ous and wealthy, having, as above, several considerable
merchants and abundance of wealthy shopkeepers, whose trade depends upon
supplying the sea-faring people that upon so many occasions put into that
port. As for gentlemen--I mean, those that are such by family and birth
and way of living--it cannot be expected to find many such in a town
merely depending on trade, shipping, and sea-faring business; yet I found
here some men of value (persons of liberal education, general knowledge,
and excellent behaviour), whose society obliges me to say that a
gentleman might find very agreeable company in Plymouth.

From Plymouth we pass the Tamar over a ferry to Saltash--a little, poor,
shattered town, the first we set foot on in the county of Cornwall. The
Tamar here is very wide, and the ferry-boats bad; so that I thought
myself well escaped when I got safe on shore in Cornwall.

Saltash seems to be the ruins of a larger place; and we saw many houses,
as it were, falling down, and I doubt not but the mice and rats have
abandoned many more, as they say they will when they are likely to fall.
Yet this town is governed by a mayor and aldermen, has many privileges,
sends members to Parliament, takes toll of all vessels that pass the
river, and have the sole oyster-fishing in the whole river, which is
considerable. Mr. Carew, author of the "Survey of Cornwall," tells us a
strange story of a dog in this town, of whom it was observed that if they
gave him any large bone or piece of meat, he immediately went out of
doors with it, and after having disappeared for some time would return
again; upon which, after some time, they watched him, when, to their
great surprise, they found that the poor charitable creature carried what
he so got to an old decrepit mastiff, which lay in a nest that he had
made among the brakes a little way out of the town, and was blind, so
that he could not help himself; and there this creature fed him. He adds
also that on Sundays or holidays, when he found they made good cheer in
the house where he lived, he would go out and bring this old blind dog to
the door, and feed him there till he had enough, and then go with him
back to his habitation in the country again, and see him safe in. If
this story is true, it is very remarkable indeed; and I thought it worth
telling, because the author was a person who, they say, might be
credited.

This town has a kind of jurisdiction upon the River Tamar down to the