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Updated: July 8, 2025
Getting on to the wrong road out of Mantes, I find myself at the river's edge down among the Seine watermen. I am shown the right way, but from Mantes to Paris they are not Normandy roads; from Mantes southward they gradually deteriorate until they are little or no better than the "sand-papered roads of Boston."
Robert Stapylton, who lived at Chelsea, in conjunction with John Malony and Edward Armstrong, two watermen, seized the person of Thomas Lewis, an African slave, in a dark night, and dragged him to a boat lying in the Thames; they then gagged him and tied him with a cord, and rowed him down to a ship, and put him on board to be sold as a slave in Jamaica.
I've an idea that I can do a good bit of work in patching up boats; for you see I always was a bit of a carpenter, and I know how the builders extortionate the poor watermen when there's a trifle amiss. Now, if they knew I could do it, they'd all come to me fast enough; but then there's a puzzle. I've been thinking this week how I can make them know it.
In Elizabeth's reign it was ordered that watermen should pay a halfpenny for every stranger, and a farthing for every inhabitant of Putney, to the ferry-owner, or be fined 2s. 6d. In 1629 the Lord of the Manor received 15s. per year for the ferry.
And now I have mentioned watermen, give me leave to complain of the insolences and exactions they daily commit on the river Thames, and in particular this one instance, which cries aloud for justice. A young lady of distinction, in company with her brother, a little youth, took a pair of oars at or near the Temple, on April day last, and ordered the men to carry them to Pepper Alley Stairs.
Soldiers. English soldiers were at one period distinguished by badges, like those worn by watermen. The general colour of their dresses appears to have been white; though, in 1544, a part of the forces of Henry VIII. were ordered to be dressed in blue coats, guarded with red, without badges, the right hose red, and the left blue.
In the course of some ten minutes, the watermen drove the boat sharply inshore, bringing her up alongside another floating stage, in the shadow of another tenement. both so like those from which they had embarked that Kirkwood would have been unable to distinguish one from another. In the bows old Bob lifted up a stentorian voice, summoning one William.
When I came to Wapping Old Stairs it appeared that the watermen there knew well enough what was forward; for while one ran down to help me from the wherry, a number of others stood watching as if they knew what I had come for; and all saluted me as I went up. At the head of the stairs, I looked back, and two more wherries with a gentleman in each were just coming in. Mr.
Captain Forsyth, of the Valorous, came on board. Returned his visit. Friday, Aug. 7th. I should have been under way for Simons Bay this morning but for the gale. The bold watermen in all the gale are cruising about the bay under reefed sails, some of them with anchors and cables, ready to assist any ships that may require it.
Thus passed the night, but before daylight on the following morning he was up and dressed; and, accompanied by the Messenger, he went down the river with two watermen; both of whom declared that they had seen the covered barge pass down at the very hour of Lady Laura's disappearance, and had heard sounds as if from the voice of a person in distress.
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