THE GERMAN OCEAN ALONG THE NORFOLK COAST***


Transcribed from the 1844 Matchett, Stevenson, and Matchett edition by
David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

                   [Picture: Public domain book cover]

 [Picture: Eccles Church, the present state of the Beach at Happisburgh,
       Norfolk.  C. Graf. Lith. to Her Majesty.  D. Hodgson, delt.]





                                 AN ESSAY
                                  ON THE
                    ENCROACHMENTS OF THE GERMAN OCEAN
                         ALONG THE NORFOLK COAST,
                                   WITH
               A DESIGN TO ARREST ITS FURTHER DEPREDATIONS;
                                DEDICATED


                       TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE
                  LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF THE ADMIRALTY.

                                * * * * *

                                * * * * *

                          By W. HEWITT, SURGEON.

                                * * * * *

                                * * * * *

                                 NORWICH:
                         PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR,
           BY MATCHETT, STEVENSON, AND MATCHETT, MARKET-PLACE.
       SOLD ALSO BY EDWARDS AND HUGHES, 12, AVE-MARIA-LANE, LONDON.

                                  1844.




DEDICATION.


   _To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty_.

MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,

A communication with your Lordships in 1843, led me to infer that an
Essay upon the interesting subject connected with the present inquiry,
would be received with a degree of attention according to its merits, and
the importance of the object connected with it.  But should you, in your
superior wisdom, perceive sufficient evidence has not been advanced to
render it deserving the consideration requisite at your hands, future
proofs may arise upon the foundation contained in the following pages.—On
the contrary, should it meet with your approbation, the high and
honourable position you maintain for the benefit of maritime affairs
will, I trust, induce you to exercise your influence towards effecting a
trial of the plan submitted, for the benefit of the community at large, I
and for the honour and credit of your noble establishment.

                                  I am,
                         MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,
                  Your very humble and obliged Servant,

                                                               THE AUTHOR.




PREFACE.


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