so that, on the 15th of July, having procured a pass at the Custom-house, where I repeated my oath of allegiance, I went from London to Gravesend, accompanied with one Mr. Caryll, a Surrey gentleman, and our servants, where we arrived by six o’clock that evening, with a purpose to take the first opportunity of a passage for Holland (([In this he was acting upon the counsel he gives in his Preface to The State of France as to foreign travel:—“ The principall places of Europe, wherein a gentleman may, uno intuitu, behold as in a theater the chief and most signal actions wrhich (out of his owne countrey) concerne this later age and part of the world, are the Netherlands, comprehending Flanders and the divided provinces; which is a perfect encycle and synopsis of whatever one may elsewhere see in all the other countryes of Europe; and for this end I willingly recommend them to be first visited, no otherwise than do those who direct us in the study of history to the reading first of some authentick epitome, or universall chronology, before we adventure to launch forth into that vast and profound ocean of voluminous authours” (Miscellaneous Writings, 1825, p. 50). He goes on to regret that when he visited the Low Countries his judgment was yet immature.] – Footnote by Austin Dobson )).

But the wind as yet not favorable, we had time to view the Block-house of that town, which answered to another over against it at Tilbury, famous for the rendezvous of Queen Elizabeth, in the year 1588, which we found stored with twenty pieces of cannon, and other ammunition proportionable.