called because the rib-bone of a great whale, which was taken in
the River Thames the same year that Oliver Cromwell died, 1658, was
fixed there for a monument of that monstrous creature, it being at
first about eight-and-twenty feet long.

According to my first intention of effectually viewing the sea-
coast of these three counties, I went from Stratford to Barking, a
large market-town, but chiefly inhabited by fishermen, whose smacks
ride in the Thames, at the mouth of their river, from whence their
fish is sent up to London to the market at Billingsgate by small
boats, of which I shall speak by itself in my description of
London.

One thing I cannot omit in the mention of these Barking fisher-
smacks, viz., that one of those fishermen, a very substantial and
experienced man, convinced me that all the pretences to bringing
fish alive to London market from the North Seas, and other remote
places on the coast of Great Britain, by the new-built sloops
called fish-pools, have not been able to do anything but what their
fishing-smacks are able on the same occasion to perform. These
fishing-smacks are very useful vessels to the public upon many
occasions; as particularly, in time of war they are used as press-
smacks, running to all the northern and western coasts to pick up
seamen to man the navy, when any expedition is at hand that
requires a sudden equipment; at other times, being excellent
sailors, they are tenders to particular men of war; and on an
expedition they have been made use of as machines for the blowing
up of fortified ports and havens; as at Calais, St. Malo, and other
places.