"Investigation," on which will be found the observations of his friends Beaufort, Hamilton, Broke, Sabine, Rodd, and Livingstone. We will therefore conclude this notice, too brief for the importance of its subject, with a remark of considerable interest, as exculpating a naval character, Lord Anson, from unmerited aspersion: observing by the way, that the taste of the "gentle public" has driven publishers in general to print light and merely amusing, rather than sound and scientific voyages and travels. Having mentioned Admiral Lord Anson, I ought not to omit a circumstance, exculpatory of that highly distinguished officer, in a case where he was wrongfully blamed. And this I do, because it is probable that the truth is known to very few persons. After the elegant and interesting narrative of the voyage had been considered, it was remarked by some professional men that it contained little or no nautical information that could be useful to future navigators. But in fact, a second volume, containing the nautical parts, was in preparation, but had not kept pace with the other (which the reader may perhaps easily account for, as well as for the exclusion of the supposed dull matter, from the narrative.) Meantime Colonel Robins, the author, was appointed Engineer-General to the East India Company, and sailed for India, taking the MS. with him, under the idea that it required correction or examination; but very contrary to Lord Anson's wishes. The Colonel lived but a short time in his new situation; and after his death not a vestige of the MS. could be found." ANCIENT AND MODERN ROMNEY, WITH OBSERVATIONS ON THE PORTUS LEMANUS OF THE ROMANS. PURSUING the subject of the Cinque Ports, we now approach a locality of peculiar interest, connected as it is with facts and dates of high antiquity, and where the early British and Roman periods of our history blend and amalgamate with each other. The ports of the Romans incorporated, and placed under the command of the Comes Littoris Saxonici, an officer of high rank in Britain, gave rise to the incorporation of the Cinque Ports; and as they still excite a lively interest, still engage the investigative faculties of the gentleman and the scholar, I did intend to have treated of these Roman antiquities together; but the close vicinity of Romney, nay its identity, in the opinion of some, with the once celebrated Portus Lemanus, and its rise out of the destruction of the latter, in the opinion of others, seemed to point out the present as the most eligible and natural opportunity for entering into the subject of the site, the decay, and the remains of that once celebrated and commodious haven. After a sketch of the ancient prosperity and present obscure condition of the town and port of Romney, I shall, therefore, proceed to the consideration of this subject. Twin sister to Hythe in misfortune, arising out of the same causes, stands Romney, one of the most ancient ports in England. The goodness of its haven was a theme of praise in early times, and the industry and enterprise of its inhabitants had made it large, populous, rich, and flourishing. In the time of King Edward the Confessor, it contained, according to the record of Doomsday, where it is called Romenel, 156 burgesses; and, shortly afterwards, its increase was so rapid that it was divided into twelve wards, and contained five parish churches. It is recorded that in the year 1052, "the harbour of Rumney, then a noted rendezvous for shipping," was entered by Earl Godwin, with a large naval force which he had collected in the ports of Flanders, and had manned with pirates and freebooters; and that after cutting out the ships at anchor in the haven, he sailed to Hythe and Folkestone, at which places he committed similar depredations. Offended pride caused the earl, then holding the office of Lord Warden or Limenarcha, to plunge into open rebellion against his sovereign, whose court was thronged with foreigners, and to whom he had unwisely shown great favour and preference. The district over which Godwin had long ruled was very extensive; his power made him almost independent, and his popularity was very great. He therefore, according to the Saxon chronicle, pushed his predatory warfare successfully along all the southern coast of the kingdom; and although he was not joined by the nobles so extensively as he expected, yet he was enabled to increase his numbers to such a formidable amount as enabled him to sail up the Thames to London, and almost, sword in hand, to make his peace with his sovereign. Romney was the first town which experienced the resentment of William the Norman, who, sensible that his success at the battle of Hastings would not insure the subjugation of the kingdom, and that many additional and vigorous efforts would be required to render his power complete and lasting, determined on the immediate reduction of the town of Dover, in order to secure to himself a port for the reception of supplies from Normandy, or to afford the means of a retreat should altered circumstances make such a measure advisable. In his way to Dover he passed through Romney, the inhabitants of which he subjected to very severe and brutal punishment, in consequence of their previous treatment of some of his seamen and soldiers, who entered the port "from stress of weather, or by mistake, as was asserted." The good people of Romney, however, not feeling any predilection for the Frenchmen, and considering them either as open or covert enemies, treated them accordingly; and the circumstance afforded William a plausible pretext for the commencement of that harsh and arbitrary policy which he thought it advisable to