Off Deal one truly sails over the graves of men. Many and many a gallant ship (some of historic note) has brought up in the Downs, and alas! failed to find substantial holding ground when the critical moment arrived. This was the case on November 26, 1703, when the English fleet took shelter there, and during one night of a great gale lasting fourteen days a large number of ships, mostly with all hands, were lost by driving on the Goodwins, including the _Stirling Castle_, _Mary_, and _Northumberland_, each of 70 guns. Of these fatal and historic sands, nowadays happily well-provided with lights, a poetess has written: What wealth untold Far down, shining through their stillness lies! Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold, Won from ten thousand royal argosies. Yet more, the billows and the depths have more! High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast! They hear not now the booming waters roar, The battle thunders will not break their rest. Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave-- Give back the true and brave. Deal, indeed, has continued to exist as a place of some importance almost entirely because of its propinquity to the Downs, and the consequent presence of numbers of ships. In the old days, too, the town was the scene of many smuggling exploits and affrays between the pressgang which used to periodically raid the place, and carry off “most of the sturdy seamen manning vessels weather bound in the Downs, much to their own and their captain’s chagrin.” It was, indeed, one of the most profitable of all Kentish towns for such operations. Walmer with its historic and ivy-clad Castle, the official residence of the Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle, stands above the low-lying shore line, one of the three castles which anciently kept the Downs. Both Deal and Walmer, the former with its long pier, have latterly become holiday resorts of the usual type. A shingly beach in both cases stretches in front of rows of modern lodging and apartment houses which face the sea. It is generally supposed that it was on the beach between Deal and Walmer that in July, 1495, the impostor Perkin Warbeck, with a handful of followers numbering about 600 in all, attempted to land. Nearly a third of the “invaders” were taken prisoners by the trained bands of Sandwich, and were afterwards executed chained together two and two, and their bodies disposed of for hanging in chains all along the coasts of Kent and Sussex. “Where they rotted to the terrifying of all for many yeares.” It is an incident not entirely without humour that Perkin Warbeck should have chosen to disembark some of his “force” within a mile or two of the spot traditionally identified as the landing place of Cæsar, where also the great Napoleon intended to land.