loss; for towns have dwindled into villages, and villages into solitary
farm-houses, throughout the entire district through which it flowed;
trade and commerce have declined, and population has suffered a most
extensive and frightful reduction.

In exchange for the ancient prosperity of this neighbourhood, we have
large fens or salt marshes, rich in fertility and malaria; but in this,
as in the former contest, the sea has had the best of it; for Bede has
clearly expressed in his writings that "the Isle of Thanet was of
considerable bigness, containing, according to the English way of
reckoning, 600 families." Supposing, therefore, a family or a hide of
land to contain only 64 acres, the smallest quantity taken by any author
of credit, the quantity of land, at the time he wrote, will amount to
38,400 acres; which, exclusive of the salt marshes, is double the
quantity contained in the island at the present time; we have,
therefore, lost more land than we have gained, and, most unfortunately,
the safe and eligible port of Sandwich into the bargain.

The port of the town of Sandwich, was for centuries one of the best and
most frequented in the realm, producing to the revenue of the customs
between sixteen and seventeen thousand pounds. But with the decay of
her haven, commerce declined, and the revenue became so small, "that it
was scarcely sufficent to satisfy the customer of his fee:" a dull and
melancholy gloom is now spread through all her streets, and around her
walls, where, during the times that her haven was good and her woollen
manufactures were prosperous, naught was visible but activity, industry,
and opulence. Her sun has been long and darkly eclipsed; but with a
little well-directed exertion on the part of her inhabitants, and a
moderate expenditure, it might be made to shine again, though not,
perhaps, in all the brilliancy of its former splendour.[6]