ships fitted out every year to the Newfoundland fishing, in which
the Poole men were said to have been particularly successful for
many years past.

The town sits in the bottom of a great bay or inlet of the sea,
which, entering at one narrow mouth, opens to a very great breadth
within the entrance, and comes up to the very shore of this town;
it runs also west up almost to the town of Wareham, a little below
which it receives the rivers Frome and Piddle, the two principal
rivers of the county.

This place is famous for the best and biggest oysters in all this
part of England, which the people of Poole pretend to be famous for
pickling; and they are barrelled up here, and sent not only to
London, but to the West Indies, and to Spain and Italy, and other
parts. It is observed more pearls are found in the Poole oysters,
and larger, than in any other oysters about England.

As the entrance into this large bay is narrow, so it is made
narrower by an island, called Branksey, which, lying the very month
of the passage, divides it into two, and where there is an old
castle, called Branksey Castle, built to defend the entrance, and
this strength was very great advantage to the trade of this port in
the time of the late war with France.

Wareham is a neat town and full of people, having a share of trade
with Poole itself; it shows the ruins of a large town, and, it is
apparent, has had eight churches, of which they have three
remaining.