From hence we came to Exeter, a city famous for two things which we
seldom find unite in the same town--viz., that it is full of gentry
and good company, and yet full of trade and manufactures also. The
serge market held here every week is very well worth a stranger's
seeing, and next to the Brigg Market at Leeds, in Yorkshire, is the
greatest in England. The people assured me that at this market is
generally sold from sixty to seventy to eighty, and sometimes a
hundred, thousand pounds value in serges in a week. I think it is
kept on Mondays.

They have the River Esk here, a very considerable river, and
principal in the whole county; and within three miles, or
thereabouts, it receives ships of any ordinary burthen, the port
there being called Topsham. But now by the application, and at the
expense, of the citizens the channel of the river is so widened,
deepened, and cleansed from the shoal, which would otherwise
interrupt the navigation, that the ships come now quite up to the
city, and there with ease both deliver and take in their lading.

This city drives a very great correspondence with Holland, as also
directly to Portugal, Spain, and Italy--shipping off vast
quantities of their woollen manufactures especially to Holland, the
Dutch giving very large commissions here for the buying of serges
perpetuans, and such goods; which are made not only in and about
Exeter, but at Crediton, Honiton, Culliton, St.-Mary-Ottery, Newton
Bushel, Ashburton, and especially at Tiverton, Cullompton, Bampton,
and all the north-east part of the county--which part of the county
is, as it may be said, fully employed, the people made rich, and
the poor that are properly so called well subsisted and employed by