[Sidenote: My father lived in this town until he was 98 years of age, and gave these Composition Ling seventy years unto four Princes, viz. King EDWARD, Queen MARY, Queen ELIZABETH, and until the sixth year [1609] of the reign of our most gracious Sovereign. Which cometh to much more than one thousand pounds, for one man of that town.] This town of So[uth]w[o]ld, of a sea town, is the most beneficial unto His Majesty, of all the towns in England; by reason all their trade is unto Iceland for Ling, and His Majesty's Serjeant Caterer hath yearly gratis out of every ship and bark, one hundred of the choicest and fairest Lings, which be worth more than ten pound the hundred; and they call them "Composition Fish." But these men of this place are greatly hindered, and in a manner undone, by reason their haven is so bad, and in a manner often stopped up with beach and shingle stone that the wind and tide and the sea do beat thither, so that many time, in the season, when they be ready to go to sea; they cannot get out when time is to go to sea; neither can they get in when they return from sea, but oftentimes do cast away their goods and themselves. This haven if that it had but a south pier built of timber, would be a far better haven than Yarmouth haven, with one quarter of the cost that hath been bestowed on Yarmouth haven. They be now suitors unto His Majesty: GOD grant that they may speed! For it is pitiful, the trouble and damage that all the men of these three towns do daily sustain by their naughty [_inadequate_] harbour. To the northward of So[uth]w[o]ld Haven three leagues, are Kirkley and Layestof [_Lowestoft_], decayed towns. They have six or seven North Sea boats: but they of Lowestoft make benefit yearly of buying of herrings of the Hollanders; for likewise these Hollanders be "hosted" with the Lowestoft men, as they be with the Yarmouthians. [Sidenote: In all His Majesty's kingdoms, not any town, comparable unto it for brave buildings.] To the northward, two leagues, is the town of Great Yarmouth, very beautifully built upon a very pleasant and sandy plain of three miles in length. This town is a place of great resort of all the herring fishermen of England. For thither do resort all the fishermen of the Cinque Ports and the rest of the West Country men of England, as far as Burport [_Bridport_], and Lyme [Regis] in Dorsetshire: and those herrings that they do take they do not barrel, because their boats be but small things, but they sell all unto the Yarmouth herring-buyers for ready money. And also the fishermen of the north countries, beyond Scarborough and Robin Hood's Bay, and some as far as the Bishopric of Durham do thither resort yearly, in poor little boats called "Five-Men Cobbles"; and all the herrings that they do take they do sell fresh unto the Yarmouth men, to make red herrings.