the servants he could find; and, utterly defacing the building, carried away all the costly materials, which, with great charges and expence, had been brought thither to beautify and adorn the structure.” Proceeding through an agreeable undulating tract towards the sea-shore, we soon arrived at the NEW PASSAGE, the principal entrance into Monmouthshire from the south-western counties. {238} The breadth of water from this place to the Bristol coast is three miles and a half, while the ferry of Aust, or the Old passage, four or five miles higher up the Severn, is only two miles across; but this advantage is considered to be overbalanced by the more commodious landing at the former. Both these concerns, being monopolies, are, like all other monopolies, hostile to the interest of the publick; for there being no competition for preference between the boatmen, they are extremely rude in their manners, indifferent to the accommodation of the publick, and by no means unpractised in various arts of extortion. But these exclusive privileges have existed from time immemorial. The title of the New Passage arose from its renewal in the year 1718, after an abolition in consequence of the following remarkable incident. Charles the First, being pursued by a strong party of his enemies through Share Newton, got into a boat at the Black rock (the New passage), and was ferried to the opposite shore. His pursuers, to the number of sixty, with drawn swards compelled other boatmen belonging to the passage to ferry them after him; but these, being in the king’s interest, landed them on a reef of rocks in the Severn called the English stones, near the Gloucestershire coast, to which they were instructed to ford: indeed, the strait was fordable at low water; but, the tide flowing in very rapidly, they were all drowned in the attempt, and the king for that time escaped. Cromwell, informed of the transaction, abolished the ferry; nor was it renewed, until after a long chancery-suit between an ancestor of the present proprietor, Mr. Lewis, of St. Pierre, and the guardians of his Grace the Duke of Beaufort, proprietor of Aust ferry.