In the same year (1681) in which the second part of 'England's Improvement' appeared, Yarranton proceeded to Dunkirk for the purpose of making a personal survey of that port, then belonging to England; and on his return he published a map of the town, harbour, and castle on the sea, with accompanying letterpress, in which he recommended, for the safety of British trade, the demolition of the fortifications of Dunkirk before they were completed, which he held would only be for the purpose of their being garrisoned by the French king. His 'Full Discovery of the First Presbyterian Sham Plot' was published in the same year; and from that time nothing further is known of Andrew Yarranton. His name and his writings have been alike nearly forgotten; and, though Bishop Watson declared of him that he deserved to have a statue erected to his memory as a great public benefactor, we do not know that he was so much as honoured with a tombstone; for we have been unable, after careful inquiry, to discover when and where he died. Yarranton was a man whose views were far in advance of his age. The generation for whom he laboured and wrote were not ripe for their reception and realization; and his voice sounded among the people like that of one crying in the wilderness. But though his exhortations to industry and his large plans of national improvement failed to work themselves into realities in his own time, he broke the ground, he sowed the seed, and it may be that even at this day we are in some degree reaping the results of his labours. At all events, his books still live to show how wise and sagacious Andrew Yarranton was beyond his contemporaries as to the true methods of establishing upon solid foundations the industrial prosperity of England. [1] PATRICK EDWARD DOVE, Elements of Political Science. Edinburgh, 1854. [2] A copy of the entries in the parish register relating to the various members of the Yarranton family, kindly forwarded to us by the Rev. H. W. Cookes, rector of Astley, shows them to have resided in that parish for many generations. There were the Yarrantons of Yarranton, of Redstone, of Larford, of Brockenton, and of Longmore. With that disregard for orthography in proper names which prevailed some three hundred years since, they are indifferently designated as Yarran, Yarranton, and Yarrington. The name was most probably derived from two farms named Great and Little Yarranton, or Yarran (originally Yarhampton), situated in the parish of Astley. The Yarrantons frequently filled local offices in that parish, and we find several of them officiating at different periods as bailiffs of Bewdley. [3] Journals of the House of Commons, 1st July, 1648. [4] YARRANTON'S England's Improvement by Sea and Land. Part I. London, 1677. [5] There seems a foundation of truth in the old English distich-- The North for Greatness, the East for Health, The South for Neatness, the West for Wealth.