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himself, but his heirs continued to inn and embank more lands from the said haven till at last, to complete the ruin of it, in 1719, Sir Robert Guide-ford, Bart., caused a wall or dam to be erected over the mouth of it, at the Camber point."—Burrell MSS.
Nor was the filling up of her harbour the only trouble of the kind from which Rye suffered, though there was some compensation in the temporary improvement of the port effected by the great storm of 1577 that Holinshed records.* " In the Wish at Rie (a place so called) the water came in so suddenlie, and flowed so high about midnight, that it was eight or nine foot high in mens houses; insomuch that if one William White had not called them vp, some of them had like to have been drowned. And the same William White having a bote fetcht a great companie of, them out of their windowes, and carried them to drie land as fast as he could fetch them which were in great danger and f eare, and glad to escape with their lives. Moreouer the water came in so vehementlie there, that it brake into the marishes, and made such waie that were of late yeares, and now before this great floud came, a cockeboat could not pass in at a low water; now a fisherman, drawing six foot water and more, may come in, and have good harborough there."
In 1618 a petition was sent to the Lord Warden (Zouch) " as unto our only stay and refuge, next under God and his Majesty," complaining that "now is our harbour so decayed that all trade
* Camden says: "The sea, to make amends for the mischief it had done it, broke in so violently in a great storm as to make the harbour very commodious, to which another storm in my time has not a little contributed."
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