CHAPTER IV. AFTER THE CONQUEST, TO 1513. It is highly probable, from the surnames of some of the most ancient families in the town of Brighthelmston, the phrases, and the pronunciation of the old natives, and some peculiar customs of the people, that the town had, at some distant period, received a colony of Flemings. This might have happened soon after the conquest, as a great inundation of the sea took place in Flanders about that period; and such of the unfortunate inhabitants of the deluged country as wanted new habitations, could not have anywhere applied with a greater likelihood of success than in England, as Matilda, queen of William the Conqueror, was their countrywoman, being daughter of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders. Being thus settled in Brighthelmston, the Flemings were led by habits and situation, to direct their chief attention to the fishery of the Channel. Besides obtaining a plentiful supply of fresh fish of the best kind and quality for themselves and their inland neighbours, they, every season, cured a great number of herrings, and exported them to various parts of the continent, where the abstinence of Lent, the vigils, and other meagre days, insured them a constant market. There is no doubt, but, from time to time, additions were made to this foreign colony, from Spain, France, and Holland, as the names of some of the oldest families of the town verify; namely, Mighell (Miguel), Gunn (Juan), Jasper (Gaspard), Jeffery (Geoffrey), Gillam (Guillaume), &c. The inhabitants were now classed into landsmen and seamen, or mariners, and they profited respectively by the advantages of their situation. The former, whose dwellings were on the cliff and part of the gentle acclivity behind it, drew health and competence from the fertile soil; while the latter, who resided in two streets beneath the cliff, found a bountiful source of subsistence and profit at the bottom of the sea. In process of time, the mariners and their families, principally descendants from the new comers, the Flemings, had increased in numbers so far as to compose more than two-thirds of the population of the town, and they had a proportionate share of the offices and internal regulation of the parish.