There is an ancient and historic joke at the historian Leland’s expense, in connexion with the industry of the town. In olden times not only was hemp largely manufactured into rope and canvas in the town, but the raw material itself was grown in some considerable quantity in the immediate neighbourhood, which gave rise to the quaint saying of Fuller that when a man was unfortunate enough as to be hanged, “he was stabbed with a Bridport dagger.” This having reached Leland’s ears during his tour of the southern counties, and being understood by him in the literal sense of the word, he solemnly afterwards stated that “At Bridport be made good daggers,” which error has probably caused as much amusement and discussion as any mistake of the kind ever made by an historian of standing. Although Bridport in ancient times was a place of some note, it has never played any very important part in the history of the west country; but it suffered, as did most other towns in Dorset, from at least two visitations of the Plague, the most serious of which, in 1670, we are told “did not spare any man, but caused many deathes in the town and the villiages near by, so that of the dead many remain unburried.” During the Civil War Bridport formed one of the pawns in the mighty game which was being played by the contending Royalist and Parliamentarian forces for the possession of the west of England. Forty years later, too, the town was again to see an armed force approach it, when on the fine Sunday morning of June 14, 1685, after a night march from Lyme, the Duke of Monmouth arrived before the place to attack the Dorset militia which “lay in the town to the number of about 1200, with a hundred or more horse.” The Duke’s forces were about 500 all told, and advancing with some amount of discretion and stealth, under cover of the morning mist, and meeting no outposts nor resistance they succeeded in entering the town by way of the Allington Bridge, where they surprised a considerable number of the King’s troops, who, after standing to face one volley, turned tail and fled to join their comrades who were encamped in a field on the opposite side of the town. Then the streets became the scene of sharp skirmishing between the rival forces. The townsfolk taking little or no part in the conflict, but according to one account, “though much alarmed (they), kept well within their doors, scarcely daring, indeed, to thrust their heads out of the windows lest they might fall victims alike to their curiosity and the bullets of the King’s or Monmouth’s men.”