adopt, in order to impress the minds of the people with terror, and insure their subjugation through a dread of the consequences of resistance. river Rother, which, in its Like all ports so circumdeterioration, through the The haven of Romney was situated on the passage to the sea, flowed close to the town. stanced, it was subject to continual and rapid silt and sand brought up from the sea by the tides, and the detritus washed from the banks of the river on which it was located. The vicissitudes of this port have found no historian; and the facts relating to it, except that of its destruction, are few, and lie buried under the mould of ancient rolls and records. A stoppage in the river at Newenden threatened its destruction in the forty-third year of the reign of Henry III.; and being a port of great importance, we find that monarch, on a representation of the danger having been made to him, taking active measures to insure its preservation. "He sent Nicholas de Handloe into these parts to take some order in it: but finding no effectual care had been taken, he directed another precept to him from Oxford, commanding him again to repair thither in person, with the sheriff of Kent, twenty-four knights, and lawful men, to examine and settle the matter." Henry knew the value of a good port on this coast; his conduct showed his determination not to lose it, and his firmness and perseverance, no doubt, preserved it at that time: for among the patent rolls in the Tower is one bearing the date of that very year, for "the new making of the port of Romenhall." This appears to have been a stirring year with the town, for another patent roll mentions that "Lauretta le Porteur was trod under foot, and stifled to death, in a great crowd of people at Romenhall." Whatever may have been the efforts at preservation, the destruction of the port is recorded to have been the single act of the mighty tempest, which, in the reign of Edward I., ejected the river from its ancient channel, destroyed a great part of the town and several villages, and devastated the whole face of the country, through an extent of many miles. The sea, after casting up an enormous quantity of sand and shingle, which choked up the harbour, retired to a greater distance than before the convulsion had taken place; and the surface which it had quitted, together with the bed of the Rother and the haven of Romney, soon became converted into solid land, and finally into rich and fertile pastures for cattle. From the loss of its harbour the town began to decay in extent and prosperity; and in the reign of Henry VIII. it was, according to Leland's account, two miles distant from the sea. He says, "Rumeney ys one of the v ports, and hath bene a netely good haven, yn so much that withyn remembrance of men shyppes have cum hard up to the towne, and cast ancres yn one of the chyrch yardes. The Se is now a ii myles fro the towne, so sore thereby now decayed, that wher ther wher 3 great paroches and chyrches sumtyme, is now scant one wel maynteined." The changes wrought here by time are of the most striking description. Distant from the sea, and standing on a wide expanse of marsh-land, ten miles in length, all traces of maritime greatness have vanished; and from prosperity and notoriety, Romney is now only regarded as a dull and an obscure town standing in the wilderness. The preceding account relates to the town and port of New Romney. The old town, situated about a mile to the northward, and now reduced to a small hamlet, composed of a few houses only, was never one of the incorporated Cinque Ports. Of Old Romney there are no records at present known; tradition alone supplies its history at the present day. It is said to have been once large and flourishing, and to have owed its rise to the destruction of the Portus Lemanus; but from what cause or at what period it ceased to be a port, tradition has not even ventured to conjecture. No distinction was made between Old and New Romney till after the Norman invasion; and the first charter of incorporation, granted by Edward III., was to the barons of the town and port of New Romney. As the latter was the port of celebrity in the reign of Edward the Confessor, it may be justly concluded that Old Romney had fallen into decay long before that period, and had ceased to be a port. It has been doubted whether the Marsh, now so celebrated as a sheep pasture, was known to the Anglo-Saxons. That a considerable extent of marshland existed here in the times of the early Saxons, cannot be doubted; though it did not bear the name of Romney Marsh. It is noticed in some ancient records, under the appellation of Merscwarum, or the marshy district; and the persons who inhabited it are called merscware, or marsh-men: the Saxon word wara meaning inhabitants. In proof of this, the Saxon Chronicle may be cited, where it is stated that "Cenulf, King of Mercia, laid waste the kingdom of Kent, and the district called Merscwarum ;" which latter term is inapplicable to any other district than that now called Romney Marsh. The Marsh was at that time the property of the Church. An old grant of land, known as Wesingmerse, made in the year 895, by Archbishop Plegmund, describes it as lying near the river Rumenia; it also calls the district Romney Marsh, and is the oldest record extant in which it is so designated. From this time the term Merscwarum was discontinued for that of Romney Marsh, the name which it has continued to bear from that time to the present. The means by which this now extensive marsh has been gained from the sea, and the injurious effects resulting from it, have been described in a preceding paper*, to which the