistance derived for the most important particulars on this interesting subject, induces me to introduce the name, with the exertions of my venerable relative to the notice of my readers.

The Rev. John Hewitt, B.A., Perpetual Curate of Walcot, in this county, Vicar of Grantchester, and formerly a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, after several years of often repeated attention to the subject embraced in this Essay, expended in the year A.D. 1802 upwards of one hundred pounds in an attempt to fill up, at his own expence, the worst breach existing between Waxham and Horsey, and the design to carry it into effect appeared so feasible, that to lessen the expence, the Hon. Harbord Harbord, the first Lord Suffield, lent implements to aid the undertaking. But unfortunately, prior to the task being completed, a strong north-west wind, upon a spring tide, ensued, and a quantity of water passed through the breach partially repaired.

A cottager residing near the place, witnessed the circumstance only just previous to the irruption of the water, and informed my relative had he possessed a shovel, he could have prevented it.

The circumstance attending this catastrophe caused in little minds derision and contempt, from the failure of the experiment. But a humble individual, whose ideas were more enlarged, contended upwards of three hundred pounds worth of good had been effected; and the spot on that part of the coast is recognized to this day as Hewitt’s Bank.

While some persons, therefore, considered it a direct failure, my relative deemed it a partial one, and watched with undiminished ardour the effect produced by the stranding of the Hunter cutter, A.D. 1807; the particulars of which are fully entered into in the following pages.

A knowledge of the tides and currents has been principally acquired from the perusal of several works of the most renowned philosophers, whose erudition have stamped them with truth stable and incontrovertible. I have, therefore, adopted their language rather than my own, fearful I should mar their intent, and my regard for such comprehensive writings induces me to add the truism transmitted to us by an ancient Latin author—

Unius Ætatis sunt quÆ fortiter fiunt, quÆ
Vero pro utilitate scribuntur Æterna.

Vegetius.

Should the design be put in execution, and found efficacious, it will be applicable to other coasts, by taking every particular respecting them into consideration, and great will be the reward on the ambition attained of having endeavoured to benefit the community at large.

THE AUTHOR.