Before these encroachments were effected upon the sea, no contention existed between that turbulent element and the shore; but as soon as cupidity made inroads upon its ancient boundary, and declared war against the order of nature, the effects of its impetuous resentment were speedily felt.  Whoever supposes he can control old Ocean, or make war upon his ancient border with impunity, will find himself mistaken, and soon discover that he knew little of the perseverance, the genius, or the power of his opponent.  It retired from some towns and places where they intended it should remain, and overflowed or washed away others grown rich by its bounty; here it fretted and undermined the shore till it fell, and there it cast up beach and sand, covering a good soil with that which is both disagreeable and useless; and instead of being the source of industry and wealth, it became the engine of destruction and terror.  Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Rye, and Winchelsea, with their dependencies, are now totally gone as ports, and greatly diminished in wealth and consequence.  Winchelsea was once so large and handsome, that Elizabeth, during one of her progresses, bestowed upon it the appellation of Little London.  Hythe formerly contained seven parish churches, now reduced to one.  Rye and Romney look as if the plague had been raging through their dull and gloomy streets, and had carried off nearly all the population.  Hastings, though still flourishing as a town, owes its prosperity to its having become a fashionable sea-bathing-place; for as to a port or haven, there is not a vestige of one remaining.  Thus it will be seen that private individuals, for their own benefit, have been suffered to gain from the sea fifty thousand acres of pasture land, at a cost to the nation of five safe and commodious harbours, and the ruin of their several towns; thus reversing the political maxim, that private interest ought to give way to public benefit.

Similar in state to the five towns just named, is the once-celebrated and commodious port and town of Sandwich, now distant a mile and a half from the sea.  This circumstance, also, is not attributable to any natural decline or desertion of the water, but to the long-continued exertions of individuals, for the purpose of gaining land from that estuary which formerly divided Kent from the Isle of Thanet.  The estuary is no more, and deplorable are the consequences which have followed its 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.