reader is referred. That the Romans had a port celebrated for its safety and convenience in this neighbourhood, is matter of history; but the great innovator, time, has produced such changes in the face of nature here, that its site has become the subject of controversy in our times. The sea has retired to a great distance from its ancient boundary; and the river 'Limne, known in later times as the Rother, has long since deserted its former channel. The site of this once famous port must, therefore, be sought for among the now inland towns and villages. Mr. Somner and Dr. Tabor agree in opinion that New Romney was the ancient Portus Lemanus; and Camden, Burton, and Horsley, are equally confident in favour of Limne. The oldest and purest manuscripts of Ptolemy † notice this Roman station by the name of Auny, or the port; but in some copies of a modern date, it is called kaiòç λμny, or the new port. Camden and Barton are of opinion that the addition of the word Kauroc was one of those interpolations so frequently practised by the scribes and copyists of the olden time, when they considered their manuscript to be faulty or deficient; because "Aur cum apud Græcos sigλιμὴν nificationum sit, libraii ut videretur defectum supplere kaivòg Xinǹy scripserunt, Latinique interpretes novum portum ineptè converterunt." The severity of this criticism is not due to the Latin translators, who found Kavoc in their MSS., and very properly translated it by the word new; the ineptè is applicable to the interpolators, who added a word without a reason for doing so, and thus introduced confusion into a text which was before clear and intelligible. It has, however, furnished Mr. Somner with a basis for his opinion: he found the word kairós, new, in the text, and without inquiring how it got there, his mind fastened upon New Romney as the spot most applicable to the meaning of Kairòs Xμnv. To adopt an hypothesis, and then endeavour to bend opinions to support it, may show great ingenuity, but it does very little for the discovery of truth: and as the basis of Mr. Somner's opinion was founded in error, so the ancient authorities lend no aid to its support. The Itinerary of Antoninus, the Notitia Imperii Occidentalis of Pancirollus, and Richard of Cirencester, are all opposed to it. By the two former, the distance from Canterbury to the Portus Lemanus is stated to be sixteen miles; but the distance from Canterbury to Romney *U. S. Journal, No. 47. ↑ Ptolemæi Geographia, lib. ii. cap. 3. is twenty-four miles. Again,-Richard of Cirencester, whose work * was unknown to Mr. Somner, gives the distance from the Portus Lemanus to Dover at ten miles; the distance, however, between the latter port and Romney exceeds twenty miles: ergo, the opinion and the distances are in open warfare with each other. To reconcile this discrepancy, he proposes to alter the figures in the MS., and for 16 to read 21, supposing the error to be introduced by the copyists; but as this alteration is not supported by any authority, and is merely an alteration of the text made to suit a preconceived hypothesis, it must be rejected as untenable. When the text and the comment are somewhat perplext, If new shoes are too little, say who would refuse From the present state of our knowledge on this subject, the situation of Lymne, as the site of the Roman Portus Lemanus, has a decided preference over that of any other, not only on account of its accordance with the distances of Antoninus, but also from the Roman remains still visible in its neighbourhood. The name of this place is written in ancient records, Limne, Limene, and Limpne, and is generally supposed to have been derived from that of the river which flowed past it. The course of the river from Apledore was at the foot of the hills by Kenardington, Warehorn, Rucking, Bilsington, Bonnington, Hurst, at the foot of Lymne Hill, and into the sea at West Hythe. Many parts of the channel of this river are still plainly visible, and the cliffs still show marks of the friction occasioned by the power of the running water. At the foot of Lymne Hill, then, was situated the Portus Lemanus, a port of great eminence in the days of Antoninus, and named as a military station by Pancirollus in the Notitia Imperii, who says that a detachment of the Turnacenes, under their own commander, but placed at the disposition of the Comes Littoris Saxonici, formed the garrison of the station. The castle, known at the present time as Statfall Castle, stands, according to the principles of Roman castramentation, about half-way down the hill, and commanded the port, which it was probably raised to defend. The walls are of a most prodigious thickness, and composed of rubble-stone, cemented together with a powerful mortar, mixed with pebbles. Large fragments remain on the east and west sides of the hill, and exhibit all the characteristics of Roman military architecture found at Richborough and other stations in this kingdom, particularly the double rows of tiles, each from fifteen to sixteen inches in length, and each row laid at about five feet distance from the other. At the upper corner, on the north-west, is a circular tower, faced with square stones, but the inside is filled up entirely solid. Leland says, the old walles of the castel, made of Britons briks, very large, and greate flynts, are set together, almost indissolubly, with morters of small pybble. The walles be very thickke, and in the west end of the castel appereth the case of an old towne (qu. tower?) The cumpas of the fortresse semeth to be a ten acres, and be lykelyhood yt had sum walle besyde, that strechid up to the Commentarioli Geograph. de Situ Brit. |