This is a town of good figure, and has in it several eminent
merchants who carry on a considerable trade to France, Spain,
Newfoundland, and the Straits; and though they have neither creek
or bay, road or river, they have a good harbour, but it is such a
one as is not in all Britain besides, if there is such a one in any
part of the world.

It is a massy pile of building, consisting of high and thick walls
of stone, raised at first with all the methods that skill and art
could devise, but maintained now with very little difficulty. The
walls are raised in the main sea at a good distance from the shore;
it consists of one main and solid wall of stone, large enough for
carts and carriages to pass on the top, and to admit houses and
warehouses to be built on it, so that it is broad as a street.
Opposite to this, but farther into the sea, is another wall of the
same workmanship, which crosses the end of the first wall and comes
about with a tail parallel to the first wall.

Between the point of the first or main wall is the entrance into
the port, and the second or opposite wall, breaking the violence of
the sea from the entrance, the ships go into the basin as into a
pier or harbour, and ride there as secure as in a millpond or as in
a wet dock.

The townspeople have the benefit of this wonderful harbour, and it
is carefully kept in repair, as indeed it behoves them to do; but
they could give me nothing of the history of it, nor do they, as I
could perceive, know anything of the original of it, or who built
it. It was lately almost beaten down by a storm, but is repaired
again.