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NOTES

GRAVESEND BOATS.

While so much has been said of coaches, in the early numbers of "Notes
and Queries" and elsewhere, very little notice has been taken of another
mode of conveyance which has now become very important. I think it may
amuse some of your readers to compare a modern Gravesend boat and
passage with the account given by Daniel Defoe, in the year 1724: and as
it is contained in what I believe to be one of his least known works, it
may probably be new to most of them. In his _Great Law of
Subordination_, after describing the malpractices of hackney coachmen,
he proceeds:

"The next are the watermen; and, indeed, the insolence of these,
though they are under some limitations too, is yet such at this
time, that it stands in greater need than any other, of severe
laws, and those laws being put in speedy execution.

"Some years ago, one of these very people being steersman of a
passage-boat between London and Gravesend, drown'd
three-and-fifty people at one time. The boat was bound from
Gravesend to London, was very full of passengers and goods, and
deep loaden. The wind blew very hard at south-west, which being
against them, obliged them to turn to windward, so the seamen
call it, when they tack from side to side, to make their voyage